Category: Obituary

NEW YORK (AP) – Jaap Penraat, an architect and industrial designer who helped 406 Jews sneak out of Nazi-occupied Netherlands and withstood torture to protect fellow members of the resistance, has died. He was 88. Penraat died June 25 at his home in Catskill, N.Y., of esophageal cancer, said his daughter, Noelle Penraat. Penraat was in his 20s when he began forging identity cards for Jews. He was arrested, imprisoned for several months and tortured, but refused to tell his captors anything. After his release from prison, Penraat and other resistance members disguised Jews as construction workers hired to work

Scholar of ancient and medieval Iran and author of a multi-volume ‘History of Zoroastrianism’ Nora Elizabeth Mary Boyce, Iranian scholar: born Darjeeling, India 2 August 1920; Assistant Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Archaeology, Royal Holloway College, London University 1944-46; Lecturer in Iranian Studies, Soas 1947-58, Reader 1958-62, Professor 1963-82 (Emerita); died London 4 April 2006. Mary Boyce was one of the world’s greatest scholars of ancient and medieval Iran. Her house in Highgate, north London, where she received colleagues and students, was filled not only with books and articles by scholars of Zoroastrianism, but also with memories of them. Since

SANTEE, CALIFORNIA (ANS) — Dr. Henry Morris, the founder of the modern Christian creationist movement, has died in California at the age of 87. Kentucky-based Answers in Genesis says Morris’s son sent an e-mail notifying friends and associates that his father died Saturday night in the presence of his children. Henry Morris had been hospitalized earlier this month after suffering a series of strokes. Morris’s 1961 book “The Genesis Flood” helped launch the modern creationist movement, which holds to belief in a seven-day Creation less than ten-thousand years ago and a biblical worldwide flood. He also founded the Institute for

Long known as the ‘mother of the civil rights movement’ (CNN) — Rosa Parks, whose act of civil disobedience in 1955 inspired the modern civil rights movement, died Monday in Detroit, Michigan. She was 92. Parks’ moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a 26-year-old Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The boycott led to a court ruling desegregating public transportation in Montgomery, but

World famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal died early Tuesday at the age of 96 due to multiple internal organ failure at his Viennese home, the Vienna Jewish Community said. Wiesenthal died in his sleep, according to Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Wiesenthal was born on December 31, 1908, son of a wealthy Jewish businessman at Buczacz in Galicia, a province of the Austro-Hungarian empire with a large Jewish population. He attended elementary school in Vienna and high school in Buczacz. When Hitler attacked Russia in 1941 Wiesenthal was among the millions of Jews

Robert W. Funk, founder of the controversial Jesus Seminar, which called into question New Testament miracle stories and the authenticity of many of the statements attributed to Jesus, died Saturday at his home in Santa Rosa. He was 79. Associates at the Westar Institute, which sponsored the Jesus Seminar, said Tuesday that Mr. Funk died of lung failure. He had undergone surgery in July to remove a malignant brain tumor. After many years in academia, Mr. Funk’s rise to public recognition came after he founded the non-profit Westar Institute in Santa Rosa in 1985 to promote research and education on

Tyndale House Publishers founder Kenneth N. Taylor, whose translation of the King James version of the Bible into simple, conversational language became the nation’s best-selling book from 1971 to 1974, died Friday at his Wheaton home. He was 88. Mr. Taylor’s version of the Bible, called The Living Bible, began as a project to help his 10 children understand God’s word. To date, it has sold more than 40 million copies and helped millions of people discover they could read and understand Scripture, according to his publishing company. Mr. Taylor’s project also led to his founding one of the country’s