Willie Garson, the actor best known for his role as Carrie Bradshaw’s best male friend on the hit HBO series “Sex and the City,” died Sept. 21 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 57.

Mr. Garson also drew attention for his role on the USA Network crime series “White Collar” (2009-2014) and also appeared in the films “Kingpin” (1996), “There’s Something About Mary” (1998), and “Fever Pitch” (2005). He played Lee Harvey Oswald three times, in the film “Ruby” (1992) and on the TV shows “Quantum Leap” and “MADtv.” Mr. Garson was slated to reprise the role of Sanford Blatch in the coming “Sex and the City” reboot.

George Wein, the impresario who almost single-handedly turned the jazz festival into a worldwide phenomenon, died Sept. 13 at his apartment in Manhattan. He was 95.

Jazz Festivals were not a new idea when Mr. Wein was approached about presenting a weekend of jazz in the open air in Newport, RI. But there had been nothing as ambitious as the festival Mr. Wein staged in 1954. The lineup included Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald and other stars. The inaugural Newport Jazz Festival drew thousands over two days. It made a profit of only $142.50, but merited a return engagement, establishing itself as a jazz institution.

Over the years, Mr. Wein received numerous honors and accolades, including a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, induction into the French Legion of Honor, honors by two U.S. presidents, and a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy.

The Shofar joins those members who knew former congregants Ron and Anne Smith in mourning the death of Caleb Smith, youngest of their three children. May the family be comforted by the outpouring of love during this saddest of times.

The Shofar sadly acknowledges the death of Elena Postolache, grandmother of our shul’s office assistant, Andrea Blaga, on August 7, in Orăștie, Romania. Andrea’s grandmother raised her during her formative years, and this loss is deeply felt, Andrea said. “She will live in my memory forever; her love breaks the barriers of time.”

Steven Weinberg, a theoretical physicist who discovered that two of the universe’s forces are really the same, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize, and who helped lay the foundation for the development of the Standard Model, a theory that classifies all known elementary particles in the universe, making it one of the most important breakthroughs in physics in the 20th century, died August 30 in a hospital in Austin, TX. He was 88.

Although he had the respect, almost awe, of his colleagues for his scientific abilities and insights, he also possessed a rare ability among scientists to communicate and explain abstruse scientific ideas to the public. He was a sought-after speaker, and he wrote several popular books about science, notably The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1977).

He wrote many other books, including on the history of science, To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science (2015), and three volumes totaling 1,500 pages on quantum field theory, which merges classical physics, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. The series is widely regarded as the definitive text on the subject.

Elliot Lawrence, who after leading a big band in the 1940s and ‘50s, won a Tony Award for his conducting on Broadway and spent nearly a half-century in charge of the orchestra that plays on the Tony’s annual broadcast, died July 2 in Manhattan. He was 96.

A pianist by training, Mr. Lawrence was a leader from a young age, forming one youth ensemble, the Band Busters, at age 12. In his 20s, he started Elliot Lawrence and His Orchestra, which was voted the most promising new big band in Billboard’s college polls in 1947 and 1948. His later work as conductor of the Tony Awards orchestra — a job he got because of his success on Broadway and in television — earned him two Emmy Awards.

Elliot Lawrence Broza was born Feb. 14, 1925, in Philadelphia. His father, Stan Lee Broza, was a founder and executive of the local radio station WCAU. He and Elliot’s mother, Esther Malis Broza, produced the long-running variety show “The Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour” on radio and later on television. [Those of us, like this editor, who grew up near Philadelphia, wouldn’t dare miss an episode of the radio program. Thank you Stan Lee; thank you Elliot.]

Rabbi Yoel Kahn, who as leading disciple of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the revered leader of the Lubavitch Hasidim, had the uncanny ability to memorize virtually verbatim the grand rabbi’s hourslong speeches and discourses, which he then compiled into roughly 150 published volumes, died July 15 in Manhattan. He was 91.

From Rabbi Schneerson’s ascension to the leadership of the movement in 1951 until his death in 1994, Rabbi Kahn dedicated himself to preserving a record of the leader’s speeches, off-the-cuff talks, and other teachings, regarding them as the collective wisdom of a modern-day Talmudic sage or prophet. Rabbi Schneerson would expound in Yiddish on passages of Torah, Talmud and kabbalah, or on Hasidic philosophy, ethical behavior and world events, always without notes or written text. Rabbi Kahn, with a memory described as photographic, was able to recall the grand rabbi’s words in their entirety.