Each week, we select the most interesting Jewish obituary. This week, we’re excluding those of Adam Yauch, Maurice Sendak, and Vidal Sassoon (they had a bad week, and we should suffer), because we’ve already covered them. Instead, this week it’s that of Roman Totenberg, an extremely distinguished violinist whose career intersected with many of the 20th century’s other greats, who died Tuesday at 101. (His daughter is NPR’s Nina Totenberg.) Lodz-born, he was a colleague of Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, and Yehudi Menuhin, and a teacher to a great many more. As this dispatch makes clear, he died with great grace, wishing to teach and play music until the end.
Roman Totenberg, Violinist and Teacher, Dies at 101 [NYT]
‘A Remarkable Death’: Roman Totenberg’s Last Bow [Boston Phoenix]
Related: Vidal Sassoon, Streetfighter [Tablet Magazine]
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.