Obituaries are underwritten by Sinai Memorial, the Bay Area’s nonprofit Jewish funeral home.
Joseph Karp
Oct. 14, 1928–June 28, 2026
Joseph “Joe” Karp, 97, passed away peacefully at home in San Mateo, California, on Sunday, June 28, 2026.
Joe was preceded in death by his parents, his brothers and sister, and his cherished first wife, Sandy. He is survived by his wife, Rosie; his sons, Steven (Gail) and Ron (Robin); and his grandchildren, Ben (Leah), Sam (Kara), Jake, Sandy (Drew), and Will.
A proud San Franciscan, Joe grew up in the Mission District and attended the original Lowell High School. He proudly served his country as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army.
Joe enjoyed a distinguished career spanning more than 50 years as a real estate broker, developer, and property owner, with much of his work centered on the San Francisco Peninsula. He maintained an entrepreneurial spirit throughout his career.
Outside of work, Joe enjoyed spending time in the Sacramento River Delta during his younger years and later at Lake Tahoe, where he created many lasting memories with family and friends. An avid tennis player, he remained active on the court well into his early eighties.
A private family burial service was held. To celebrate Joe’s memory, donations may be made to Mission Hospice of San Mateo.
Irene Feibelman Krohn
Dec. 22, 1936–July 5, 2026
Irene was born on December 22, 1936 in Karlsruhe, Germany to Henny and Alfons Feibelman. She passed away on July 5, 2026 in Walnut Creek, CA. She and her parents immigrated to Oakland, CA in January 1938 to escape the Holocaust. Irene graduated from Oakland High School, Class of 1954. She attended UC Berkeley and graduated from UCLA with a BA and a teaching credential. Irene also earned an MA from SFSU.
Irene had a varied career in Education, in a large Corporation, with a Non-profit and with two small businesses. She was a Life Member of Hadassah.
She was happily married for 24 years to Wallace “Wally” Krohn, who passed away in 2016. They enjoyed traveling, attending live music venues and participating in clubs and events in Rossmoor. Irene’s dear parents and her beloved brother Lester preceded her in death. She is survived by her niece Cory Ferris (Taylor) and great nieces Sibley and Brin, and cousins in the U.S., England and Australia.
At Irene’s request there was a private burial.
Alvin Medvin
Sept. 7, 1934–June 8, 2026
Al (Alvin) Medvin entered this world on September 7, 1934, in Chicago, Illinois, as the first son to Ben and Clara Medvin. His brother Harvey arrived almost to the date, two years later. They grew up in Austin, a West Side neighborhood in Chicago. Al attended Austin High School and then the University of Illinois. He remained a fan of the fighting Illini throughout his life. After college graduation, Al enrolled in the University of Illinois School of Dentistry where he prepared himself for his future career and met his future wife, Deborah Rattner Medvin. Upon Dental School graduation, Al had to fulfill his duty to the Country, so he went to Gunter Air Force Base in Alabama. A short while later he got assigned to Travis Air Force Base in Vacaville, CA. Al and Debbie married on July 5th, 1959, and the two set off for their new life in California where they raised 2 daughters, Janice and Melissa, who are his pride and joy, along with grandsons Aaron and Noah.
Al practiced dentistry in Concord, CA, for 30 years. Upon retirement, he learned to play golf and enjoyed the game and camaraderie found at Round Hill Country Club.
He will be missed by his loving wife Debbie, daughters Janice Medvin (Rob Tobias), Melissa Medvin (Jeff Flancer), and grandsons Aaron and Noah Leavelle.
In lieu of flowers, contributions in Al’s memory can be made to the Amyloidosis Foundation or the Jewish Family and Community Services East Bay.
Elijah “Lucien” Polak
Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, UC Berkeley
Aug. 11, 1931–June 12, 2026
From Bialystock to Berkeley via Auschwitz
We have lost another Holocaust survivor: Elijah “Lucien” Polak was born in Bialystok, Poland, in 1931. Against great odds, he survived the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Stutthof, Landsberg, Dachau, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Gross-Rosen and Buchenwald concentration camps and a death march. He was on the last children’s transport out of the Kovno Ghetto; of the 131 boys in that transport, only 31 survived the war.
After being liberated from Buchenwald, he returned to Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, where he recovered in a sanitorium and then stayed in a Jewish orphanage. His mother, who survived Stutthof, had returned to Bialystok, Poland, and tracked him through an organization dedicated to reuniting families. In Poland, he became an apprentice blacksmith (and had been an apprentice locksmith and lathe operator in the Ghetto). Living in Poland was dangerous for returning Jews, so Lucien and his mother relocated to Orleans, France, where their cousins offered to put them up while they were waiting to go to Australia, where his mother was going to remarry. (Lucien’s father died in Dachau.) In 1949, their papers came through, and they immigrated to Melbourne.
It was then that Lucien commenced his long academic life. By attending George Taylor and Staff, a private school catering to Australian children whose education had been disrupted, he caught up on eight years of missed education. Within three years, he passed the matriculation exams and entered the University of Melbourne from which he graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1956.
