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Jewish Life Stories: The Nobelist who confirmed the Big Bang, the ‘Bagel Queen’ of Atlanta
This article is also available as a weekly newsletter, “Life Stories,” where we remember those who made an outsize impact in the Jewish world — or just left their community a better or more interesting place. Subscribe here to get “Life Stories” in your inbox every Tuesday.
Arno Allan Penzias, 90, the Nobelist who confirmed the Big Bang
Arno Allan Penzias, a child survivor of the Holocaust who shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries that would confirm the Big Bang theory, died Jan. 21 in San Francisco. He was 90.
In 1964, he and a colleague at Bell Labs, Robert Wilson, were trouble-shooting a radio telescope in Holmdel, New Jersey when they noticed an unexplained hiss. They would later determine it was a “cosmic echo” of the incendiary event that gave birth to the universe 13.7 billion years ago.
“The interference you see on an analogue television screen as you try to tune in to channels might seem an unlikely form of time travel, but within this static hiss lies a glimpse of the first moments of the universe,” the Nobel Foundation explains on its website. “Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson’s fortuitous discovery of a form of radio noise that bathes the cosmos provided a crucial piece of evidence for how the universe was created.”
Penzias was born in Munich to parents who had immigrated to Germany from Poland. In 1938 his family was placed on a train with other Jews of Polish origin for deportation to Poland. The Polish authorities refused to admit them and the train was turned back at the border. In 1939, Penzias, 6, and his brother Gunther, 5, were sent to London for safety as part of the Kindertransport rescue effort. They were reunited with their parents in 1940 and managed to secure passage to the United States.
The Holmdel horn antenna at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey. In 1964, radio astronomers Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation with it, for which they were awarded the 1978 Nobel prize in physics. (NASA/Wikipedia)
Penzias grew up in the Bronx where he attended public schools and later City College of New York. After serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps he received a doctorate in physics from Columbia University and joined Bell in 1963. In 1954 he married Anna Barras, a student at Hunter College who, according to his daughter, Rabbi L. Shifra Weiss-Penzias of Temple Beth El in Aptos, California, came from eight generations of rabbis.
Penzias and Wilson’s initial attempts to locate the source of the mysterious “hiss” included a theory that it was ambient radiation from pigeon droppings inside the telescope. Their search even inspired a bit of pop culture: In a 2015 episode of the Comedy Central series “Drunk History,” Jewish comedian Jenny Slate narrates a ribald version of their discovery. Actor Justin Long portrayed Penzias.
In 1992, Penzias arranged for the donation of parts of the telescope, known as the “Holmdel Horn,” to a museum in Munich. (The device itself is a National Historic Landmark.) “It was very important to my father to remind [the Germans] what they lost,” Weiss-Penzias told the Boston Globe. “He wanted his work to be a living reminder of the refugees who left and the people who died.”
Carol Lee Meyer Carola, 68, the “Bagel Queen” of Atlanta
Bagel shop owner Carol Lee Meyer Carola appeared on the cover of the Atlanta Jewish Times wellness supplement in 2021. (Atlanta Jewish Times)
For over 30 years, the Bagelicious bagel shop in East Cobb, Georgia, has been a mainstay of the Atlanta Jewish community, known for catering simchas at area synagogues. In recent years the community rallied around co-owner Carol Lee Meyer Carola in her fight to save the shop during the pandemic and in her own battle with breast cancer, which was first diagnosed in 2013. Friends and customers walked in Team Boobuleh’s A Breast Cancer Schmear campaign in support of Georgia’s annual 2-day Walk for Breast Cancer. “It’s not going to get to me. It will not get me,” the “Bagel Queen” told the Atlanta Jewish Times in 2021. “I have a business to run and people who depend on me. I can’t give up.” The Queens, New York native died from cancer on Jan. 28. She was 68. “She knew every customer by name, including their children and grandchildren,” according to a family obituary. “Despite the demands of the business, her husband Tommy, their children, and their grandchildren were the center of her world.”
