First Person: A “Do-er” Dies

Mendel Kaplan, who died on November 19 of a massive stroke at age 73, was a “do-er”; he would get things done—pronto. He was a do-er long before he became interested in archaeology. He described his family’s journey from Lithuania to South Africa in a book called From Shtetl to Steelmaking. A shtetl is a small Jewish village in eastern Europe. In South Africa the family became wealthy manufacturing steel wire. One of the more popular products of the Cape Gate Fence & Wire Works was gabions, steel netting that could be shaped and filled with readily available stones […]