Eli Evans, a prolific writer about southern Jews and an influential grant-maker, died July 26 in New York City, two days shy of his 86th birthday.

In The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South, the first of several books Evans wrote on the subject, he detailed growing up a Jew in Durham and the antisemitism directed at his family.

After working briefly in politics, as a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson and an aide to North Carolina Gov. Terry Sanford, Evans joined the Carnegie Corporation. There and later at the Charles H. Revson Foundation, he advanced a philosophy of activist grant-making focused on allowing talented people to carry out their own visions. His projects helped Marian Wright Edelman launch the Children’s Defense Fund, seeded the South with Black lawyers who became local civil rights leaders, and built ties between Israeli and Egyptian scientists after their countries made peace in 1979.

“Private philanthropy has the freedom, privilege and responsibility to do what government cannot,” Evans wrote in 1998. “It can use its independence to take the long view, to forewarn, to support the unpopular, the visionary, the dreamers and their dreams. It can test new ideas, try new approaches, and bring together people of widely differing perspectives, disciplines, and talents to discover new avenues of mutual understanding.”

[Eli was a close relative by marriage of Marshall’s family,” Ann Hurwitz told The Shofar. “Eli was a lovely man with a wonderful sense of humor. Once many years ago, Marshall, our son James, Eli and I went to Williamsburg together to celebrate Simchat Torah with Rabbi Schneerson. It was a memorable occasion.”]

Burt Metcalfe, executive producer of the hit comedy-drama series “M*A*S*H*” for the last six of its 11 seasons, and who helped write the two-and-a-half-hour final episode, died on July 27 in Los Angeles. He was 87.

Mr. Metcalf had been an actor and casting director before becoming a producer of “M*A*S*H*” about the staff of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, a show widely

regarded as one of the best series in television history. He joined for its first season in 1972 at the request of Gene Reynolds, a friend and an architect of the show along with the writer Larry Gelbart. When Mr. Reynolds left after the fifth season, Mr. Metcalfe succeeded him as the executive producer.

Mr. Metcalfe was nominated for 13 Emmy Awards, including four for directing. He later became an executive at Warner Bros. and MTM Enterprises. He retired in the 1990s.

Bert Fields, the dean of Hollywood lawyers whose services were called on by superstars and studios alike, died on August 7 at his home in Malibu. He was 93.

Over the decades, stars and studio heads who turned to Mr. Fields included Madonna, Tom Cruise, Warren Beatty, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Dustin Hoffman, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Michael Ovitz, and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Early in his career, Mr. Fields did some acting, appearing as a prosecutor in an episode of the TV police drama “Dragnet”; Jack Webb, the show’s creator and star, was a client. Soon he acquired other clients — Edward G. Robinson, Peter Falk, and Elaine May. In 1982, Mr. Fields merged his firm with another to become the entertainment powerhouse Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger. He also wrote three books about Shakespeare and two mystery novels under the pseudonym D. Kincaid.

Mary Ellin Barrett, one of songwriter Irving Berlin’s three daughters and the author of a biography of her famous father, Irving Berlin: A Daughter’s Memoir, died July 16 in Manhattan. She was 95.

He often seemed a “shaky, uncertain man,” Ms. Barrett wrote of her father, yet out came hit after hit. In his lifetime, he wrote about 1,500 songs. A Russian immigrant, he wrote “God Bless America,” which has been thought of as an unofficial second national anthem; a Jewish man, he wrote “White Christmas,” one of the most beloved holiday songs.

In her lifetime, Ms. Barrett worked for Time magazine, also Glamour, Vogue and Cosmopolitan. In addition to the book about her father, she wrote three novels.

Melissa Bank, whose first book, The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, became a global publishing phenomenon in 1999, died on August 9 at her home in East Hampton. She was 61.

The book is a collection of seven stories about a girl named Jane Rosenal, from age 14 until her mid-30s, during which time she navigates sex, death, money and friends. Jane is sharp, independent and bitingly funny — not unlike Ms. Bank herself, it has been said. The Guide made the New York Times’s best-seller list, was translated into dozens of languages, and sold more than 1.5 million copies. Two of the stories from the book were adapted into the 2007 film, “Suburban Girl,” starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alec Baldwin.

Ms. Bank taught at the Southampton Writers Conference, and later in the MFA program at the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University.

Dr. Leon E. Rosenberg, a pioneer in the field of medical genetics, died on July 22 at his home in Lawrenceville, NJ. He was 89.

Dr. Rosenberg joined the faculty of the Yale School of Medicine in 1965. While at Yale, he led

research into inherited metabolic disorders, filling his lectures with stories of children who had presented inexplicable disorders. He repeatedly showed their causes to be their bodies’ inability to metabolize various acids, conditions that often could be easily treated. His research brought him public prominence, both as a researcher and as an advocate for equity in medicine,

As the dean of the Yale School of Medicine from 1984 to 1991, he paved the way for people of color and women to rise to senior faculty positions.

Elana Dykewomon, a writer and activist  who spent decades exploring her identity as a gay woman and a Jew, died August 7 at her home in Oakland, CA. She was 72.

Ms. Dykewomon chose her pen name (jettisoning the “man” in her new name) and wrote three novels and five collections of poetry and short stories, gaining ardent attention from the gay community. She was in hospice at her home, with friends, preparing to watch a live-streamed performance of her first play, “How to Let Your Lover Die,” when she died, 20 minutes before the performance began. The play is a rumination on love and loss that she wrote following the death in 2016 of her wife and partner of many decades. “Mourning is the most difficult form of celebration,” Ms. Dykewomon wrote. “But I am filled with the beauty of what I need to mourn.”