Berish Strauch, 90, a pioneering plastic surgeon
Berish Strauch was the chief of reconstructive surgery at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. (American Society of Plastic Surgeons)
Berish Strauch grew up watching his father, a tailor, and his mother, a hatmaker, wielding knives and scissors in their jobs. Their dexterity inspired him to become a surgeon, and after earning his degree at Columbia University’s medical school he became one of the most influential plastic surgeons of the past 50 years. He pioneered the toe-to-thumb transplantation technique, patented the “Strauch clamp” to restore male fertility post-vasectomy and developed the first inflatable prosthetic penis. The chair of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx from 1987 until 2007, he died Dec. 24, 2023, at the age of 90. His wife of 68 years, Rena Strauch, a former teacher and a stalwart at Beth El Synagogue Center in New Rochelle, New York, predeceased him by six weeks.
Michael S. Berman, 84, a consummate Washington insider
Michael Berman, a longtime Democratic politico and lobbyist, seen at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, August 2000. (Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Michael S. Berman, 84, an old-school Washington political operative and lobbyist who served as deputy chief of staff and counsel to Vice President Walter Mondale, died Jan. 12. A consummate insider who programmed Democratic National Conventions for decades, he helped prep future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for her Senate confirmation hearings. He and Kenneth M. Duberstein, President Ronald Reagan’s last chief of staff, formed a lobbying firm that worked both sides of the aisle. When he was a kid growing up in Duluth, Minnesota, Berman’s parents became godparents of another Minnesota Jewish boy, Bob Zimmerman, who later changed his last name to Dylan.
Howard Golden, 98, Brooklyn borough president who helped Crown Heights heal
Howard Golden, Brooklyn’s borough president from 1977 to 2001, seen in 1996. (Kenneth C. Zirkel, Wikipedia)
Howard Golden, whose 24-year tenure as Brooklyn borough president overlapped with what became known as the Crown Heights Riots, died Jan. 24. He was 98. For three days in August 1991, Black residents of the neighborhood attacked members of its largely Hasidic Jewish community after a car in the motorcade of the Lubavitcher Rebbe struck and killed a Black child. Within days of the unrest, Golden created what became known as the Crown Heights Coalition, an intergroup forum that met in his office for the following 10 years to keep the peace. “There are some 90 languages spoken in this borough,” the former City Council member and son of a deli owner told the Jewish Press. “Brooklyn is an amazing mosaic.”
Joel Lind, 68, a “mainstay of Cincinnati community theater”
Joel Lind of Cincinnati acted in local theater and did audience research for new and traditional media properties. (Courtesy)
Joel Lind, who ran a media research firm in the Cincinnati area, died Jan. 24 at age 68. His personality comes through in a family obituary:
A lifelong New Yorker in spirit and Yankees fan — memorably described in youth as “fuzzy in an intelligent sort of way, and intelligent in a fuzzy sort of way” — Joel was raised in New Rochelle, NY. He attended the University of Rochester as an undergraduate and Columbia Law School, but left a Manhattan entertainment-law career behind to return to his true calling in radio. Joel spent 20 years as the perceptual-research guru behind the “Mental Weaponry” division at Critical Mass Media, where his presentations blended quantitative analysis, the art of the monologue, and obscure lyrical references.
Joel taught a generation of Congregation Beth Adam Sunday-school students a Humanistic reading of Torah stories, under his “nom de chalk” Mr. Bozo. In his later life, Joel was a mainstay of Cincinnati community theater, and especially of his home group, Mason Community Players — a community whose care and generosity he described as boundless.
Joel’s last days were spent peacefully at Hospice of Cincinnati in Blue Ash, a decision he undertook, along with his children, after months of debilitating illness. He was gratified to learn that he outlived Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign.
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The post Jewish Life Stories: The Nobelist who confirmed the Big Bang, the ‘Bagel Queen’ of Atlanta appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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