Victor Brombert, 101, a literature scholar and World War II hero
Victor Brombert fled the Nazis for America as a teen, and went on to a distinguished career as a professor of comparative literature at Yale and Princeton Universities. But while analyzing others’ stories he kept one of his own hidden: During World War II, he worked for a secret American intelligence unit that deployed multilingual refugees in the fight against Hitler.
Brombert revealed his role only in 2004, in the acclaimed documentary “The Ritchie Boys,” named for the Maryland base where they trained.
Until then, he had been known mainly for his scholarship on French culture, literary tropes and authors including Stendhal, Flaubert and Victor Hugo.
Born in Germany to Russian-Jewish parents, he grew up in Paris but fled to the United States during the German occupation of France, experiences he recounted in a highly regarded memoir, “Trains of Thought: Memories of a Stateless Youth” (2002). In 1943, Brombert joined the U.S. Army and later landed with the Second Armored Division on Omaha Beach.
“My parents were determined pacifists and made me read anti-militaristic books,” he wrote in an essay about visiting the beach on the anniversary of D-Day. “Yet they knew that certain wars cannot be avoided, and that this one, against Hitler, had to be fought and won. But it had to be won precisely by those who hated war.”
Brombert died on Nov. 26 at his home in Princeton. He was 101.
Hanna Katzir, 79, former Oct. 7 hostage
Hanna Katzir is shown in a photo released by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Facebook)
Hanna Katzir was taken captive on Oct. 7, 2023, alongside her son from Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel’s south. She was released more than a month later during a brief ceasefire but never regained her health, dying Tuesday of maladies her family said were exacerbated by her ordeal.
“Mom was a loving woman, wife and mother who gave nothing but love,” her daughter Carmit Palty Katzir said in a message via the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. “Her heart could not withstand the terrible suffering since October 7.” Katzir, who was 79, is survived by three children; a son, Elad, was abducted and later killed in Gaza, while her husband Rami was murdered in their safe room on Oct. 7.
She was buried at Nir Oz.
Eduard Kuznetsov, 85, refusenik who plotted a daring escape
Eduard Kuznetsov in 2009. (Eduard Arzunyan/Wikipedia)
Eduard Kuznetsov, a former Soviet refusenik who helped lead one of the most daring and attention-grabbing escape plans in the history of the movement to free Soviet Jewry, died Dec. 21. He was 85 and had been living in Hadera, Israel.
In 1970, he and 16 others who were unable to emigrate attempted to hijack an empty civilian aircraft and escape to the West. “Operation Wedding” (the conspirators pretended they were traveling to a family wedding) failed, but the arrest and imprisonment of the would-be hijackers drew international attention to their cause.
After his release from a Siberian labor camp in 1979, Kuznetsov immigrated to Israel, where he worked as a journalist for Russian-language newspapers and radio stations. While imprisoned in Russia, he wrote two books: “Prison Diary” and “I am an Israeli Citizen!”
Barbi Weinberg, 95, founder of a pro-Israel think tank
In 1973, Barbi Weinberg was chosen to lead the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, becoming the first woman to oversee a major Jewish federation in America. (Courtesy Washington Institute)
Barbi Weinberg, the founding president of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the first woman to oversee a major American Jewish federation, died Dec. 12 in Los Angeles. She was 95.
In 1969, she and her husband Larry Weinberg joined the then-tiny American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and played a vital role in forming the infrastructure of what became AIPAC’s lobbying juggernaut. (Larry Weinberg died in 2019.)
In 1973, she was chosen to lead the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles; in 1985, she and Michael Stein co-founded the Washington Institute, a bipartisan think tank described by its first director, the late Martin Indyk, as “friendly to Israel but doing credible research on the Middle East in a realistic and balanced way.”
“Barbi animated the life of the Institute by advocating principles that remain at the core of the Institute’s work today — that America is a force for good in the Middle East and that a strong, vibrant U.S.-Israel relationship serves [the] American national interest,” the institute wrote in a tribute.
Isak Andic, 71, billionaire founder of the Mango fashion chain
Isak Andik was born in 1953 in Istanbul and moved with his family to Barcelona as a teenager. (Wikipedia)
Isak Andic, the billionaire founder of the women’s wear chain Mango, died Dec. 14 after falling down a 490-foot ravine while hiking with family in an area near Barcelona known for its deep caves. He was 71.
Born in Istanbul to a Sephardic Jewish family, Andik emigrated to the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia in the 1960s. His first business venture was selling T-shirts to fellow students at Barcelona’s American high school; he and his brother founded Mango and turned it into a 3,000-store chain in 120 countries. Forbes estimated Andic’s net worth at $4.5 billion.
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain mourned Andic, a supporter of the Masorti Jewish Community of Catalonia. “His numerous contributions have led to great advances for Spanish Judaism,” a federation statement said. “The void left behind is irreplaceable.”
Corinne Allal, 69, Israeli singer, songwriter and producer
Corinne Allal performing live in Kibbutz Cabri, June 5, 2006. (Chai/Wikipedia)
Israeli singer, songwriter and producer Corinne Allal, who composed the music for Ehud Manor’s iconic song “Ein Li Eretz Aheret” (“I Have No Other Country”), died Dec. 12 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 69.
The prolific musician, who recorded and produced numerous albums over a 50-year career, was born in 1955 in Tunisia. Her family eventually fled the country for Israel and she began performing in military bands and choirs.
In 2001, when “out” performers were still a rarity in Israel, she revealed her same-sex relationship with her manager, Ruti Parran, with whom she raised two sons.
Allal continued to perform after her cancer diagnosis, and weeks before her death recorded a final song, “I Will Reveal Your Face,” with Moshe Waldman. While competing on an Israeli version of the reality show “Big Brother” in 2009, she spent her downtime reading Psalms. “When I returned home, I continued to connect with God and began discovering Judaism — out of nowhere,” she told an interviewer in 2017.
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