JERUSALEM (JTA) – The Eulogizer highlights the life accomplishments of famous and not-so-famous Jews who have died recently.

Adele Starr, pflag founder

Adele Starr, an important but unacknowledged figure in gay rights, died Dec. 10 at 90.

Starr founded the Los Angeles chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays in 1976 and spoke three years later at the first gay rights march on Washington.

Starr, born Ida Seltzer, in Brooklyn, moved with her husband to Los Angeles in 1951 and primarily was a stay-at-home mother with four sons and a daughter. Philip Starr told his parents that he was gay in 1974.

Starr launched the Los Angeles chapter of PFLAG two years later. PFLAG, with more than 200,000 members, has created the Starr Award in her name.

Dov Shilansky, Shoah survivor, Irgun activist, former Knesset speaker

Dov Shilansky landed in Israel in 1948 after a horrific World War II experience in Dachau. Imprisoned four years later for a planned political bombing, he went on to become the Knesset speaker. When Shilansky died on Dec. 9 at 86, he was a respected elder statesman and lawyer.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Shilansky’s story, “the story of our people.” 

Arnold Weiss, found Hitler’s will

Arnold Weiss, a German-born U.S. counterintelligence officer in World War II who found Hitler’s last will and testament, died Dec. 7 at 86.

In December 1945, Weiss and his counterintelligence team tracked down a Nazi military aide who had been stationed at Hitler’s bunker during his final days. The aide took Weiss to a farm on the outskirts of Munich where he had hidden the envelope at the bottom of a dry well. Inside it were Hitler’s will and his marriage certificate to Eva Braun.

As a youth, he was hoisted onto a lamppost and flogged by Hitler Youth members.

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