Obituaries

Reva Golad

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Reva Schwartz Golad, 92, died Oct. 15, 2012. Born in Kansas City, Mo., Mrs. Golad attended Manual High School and Kansas City Teachers’ College (now UMKC). She married Maurice “Tiny” Schwartz in 1941.They owned Tiny’s Delicatessen in Kansas City. For 25 years, she worked at the Kansas City Jewish… Read more »

Maurice Jontow

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Maurice Washington Jontow, 98, died Oct. 5, 2012. Born in New York City, Mr. Jontow left high school in 1929 to work with his father in the family garment business. He met his wife, Rachel, in 1935 and they were married in 1936. Mr. Jontow served in the Army… Read more »

George McGovern, a pacifist who wanted to bomb Auschwitz

George McGovern signing his book “Abraham Lincoln” at the Richard M. Nixon Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif., August 2009. (Scott Clarkson via CC)George McGovern signing his book "Abraham Lincoln" at the Richard M. Nixon Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif., August 2009. (Scott Clarkson via CC)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — George McGovern is widely remembered for advocating immediate American withdrawal from Vietnam and sharp reductions in defense spending. Yet despite his reputation as a pacifist, the former U.S. senator and 1972 presidential candidate, who died Sunday at 90, did believe there were times when America should… Read more »

Ann Goldfein remembered as community builder

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Ann Braun Goldfein, 81, died on Sept. 30, 2012, after a yearlong battle with ovarian cancer. Born in Chicago, Mrs. Gold­fein studied art at the Pratt Institute of Design in New York City. Later, while living in Chicago, her brother Mac introduced her to Sam Goldfein and they married… Read more »

Reva Sherman

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Reva Sherman, 86, died Oct. 3, 2012. Born in Chicago, Mrs. Sherman was the youngest of six children of Russian Jewish immigrants. She graduated from Chicago’s Von Steuben High School in 1944 and earned a bachelor’s degree from Roosevelt University. Mrs. Sherman was a docent at the Arizona Sonora… Read more »

Claire Kolins

Claire Salonic Kolins, 89, died Oct. 9, 2012. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Mrs. Kolins attended Penn State in the early 1940s and finished college at the University of Arizona in the 1980s. She was a longtime member of Temple Emanu-El. Mrs. Kolins was preceded in death by her… Read more »

Specter remembered as an iconoclast who enjoyed going toe to toe with tyrants

Arlen Specter, shown speaking at the AFL-CIO convention in September 2009, represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate for 30 years. (Steve Dietz/Sharp Image)Arlen Specter, shown speaking at the AFL-CIO convention in September 2009, represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate for 30 years. (Steve Dietz/Sharp Image)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — During his 30 years in the clubby confines of the U.S. Senate, Arlen Specter never lost his acerbic prosecutorial zeal, friends and associates say. The insistent questions, the commitment to independence that made the longtime Pennsylvania senator a critical player in recent U.S. history, ultimately did… Read more »

Faina Luterman

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Faina Luterman, 73, died June 22, 2012. Born in Belaya Tserkov, Ukraine, Mrs. Luterman was a Holocaust survivor. She received a master’s degree in physics/astronomy from Orenburg State University, in the former Soviet Union. Mrs. Luterman taught physics and astronomy at high school and college levels for over 30… Read more »

David Seltzer

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David H. Seltzer, 81, died Aug. 22, 2012. Mr. Seltzer graduated from Long Island University. He served in the Korean War and was decorated. Mr. Seltzer owned several businesses including all the Morrow’s Nut Houses in Tucson and the original Famous Sam’s on Prince Road and First Avenue. Mr.… Read more »

Alan Cohen

obit-cohenAlan Cohen

Alan Cohen, 84, died June 28, 2012. Born in Portland, Ore., Mr. Cohen attended the University of Oregon and was a member of Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. He played professional baseball with the Cleveland Indians and for the old Tucson Cowboys during the 1950s. He started an independent insurance… Read more »

