18 notable Jews who died in 2025
These Jewish icons left their mark on film, architecture, theology and everything in between
In 2018, we lost Photo by Presley Ann/Getty Images for MOCA, Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images, Estee Lauder Companies, Tommaso Boddi/WireImage, Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival, Spencer Platt/Getty Images
(JTA) — Jews around the world were already reeling after nearly two years of war and death in Gaza and the grim confirmation that many hostages hadn’t survived the Oct. 7 attacks or two years of captivity. Then came news of the shootings in Sydney, Australia, where 15 people were gunned down at a celebration of Hanukkah.
Despite its grief, the Jewish world also took time to celebrate the lives lived by a constellation of figures who made lasting contributions to film, architecture, politics and Jewish scholarship and letters.
In chronological order, here are obituaries of 18 notable Jews who died in 2025.
Marion Wiesel
Marion Wiesel (born Mary Renate Erster), a Holocaust survivor and humanitarian, married the writer and human rights activist Elie Wiesel in 1969, and was the translator of many of his award winning and influential books on the Holocaust, including the final edition of “Night.” Following Wiesel’s 1986 Nobel Prize win, the couple founded the Beit Tzipora Centers in Israel, an educational program for Ethiopian-Israeli youth, which Marion Wiesel went on to lead for a number of years. “In the alignment of stars that helped make Wiesel the international icon he became, his marriage to Marion was among the most significant,” wrote Joseph Berger in his 2023 biography “Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence.” She died on Feb. 2 at 94.
Jacqueline van Maarsen
In 1942, Anne Frank immortalized her friendship with Jacqueline van Maarsen, writing that she “is now my best friend.” While the pair were forced apart during the war, never to be reunited, van Maarsen went on to write multiple books about Frank, including 2008’s “My Name is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank.” In 1986, van Maarsen also began lecturing on the Holocaust and antisemitism at schools. “In her books and during school visits, Jacqueline spoke not only about her friendship with Anne but also about the dangers of anti-Semitism and racism, and where they can lead,” the Anne Frank House said of van Maarsen. She died on Feb. 13 at age 96.
Leonard Lauder
Leonard Lauder built his Jewish family’s business, The Estée Lauder Companies, into a cosmetics empire, serving as its president from 1972 to 1995 and as CEO from 1982 through 1999. But beyond his entrepreneurial prowess, Lauder also was a major patron of the arts, at one point donating a collection of paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York valued at more than $1 billion. “The number of lives he touched and positively impacted across all his endeavors is immeasurable,” his younger brother, Ronald, said. “His passion and generosity have inspired us all, and there are no words to express how much he will be missed.” He died on June 14 at 92.
David Schaecter
After losing 105 relatives during the Holocaust, David Schaecter went on to spend his life pushing for restitution, Holocaust education and vigilance against antisemitism. In 1989, Schaecter founded the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach and in 2000 created the Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation USA, which often took a more aggressive stance than other Jewish organizations in pursuing restitution of goods looted during the Holocaust. “I am here to remind everyone that there are still thousands of survivors alive today who are in desperate need, and who cannot be forgotten,” Schaecter told the Senate Special Committee on Aging on April 30. He died on Sept. 4 at 96.
Ruth Posner
After Ruth Posner escaped the Warsaw Ghetto along with her aunt as a child, she went on to flee to the United Kingdom at 16 where she began an illustrious career as an actress and dancer. She was a founding member of the London Contemporary Dance Company and worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and also starred in films including “Leon the Pig Farmer” and “Love Hurts.” In 2022, she was awarded a British Empire Medal for her commitment to Holocaust education. She died on Sept. 21 at 96.
Aron Bell
Aron Bell was only 11 or 12 when he and his older brothers formed the famed Bielski partisans, a group that saved more than 1,200 Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust. The brothers’ tale of defiance also inspired several adaptations of their story, including the books “The Bielski Brothers” by Peter Duffy and “Defiance: The Bielski Partisans” by Nechama Tec, which was later made into the 2008 film “Defiance” with actor George MacKay portraying Bell. “If you were in the company of those three brothers, you felt like you had a whole army behind you, you were fearless,” said Bell in his 1996 testimony to the USC Shoah Foundation. He died on Sept. 22 at 98 at his home in Palm Beach, Florida.
