Sam Sokol
By Sam Sokol
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News Sidney Fleischer, 102, Decorated War Veteran Who Fought In Eight Battles
(JTA) — Sidney Fleischer came into the world just prior to one of the worst pandemics in history — the 1918 flu pandemic that killed as many as 50 million people worldwide. And he left the world in the midst of another. Fleischer died of COVID-19 on April 7 in Boston. He was 102. Fleischer…
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News Alex Klein, 71, Kosher Caterer Whose Prayers Stormed The Heavens
(JTA) — Yom Kippur had just ended and as the members of his synagogue prepared to go home to eat after a long day of fasting, Alex Klein walked up to the Holy Ark and, placed his hand on it, and began speaking directly to God. He stood that way for the better part of…
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News Benjamin Levin, 93, Last Surviving Member Of The Legendary Avengers Partisan Group
(JTA) — Benjamin Levin spent much of his early life fighting. At just 14, he joined a militant group fighting the Nazis in his native Lithuania. After the war, he worked to smuggle Jewish refugees to pre-state Israel. And in 1948, he arrived on the shores of the newly established Jewish state aboard the Altalena,…
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News Michael Sorkin, 71, Urban Planner Who Proposed Design For A Palestinian Capital In Jerusalem
(JTA) — Michael Sorkin never thought small. In 2001, the Washington, D.C.-born architect offered a comprehensive blueprint for turning East Jerusalem into the capital of a Palestinian state. He followed up that proposal a year later with a book, “The Next Jerusalem: Sharing the Divided City,” an examination on how urban planning could facilitate peace…
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News Mark Steiner, 77, Celebrated Philosopher Of Mathematics
JERUSALEM (JTA) — While Mark Steiner may have been one of the most important philosophers of mathematics of the past half century, it was his warmth, humor and love of Judaism that most endeared him to his colleagues. The Hebrew University professor died of COVID-19 on April 6. He was 77. Born in the Bronx…
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Fast Forward Zalman Kossovsky, Former chief rabbi of Zurich, US Marines chaplain, dies at 80
(JTA) — Rabbi Zalman Kossovsky, a former chief rabbi of Zurich who led congregations on three continents during a career that spanned decades, has died. Despite German language media reports, Kossovsky’s synagogue in Boynton Beach, Florida, stressed that he passed away Sunday of natural causes unconnected to the coronavirus pandemic. He was 80. Born in…
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News Evelyne Cohen, 93, Fled Tunisia To Become Matriarch Of A Large Family
(JTA) — Evelyne Cohen led a comfortable life before fleeing her native Tunisia after it won independence from France in the late 1950s. The daughter of a prominent merchant, she had grown up in a large house in the port city of Sfax, a member of the Jewish community’s elite. But when her family, buffeted…
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News Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, Former Chief Rabbi Of Israel, Dies Of COVID-19 At 79
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, who served as Israel’s chief Sephardic rabbi for a decade beginning in 1993, died April 12 after being admitted to the hospital for treatment of COVID-19. He was 79. “Rabbi Bakshi-Doron was a teacher for all Jewish communities in Israel and around the world,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said…
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