Professor Menahem Hayyim Schmelzer, a highly respected scholar and librarian at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, passed away in December 2022.

The novel "Azarel" by Hungarian novelist Karoly Pap portrays the internal struggles of an eight-year-old boy named Gyuri Azarel as he grapples with the strictures of his rabbi father's house and Jewish identity in Hungary during the 1920s and 30s.