Katherine Janus Kahn
Katherine Janus Kahn’s vibrant watercolor illustrations in Jewish children’s books helped shape the imaginations of generations of Jewish children. Beginning with her paper-cut illustrations for “The Family Haggadah,” which became a bestseller when it was published in 1987, Janus Kahn later went on to illustrate more than 50 books for Kar-Ben, a publishing house for Jewish children’s books. Among her work for Kar-Ben was the “Sammy Spider” franchise, which includes more than two dozen books about Jewish holidays, prayers and practices. ““We are profoundly grateful for her legacy, and for the countless stories and memories she leaves behind,” said Kar-Ben. She died on Oct. 6 at age 83.
Rabbi Moshe Hauer
Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union since 2020, was widely respected across denominations and was considered an exemplar of Modern Orthodoxy’s historical blend of religious and secular expertise. In 2023, he testified about antisemitism on college campuses at a hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which prompted several investigations. “Rabbi Hauer was a true talmid chacham, a master teacher and communicator, the voice of Torah to the Orthodox community and the voice of Orthodoxy to the world,” the Orthodox Union said after his death. He died on Oct. 14 at 60.
Susan Stamberg
When Susan Stamberg first got behind the microphone at the newly minted National Public Radio in 1972, some board members feared she was “too New York” for Midwest audiences. But Stamberg nevertheless became one of the station’s “founding mothers,” helping to craft its intimate, often humorous and consistently eclectic voice. Stamberg was the co-anchor of “All Things Considered” for 14 years, before pivoting to cultural stories. “I think all of that is very Jewish, the telling of stories, but also the seeking of opinions and also being open to the range of opinions that are out there,” Stamberg told the Jewish Women’s Archive in 2011. She died on Oct. 16 at 87.
Tova Ben-Dov
Tova Ben-Dov devoted six decades of her life to the Women’s International Zionist Organization, serving as the president of World WIZO from 2012 to 2016. She also served as the vice president of the World Jewish Congress, a member of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency for Israel and a member of the International Council of Women according to JNS.“For 60 years, Tova devoted her heart and soul to WIZO—a lifetime of love, leadership and giving to women, children and families in Israel,” said World WIZO chairperson Anita Friedman. She died on Oct. 17 at 88 in Tel Aviv.
Arthur Waskow
Rabbi Arthur Waskow first became one of the most notable progressive rabbinic voices in 1969 when he created the “Freedom Seder,” a version of the Passover Haggadah that blended contemporary liberation struggles with the ancient passover story. Throughout his career, Waskow authored more than two dozen books that offered a Jewish perspective on civil rights, economic injustice, nuclear arms control and climate change. He was arrested more than two dozen times at protests. He died on Oct. 20 at 92.
Mark Mellman
At the height of his illustrious career as a pollster and political consultant, Mark Mellman was the go-to pollster for Democrats as well as a wide variety of firms and interests, including the NBA’s Washington Wizards, United Airlines and both Pepsi and Coca-Cola. In 2019, he founded the Democratic Majority for Israel, a group he said was formed to “strengthen the pro-Israel tradition of the Democratic Party, fight for Democratic values and work within the progressive movement to advance policies that ensure a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.” He died on Nov. 21 at 70.
Carrie Soloway
Carrie Soloway, a Jewish psychiatrist in Chicago, came out as a transgender woman at 70-years-old, a milestone that formed the basis for her children’s hit Amazon TV series “Transparent.” After the show’s 2014 premiere, Soloway visited the White House under then-President Barack Obama and became friends with trans elected officials, while “Transparent” blazed a path for modern LGBTQ Jews exploring their identity. “She loved the show and us and the character, but sometimes she wasn’t in the mood to be everyone’s favorite trailblazer,” her son, Joey, said after her death. She died on Nov. 21 at the age of 88.
Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard was in his 80s and had already won four Tony Awards during his prolific career as a playwright and screenwriter when he finished “Leopoldstadt,” which portrayed a Jewish family dealing with rising antisemitism in Vienna, and a young writer, much like him, who only earned of his Jewish forebears as an adult. His final work won the Tony for best play after it opened on Broadway in 2022. Stoppard’s other era-defining plays include “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” (1968), “Travesties” (1974), “The Real Thing” (1986) and “The Coast of Utopia” (2007). “I just live my life and let the Jewishness take care of itself,” Stoppard told the New York Times Magazine in 2022. He died Nov. 29 at 88.
Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry, born Ephraim Owen Goldberg, was one of the most influential talents in the history of modernist architecture. Among his most acclaimed works, which feature his signature sculptural style, are the Bilbao Guggenheim, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, DZ Bank Building in Berlin and oversized fish sculptures he said were inspired by the carp his grandmother would turn into gefilte fish. In 1989, Gehry won the prestigious Pritzker Prize, considered one of the top awards in the field of architecture, and in 1999 won the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects. While Gehry identified as an atheist throughout his adult life, he told the Jewish Journal that “there’s a curiosity built into the [Jewish] culture” that influenced his career. He died on Dec. 5 at 96.
Rabbi Eliezer Diamond
Rabbi Eliezer Diamond taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary for over three decades, where he also published several texts on the Talmud and left an indelible mark on generations of rabbis and Jewish scholars. In 2003, he published “Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture.” “Wherever I am, God is there too. I hope that I will return home soon,” wrote Diamond in his last post on Facebook, where he detailed his long struggle with cancer. He died on Dec. 11 at 73.
Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner, a beloved Jewish film director, actor and liberal activist, left his mark on modern American comedy and drama with his generation-defining classics from the 1980s and 1990s, including “When Harry Met Sally…,” “The Princess Bride,” “Stand By Me,” “A Few Good Men” and “This Is Spinal Tap.” The son of legendary Jewish comedian Carl Reiner, he also starred in the ’70s sitcom “All in the Family” and became a prominent Democratic Party activist later in life. Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found dead in their California home on Dec. 14. The couple’s son, Nick, has been charged in connection to their killing. Days after his death, Reiner gave a pre-recorded address at a virtual Holocaust survivor event where he told attendees, “If ever we needed to be resilient, it’s now.”
Norman Podhoretz
Norman Podhoretz was 30 when he was appointed to run the American Jewish Committee’s thought journal Commentary. Over his career, he charted a path from Jewish liberal to pro-Israel neoconservative, serving as the godfather to a movement that long dominated late- and post-Cold War conservative politics. He made waves in 2016 for endorsing Donald Trump in his first run for president. “He was a man of great wit and a man of deep wisdom and he lived an astonishing and uniquely American life,” his son, John Podhoretz, wrote in a remembrance for the magazine announcing his father’s death. “And he bound himself fast to his people, his heritage, and his history.” He died on Dec. 16 at 95.
As the year concludes, the New York Jewish Week also remembers 13 Jewish New Yorkers who died in 2025. Among them are people who left an indelible mark on New York City, including rabbis, musicians, writers, activists and a supercentenarian.
Peter Yarrow
As one-third of the American folk band Peter, Paul and Mary, the Jewish musician and progressive activist Peter Yarrow was one of the writers of the group’s hit song “Puff the Magic Dragon” and their Hanukkah hit “Light One Candle,” which Yarrow said he wrote to express his opposition to Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon. The band performed “Light One Candle” in Jerusalem in 1983 to a positive response.
Rose Girone
A rare supercentenarian, Rose Girone was thought to be the world’s oldest living Holocaust survivor, turning 113 years old in January. As a young mother during the Holocaust, Girone was able to rescue her husband from the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the small family of three sought refuge in Shanghai, where they survived the war and Girone built a business selling her handmade clothing. In New York, she taught knitting and also ran a knitting shop in Forest Hills. She later divorced and remarried. Even after she closed her shop, she continued knitting until the end of her life.
Michelle Trachtenberg
Michelle Trachtenberg was a child and teen star known for her roles in “Harriet the Spy,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “17 Again,” “Ice Princess,” and “Gossip Girl.” Born in New York City and raised in Brooklyn, Trachtenberg was the daughter of Jewish immigrants: Her mother was from the former Soviet Union, and her father was from Germany. In 2022 and 2023, she reprised her “Gossip Girl” role in the series reboot.
Trachtenberg died Feb. 26 at age 39 from complications related to diabetes.
Max Frankel
The former executive editor of The New York Times fled the Nazis as a child, starting at the paper at just 19 years old as a Columbia University campus correspondent. In his 40-plus-year career at The Times, he wrote the memo that convinced the paper’s lawyers that it should cover the Pentagon Papers — the leaked documents that revealed how the government deceived the public about the scope of the U.S. war in Vietnam. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for his coverage of President Richard Nixon’s visit to China. In 2001, after his retirement, Frankel published an article in The New York Times acknowledging that before and after World War II, the publication had a policy of “reluctance to highlight the systematic slaughter of Jews.”
Frankel died on March 23 at age 94.
