FEBRUARY 23 • 2023 | 69

and Milt Bonich; son and 
daughter-in-law, Michael and 
Margie Schuldinger; grand-
children and their spouses, 
Erin and Tim Martin, Adam 
and Carina Bonich, Elyssa 
and Reece Pierson, Daniel 
and Rebecca Schuldinger, 
and Mitchell Schuldinger; 
great-grandchildren, Avery 
Martin, Owen Martin, Reed 
Pierson, Justice Pierson, 
Jaiden Forrester, Aubrey 
Pierson, Valentin Buliga and 
Alexander Buliga. He is also 
survived by Anatoli (Natasha) 
Buliga. 
Shep was predeceased by 
his beloved wife of 70 years, 
Delores Schuldinger; and 
his parents, Sadie and Aaron 
Schuldinger. 
Interment was at Adat 
Shalom Memorial Park. 
Contributions may be made 
to Zekelman Holocaust 
Center, 28123 Orchard Lake 
Road, Farmington Hills, 
MI 48334, holocaustcenter.
org. Arrangements by Ira 
Kaufman Chapel.

EVE SHULAK, 
88, of West 
Bloomfield, died 
Feb. 10, 2023. 
She was 
born in Detroit 
and lived her life in the 
Detroit metropolitan area. 
She married Ken Shulak, 
(deceased Oct. 2020) at age 
20 and raised four children in 
Detroit and Southfield. 
She was a longtime 
employee of Southfield Public 
Schools. Eve was very devot-
ed to family and loved noth-
ing more than bringing fam-
ily together for holidays and 
celebrations. In addition to 
her love of family, she was a 
skilled craftsperson and over 
the years engaged in the arts 

of stamping, jewelry making 
and knitting. 
Mrs. Shulak is survived 
by her four children, Cindy 
Shulak-Rome (Dan Rome), 
Jeffrey Shulak (Amy), Barry 
Shulak and Alan Shulak; 
grandchildren, Elana Rome 
Cutler (David), Ben Rome, 
Sam Shulak (Chelsey) and 
Will Shulak; great-grandson, 
Gabriel Cutler. 
Interment took place at 
Adat Shalom Memorial 
Park Cemetery in Livonia. 
Contributions may be made 
to Hand in Hand Schools, 
Michigan Humane or a 
charity of one’s choice. 
Arrangements by Dorfman 
Chapel.

RANDY 
WATSKY, 68, of 
Commerce, died 
Feb. 10, 2023. 
He is survived 
by his beloved 
wife, Pamela Watsky; chil-
dren, Mitchell Watsky and 
Lauren Watsky; devoted sis-
ter, Bari Heifetz; mother-in-
law, Dolores Bloch; adoring 
brothers-in-law, Phil (Kathy) 
Block and Sandy Golden; 
many loving nieces, nephews, 
great-nieces and great-neph-
ews, other family members 
and friends. 
Mr. Watsky was the 
beloved son of the late Harold 
and Elaine Watsky; son-in-
law of the late Maurice Bloch. 
Contributions may be 
made to the Glioblastoma 
Foundation or to Heart to 
Heart Hospice. Interment 
took place at Adat Shalom 
Memorial Park Cemetery in 
Livonia. Arrangements by 
Dorfman Chapel.

S

ongwriter Burt 
Bacharach, who 
with his longtime 
lyricist Hal David turned out 
a string of hits in the 1960s 
and ’70s — including “
Alfie” 
and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ 
On My Head” — died Feb. 
8, 2023, at his home in Los 
Angeles. He was 94.
Bacharach and David, both 
Jewish New Yorkers, also wrote 
a host of songs that made 
Dionne Warwick a megastar, 
such as “Walk On By,
” “Do You 
Know the Way to San Jose” and 
“I Say a Little Prayer.
”
The duo came to fame while 
working in the Brill Building 
— a Midtown Manhattan 
mecca for music publishing 
that housed a slew of Jewish 
songwriters, including the 
teams of Carole King and 
Gerry Goffin, and Barry Mann 
and Cynthia Weil. But unlike 
their peers, who wrote for 
the burgeoning teen market, 
their songs were marked by a 
certain elegance and romance 
that drew more on the Great 
American Songbook and 
Broadway than rock ’n’ roll. 
Fittingly, the pair collabo-
rated with Broadway producer 
David Merrick on the 1968 
musical Promises, Promises, 
which yielded two hits, includ-
ing the title tune and “I’ll 
Never Fall in Love Again.” That 
show too had a strong Jewish 
pedigree: The book by the leg-
endary playwright Neil Simon 
was based on the 1960 film 
The Apartment, written by Billy 
Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.
Bacharach grew up in Forest 
Hills, Queens; his father was a 
journalist and his mother an 
amateur musician. He recalled 
in his 2013 autobiography, 
Anyone Who Had a Heart, 
written with Robert Greenfield, 

that “no one in my family 
ever went to synagogue or 
paid much attention to being 
Jewish.” 
And yet Jonathan Freedman, 
author of Klezmer America: 
Jewishness, Ethnicity, 
Modernity, told the New York 
Jewish Week in 2013 that what 
made Bacharach’s music Jewish 
was his “wild play with time 
signatures; he is to time signa-
tures what [George] Gershwin 
is to chord changes.” He called 
Bacharach “really audacious 
and experimental,” an example 
of what he sees Jewish artists 
doing as they “enter popular 
forms and make them their 
own.”
Bacharach was also the first 
composer to be featured in the 
experimental jazz musician 
John Zorn’s late-1990s “Great 
Jewish Music” series; in the 
CD’s jacket notes, Zorn thanks 
him for not changing his name 
and points out that Bacharach 
is “one of the great geniuses of 
American popular music — 
and he’s a Jew.” 

Look for a special remembrance of 

Bacharach by his good friend Linda 

Solomon in next week’s JN.

Famed Songwriter
Burt Bacharach, 94

JTA

BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

Composer Burt Bacharach (left) and 
lyricist Hal David hold Oscars they 
won for “Raindrops Keep Falling on 
My Head” from Butch Cassidy and 
the Sundance Kid, at the Academy 
Awards, April 7, 1970. 