Obituary: Ruth Protas

ruth protasRuth Protas

Ruth Protas (nee Kimmel), age 100, died July 14, 2012. Born in Poland, Mrs. Protas emigrated to New York in 1920, where she met her husband, David Protas, with whom she raised a family. After David’s death in 1973, she moved from North Bergen, N.J., to Phoenix, Ariz.,… Read more »

Paul Ash, community leader, weighlifting champ, dies

Paul Ash in 1957, when he won the U.S. national weightlifting championship (Courtesy Bruce Ash)Paul Ash in 1957, when he won the U.S. national weightlifting championship (Courtesy Bruce Ash)

Real estate executive, world-class athlete and Tucson community leader Paul Ash, 81, died in Encinitas, Calif., on June 24, 2012. “When the term ‘the greatest generation’ was coined, Paul Ash could very well have been the prototype,” says Stuart Mellan, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Southern… Read more »

Israeli tour guide and Holocaust survivor Eliezer Ayalon dies

obit-eliezer ayalon with katzes in PolandEliezer Ayalon

Eliezer Ayalon, a veteran tour guide for Jewish Federation missions, died late last month. Born in Radom, Poland in 1928, Ayalon was the only child from his family to survive the Holocaust. He spent a year in the Radom Ghetto and then three years in five different concentration camps… Read more »

Jonathan Owens

obit-owensJonathan Owens

Jonathan David Owens, 49, died suddenly on May 14, 2012. Mr. Owens was a jeweler at Maguire’s Jewelry and an active member of Congregation Anshei Israel. A loving husband and family man, he took an active role in his children’s sports and musical accomplishments. He was a friend to… Read more »

Gary Anderson

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He lived, he loved, he had a good life. He was loved by his wife, children and grandchildren. “Lieutenant” Gary G. Anderson travelled to his mountaintop to watch over his family on May 8, 2012 in Tucson, Ariz. He was born June 25,1933, the son of Vera A. McCarthy… Read more »

Gertrude Rubin

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Gertrude (Goldie) Rubin died April 12, 2012. Born in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mrs. Rubin lived with her husband in Brooklyn before they moved to Tucson in 1981. Mrs. Rubin was preceded in death by her husband of 67 years, David Rubin. Survivors include her children, Norman… Read more »

Sylvia Levin

Sylvia C. (Spekter) Levin, 88, died May 3, 2012. Mrs. Levin received her R.N. degree from Beth Israel School of Nursing in New York City. For 17 years, she nursed in several hospital labor, delivery and nursery wards. She later assisted in an orthopedic surgeon’s office and was floor… Read more »

Mitch Dorson: consummate teacher and ‘all-around mensch’

mitch dorsonMitch Dorson

Mitch Dorson, 63, died unexpectedly on May 13, 2012. “His life was a story about a man standing for his principles,” says Rabbi Joseph Weizenbaum, who worked with Mr. Dorson at Temple Emanu-El. “He never backed off” of those principles teaching social studies, first at Catalina Foothills High School… Read more »

Victor Levin

Victor Levin, 81, died April 3, 2012. Born in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, Mr. Levin moved to Columbus, Ohio. He attended South High School and received a masters degree in physics from Ohio State University. Mr. Levin worked as an aeronautical engineer for Rockwell and Batelle in Columbus. He moved… Read more »

ESSAY: Benzion Netanyahu’s role in U.S. politics

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his father, Benzion, at a memorial day for Yoni Netanyahu at Mount Herzl military cemetary in Jerusalem, June 26, 2007. (Michael Fattal/Flash90)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his father, Benzion, at a memorial day for Yoni Netanyahu at Mount Herzl military cemetary in Jerusalem, June 26, 2007. (Michael Fattal/Flash90)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Benzion Netanyahu — historian, one-time political activist and father of Israel’s prime minister — died Monday in Jerusalem at 102. An accomplished scholar and the patriarch of one of Israel’s most important political families, he also played a surprising and little-known role in American political… Read more »

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