After working in Melbourne for Imperial Chemical Industries, he came to UC Berkeley for graduate studies, earning his Ph.D. in 1961 and joining the faculty of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, where he remained for more than sixty years. He made foundational and enduring contributions to the fields of control systems, optimization theory and numerical algorithms.
He is perhaps more globally recognized as the co-creator of the Polak-Ribière method, a seminal conjugate gradient algorithm that remains a fundamental tool in mathematical optimization and modern machine learning applications. Lucien was known not only for his rigorous mathematical scholarship but also for his deep commitment to mentoring generations of students and supporting his colleagues. His work helped cement UC Berkeley’s reputation as a world leader in control systems and optimization.
He loved to travel, and the world map on his wall was covered with pins representing all the places he visited. He spent a sabbatical in Paris on a Guggenheim Fellowship and spent sabbaticals and leaves at M.I.T. and Imperial College, London, where he developed a life-long love of British theater. After his retirement in 1993, he continued mentoring graduate students, consulting, and working on a textbook. He also pursued his hobbies of cross-country skiing, collecting fountain pens and Japanese knives, target shooting, rekindling his French, perfecting the cooking of fish sous-vide, and solving problems with ChatGPT. (Besides English and French, his languages included Yiddish, Russian, Lithuanian, and Polish.)
His approach to life was always to “forge ahead” and not dwell on the past although he often felt he was “catching up” because of the multiple times he had had to meet the challenge of new countries, new languages, and new cultures.
He is survived by his partner Ellen Lange, his daughter Sharon Wagner and his grandchildren Rachel Bilke, Alexander, Arielle, Avraham, and Nathaniel Pardes. He was predeceased by his wife Virginia (Ginette) Polak and his son Oren Pardes.
Robert Rubin
July 18, 1951–June 25, 2026
Robert Rubin, a prominent civil rights attorney and beloved family man, died peacefully at home in Minneapolis on June 25, 2026, surrounded by family — three weeks shy of his 75th birthday.
After studying at Tel Aviv University, Robert graduated from Northwestern University in 1973. While teaching in upstate New York, he testified against abuse he witnessed, costing him his job but launching his true calling: law as a vehicle for social change. He attended law school at the University of San Diego, where he met his wife, Toby, then served as ACLU staff counsel in Jackson, Mississippi, before moving to San Francisco in 1981. Over 30 years at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, he championed immigrant, refugee and voting rights, co-authoring the California Voting Rights Act and co-leading the landmark Prop 187 challenge for immigrant children’s education. Colleagues in the private and public interest bar were essential to that success.
Robert’s roots in Jewish communal life ran deep. He was active with the American Jewish Congress, the JCCSF board (co-chairing sports for the 2009 JCC Maccabi Games) and the Bay Area regional council of the New Israel Fund. He was the parent of three Brandeis Hillel Day School graduates and a longtime member of Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco. His greatest Jewish-community contribution was inaugurating competitive sports at Brandeis day school — though he considered himself a failure as coach of the first girls’ basketball team, since their undefeated championship season denied the girls the learning experience he had promised.
Robert lived 22 years with Parkinson’s disease, facing his decline with the quiet determination that defined his work. He is survived by his wife, Toby; daughters Rachel, Dora Eliana and Sadie; son-in-law Leo; and granddaughters Ruby and Elliot.
A gathering to honor Robert will be held in San Francisco, July 18, 3 to 6 p.m. More information: hodroffepsteinmemorialchapels.com.
Dr. Gerald Max Wagger
Dec. 12, 1930–June 12, 2026
Dr. Gerald (Jerry) Max Wagger passed away at his home in Palo Alto, California, on June 12, 2026, his exact half birthday, at 95 1/2 years old.
He leaves behind his devoted wife of over 67 years, Barbara (Bobbie) Wagger, his loving children Debby Wagger (Zvi Bern), Shana Wagger, and David Wagger (Lizabeth), and his loving grandchildren Toby, Rose, and Miriam Bern, and Marc, Andrew, and Eric Wagger. His beloved sister, Victoria Ann Sorkin (Dr. Bernie Sorkin), passed away in 2020.
Jerry was born in Asheboro, North Carolina, on December 12, 1930, to Rose (Rosenburg) Wagger and Israel David Wagger. He lost his own father at 14 years old, and his strong mother continued raising him and his sister while running her own business. Jerry became an Eagle Scout and attended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he earned both his bachelor’s degree and his medical degree. He met Bobbie at the wedding of their best friends, and they were married a year later. Jerry was a US Army Captain and relocated his family from Baltimore to Palo Alto, California, when his service and his fellowship at the University of Maryland were concluded. There, Jerry worked as a gastroenterologist and internist at Kaiser Permanente, Redwood City, where he was loved by his patients and his medical and nursing colleagues. Upon his retirement in 1998, Jerry initiated the Retired Physicians Group at Redwood City. Jerry was very involved in the Jewish community and his synagogue, Congregation Kol Emeth. He highly valued volunteering and serving others, including serving on the Board of the local Jewish Community Center and Hadassah Associates.
Jerry was a wise, loving, generous, and humane presence in the lives of his loving family and large circle of friends and colleagues. His warm humor and desire to understand and know people were a through-line of his life. He is deeply missed, and his memory is a blessing to all who knew and loved him.