Ted Comet
A Jewish communal leader and longtime Upper West Sider, Comet founded New York’s Celebrate Israel Parade (originally the Salute to Israel Parade). In the 1960s, he helped organize some of the first large demonstrations in support of Soviet Jewry. He was also a founder of the annual Israel Folk Dance Festival. Following his wife Shoshana’s death in 2012, he conducted tours of the tapestries she made telling the story of the trauma she endured as a teenager fleeing Belgium during World War II and in the years beyond.
Comet died at age 100 on March 19.
Helena Weinstock Weinrauch
Helena Weinstock Weinrauch survived a 500-mile death march to Bergen-Belsen and eventually found her way to New York. After her husband of 56 years, Joe Weinrauch, died in 2006, she discovered, at 88, the solace and joy of ballroom dancing. Her story of survival and resilience was the subject of a 2015 documentary, “Fascination: Helena’s Story.”
Weinrauch died at her home on the Upper West Side on May 25, one week shy of her 101st birthday.
Tom Lehrer
The New York-born mathematician and satirist Tom Lehrer enrolled at Harvard University at just 15 years old. Though his post-college music career was relatively brief, he gained a cult following for musical parodies like “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” and “The Vatican Rag.” Lehrer described his family’s relationship to Judaism as “more to do with the delicatessen than the synagogue.” But his iconic song “(I’m Spending) Hanukkah in Santa Monica” became what he called “a sort of answer to ‘White Christmas.’”
Lehrer died Jul. 25 at the age of 97.
Wesley LePatner
One of the highest-ranking women at Blackstone and a mother of two young children, Wesley LePatner was an alumna of Yale University, a board member for UJA-Federation of New York and an active member of various Jewish communities in New York and Massachusetts. On July 29, a gunman opened fire at her office building, 345 Park Ave., killing three people including LePatner. “She was the most loving wife, mother, daughter, sister and relative, who enriched our lives in every way imaginable,” her family said in a statement.
LePatner died Jul. 29 at the age of 43.
Julia Hyman
Julia Hyman was also a victim of the shooting at 345 Park Ave. A Manhattan native, Cornell graduate and an associate at Rudin Management, Julia Hyman was a fan of the United States women’s soccer team and Jewish singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams, her friends and family recalled at a memorial service in July.
Hyman died July 29 at the age of 27.
Saul Zabar
The son of the immigrant Jewish founders of the iconic Upper West Side grocery store and delicatessen Zabar’s, Saul Zabar served as the president and principal owner of the “food emporium” for more than seven decades. Zabar was known for his hands-on approach, often working behind the fish counter — the gem of his family’s market. Zabar’s is known for serving traditional Ashkenazi foods like bagels, babka, deli meats, fish salads, pickles and rugelach. On an average week, Zabar’s sells 2,000 pounds of smoked fish and 8,000 pounds of coffee each week to about 40,000 customers, according to The New York Times.
Rabbi Alvin Kass
The longest-serving NYPD chaplain, Rabbi Alvin Kass served New York’s police for 60 years. His career included managing the NYPD’s 9/11 response, and in the days following the terror attack, hosting Rosh Hashanah services at LaGuardia Airport for first responders. He attended the funerals of every NYPD officer who was killed on 9/11, including two who were Jewish. Kass was the third Jewish chaplain to work for the NYPD. In 1981, he attempted to disarm a Jewish hostage-taker by bribing him with a pastrami sandwich from Carnegie Deli.
Mayer Moskowitz
The early life of Rabbi Mayer Moskowitz, longtime educator at the Upper East Side’s Ramaz School and Camp Massad in the Poconos, was forever altered by the Holocaust.
Born in Czernowitz in what was then Romania and today Ukraine, Moskowitz watched the Gestapo shoot and kill his father, a 30-year-old Hasidic rabbi, in their synagogue. In the following years, he would be deported to a ghetto, separated from his mother and sister, escape the ghetto, make a life for himself in Israel, and learn his mother and sister had both survived the war, leaving his new life in Israel behind to join his mother in New York City, where he became a prominent teacher of thousands of students, including Israeli president Isaac Herzog. Moskowitz recounted his life story in his autobiography, “A Memoir of Sanctity.”
Moskowitz died Nov. 11 at 98 years old.
Helen Nash
Starting with “Kosher Cuisine” in 1984, philanthropist Helen Nash wrote cookbooks that proved that kosher cooking “could be as varied, elegant and exciting as one wished to make it,” as she put it. A refugee from Poland, she married Jack Nash, a pioneer in hedge funds, and together they supported numerous Jewish organizations in New York City, including UJA-Federation of New York, Mount Sinai Medical Center, the Israel Museum, Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Yeshiva University.
