IN MEMORY
Dani Herbert Joseph Roth
January 20, 1937- June 2, 1997
. . . Citizen, parent, friend, political gadfly for social
justice and human rights. Your family, colleagues are bereft.
Your humor kept us sane, your caring made our lives more
humane and less lonely. Memorial service, Friday, 2pm, Ansche
Chesed, 251 West 100th St., Manhattan.
NY Times, June 5, 1997
Dani Herbert Joseph
Roth (1937-1997) A child survivor of the Holocaust, Roth
was born in Austria in 1937 to Bertha and Herman Roth. He
and his mother escaped to the United States in 1940 to join
his younger brother, Kurt, a member of the first American
Kindertransport program; his father was detained and killed
in a concentration camp. Largely influenced by his early
experiences as a Holocaust survivor and wartime refugee,
Roth engaged as an activist in peace, civil rights and justice
movements, up until his death on June 2nd.
For the past five years, he has served as one of the core
members of Coalition for Intervention Against Genocide and
Jewish Ad-Hoc Committee on Bosnia (J.A.C.O.B.). He participated
in numerous delegations to Washington D.C., orchestrated
civil disobedience actions in NY and at the White House
to attract media focus on ethnic cleansing. He was committed
to providing safe haven to wartime refugees, to publicizing
human rights atrocities and to prosecuting war criminals.
In coordination with his family in Israel, he also supported
Palestinian-Israeli peace movements. Earlier this year he
participated in a fact-finding human rights mission to Haiti.
He advocated working for civil rights on a local level and
peace on an international one. “We cannot let the Statue
of Liberty become the Statue of Bigotry,” he said.
Roth received his B.A. in Political Science from Brooklyn
College while married to his first wife, Toni Aberson. In
retrospect, Roth, a civil libertarian, was proud of being
suspended from his M.A. studies in Education for demonstrating
a Nuclear Test Ban. Roth went on to become a Social Studies
teacher and dedicated unionist in the NY City public school
for over 25 years. He taught at Thomas Jefferson, Queens
Outreach and Bronx Outreach High Schools. He specialized
in creating and sustaining alternative classroom magnet
programs for returning and at-risk students as well as immigrants.
In his teaching, he emphasized experimental learning, community
involvement and social responsibility. During the 1960's,
Roth created and taught, for example, a course entitled
“War Against Vietnam.” He was active in community
politics, including hosting fund raisers for Brooklyn Congressman
Major Owners and serving on the Board of Managers for his
Cooperative Apartment Building in Eastern Parkway.
Roth claimed New York as his adult home after living briefly
in Israel, where he lived and worked on kibbutz. While in
Israel, he took the name of Dani.
He traveled the world extensively -- first as a merchant
seaman, then during vacations, sabbaticals and since his
early retirement. He spoke seven languages fluently (English,
Yiddish, German, French, Hebrew, Spanish and Arabic). Roth
generously supported both the arts and numerous political
causes. He was a theater enthusiast from his early performances
in the Yiddish Theater to his repeat attendance of the Edinburgh
Festival in recent decades. In addition, Roth was an avid
photographer of candid portraits, global vistas, and the
Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.
He died in his home of a heart attack brought on by advanced
diabetes. He is survived by his immediate family by his
two children, Eric and Maya Roth, his brother Kurt Admon,
sister Florence Kemper, and many close friends and extended
family. He will be deeply missed for his vitality, storytelling,
patriotism, intelligence, and humor.
Donations may be made in his name to Coalition for Intervention
Against Genocide, 401 Broadway St. 1700, New York, NY 10013-3005
(212 966 1545); American Diabetes Association (212 725 4925);
Tikkun Foundation (212 864 4110); and/or Haiti Projects
in Partnership co/of Brooklyn Society for Ethnical Culture
(718 768 2972).
