Many people forget their English professors as soon as the last exam has been passed, but Meyer Howard Abrams, who died on April 21st at the age of 102, was an exception to this and other general rules. Abrams, who signed his books M. H. and was known to friends and colleagues at Cornell as…
Benjamin Harshav, a translator, poet and scholar of Hebrew and Yiddish literature, died April 23 in New Haven, Connecticut. He was 86. Harshav was a mentor to generations of students and, together with his wife Barbara Harshav, a prolific translator of Yiddish and Hebrew poetry. Harshav also translated Yiddish and German literature into Hebrew, and…
I remember Rav Aharon Lichtenstein often retelling the passage from the Talmud of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai’s death. The sage’s students surrounded him on his deathbed and asked for a blessing. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai’s odd response is this: May you fear God as much as you fear man. Shouldn’t we fear God much more?…
Billionaire mall developer and prominent philanthropist A. Alfred Taubman, who launched the mall business Taubman Centers Inc in 1950, died on Friday of a heart attack, his son said. He was 91. Robert Taubman, who is also the CEO of Taubman Centers, said in a statement to employees that his father died Friday evening in…
Judith Malina loved to tell a story about her experience playing the role of Grandmama in “The Addams Family,” which was filmed during the First Gulf War, in 1991. A committed pacifist, Malina was known on the set for trying to engage co-stars Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia in the anti-war effort. So it was…
Nate Lavey Photo Judith Malina, an iconoclastic actor and theater world activist who founded the Living Theater, has died at 88, the New York Times reported. Here’s the Forward’s account of her battle to save the Lower East Side drama institution. Judith Malina will not go gentle into that good night. The fiery 86-year-old director…
Gene Saks, who died on March 28 at age 93, has understandably been chiefly identified for having helmed such Neil Simon hits as “Brighton Beach Memoirs,”; “Prisoner of Second Avenue”; “Last of the Red Hot Lovers”; and the screen versions of “The Odd Couple” and “Barefoot in the Park,”, among others. Yet Saks was more…
A version of this piece appeared in Yiddish here. Sociolinguist, Yiddish scholar and advocate for endangered languages Joshua (Shikl) Fishman died March 1 in New York. He leaves behind his wife of more than 60 years Gella Schweid-Fishman, three sons, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. He is predeceased by his sister, the Yiddish poet Rukhl…
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