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The man who penned the Holocaust classic Yosl Rakover Talks to God and the co-writer and co-producer of Israel's first film (1955's Hill 24 Doesn't Answer), Zvi Kolitz stirred controversy when the 1964 Broadway play he co-produced, Deputy, questioned the Vatican's silence during the Holocaust. A native of Lithuania whose family escaped to Italy in 1936, Kolitz received his education at the University of Florence and later joined the Naval Academy. Later a prisoner and a subsequent soldier in the British army, Kolitz also served as a columnist for a Yiddish paper for over three decades and penned numerous books. On September 29, 2002, Zvi Kolitz died of natural causes in Manhattan. He was 89.