David Makofsky

Dr. David Makofsky, born May 15, 1938 in New York City. Died July 7, 2022 in San Francisco.   David had a life-long commitment to political activism beginning with the candidacy of Henry Wallace, the socialist candidate for president in 1948, and the candidacy of Vito Marcantonio for congress as a candidate and congressman on the American Labor ticket in the 1940s.   David lived on a left-wing Mapam kibbutz after graduating from college in 1960. By the time of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza after the 1967 Israeli war with several Arab countries, his involvement and dedication to the Palestinian movement for national rights and human rights, a commitment to Ending The Occupation, became a major focus of his political life, As a Jew, the atrocities that Israel committed towards the Palestinians, were 'not going to be done in his name’. He participated in several peace missions in Palestine in the 1990s and early 2000s.   David was a grad student at UC Berkeley, in the PhD program. He came to Berkeley after graduating from Columbia College and spending a year on a radical kibbutz in Israel and a summer at the Sorbonne in Paris. David arrived in Berkeley in the dynamic sixties and plunged right in to the hyper political climate of the time. He joined marches to protest the war in Vietnam along with thousands of other students. He sat in vigils to support the Free Speech Movement. He did research on inequality in sentencing for the Civil Rights movement. He was moved to protest the Southern church bombings which killed four young black girls. He also served as an officer in his graduate student employee's union. He spoke out at meetings and rallies for the causes he believed in. And he played all the protest songs on his guitar while friends sang along.   One interesting event occurred after he had participated in a Vietnam war protest march from Berkeley to Oakland.  He received a call on Sunday morning from a friend, Art Liebman, who said, “Dave made the front page of the New York Times Sunday magazine.” He rushed out and bought the paper and there in full color was David carrying his sign at the center of the march. True to his personality he was talking animatedly to a friend, Sharon.   David's work for justice continued when he taught in Beijing and wound up getting to know Uyghurs. This inspired him to begin a project interviewing them about their experiences in China. At the time of his death, he was finalizing the copy of a book featuring these interviews.   David was preceded in death by his parents, Abe and Rose Makofsky, his beloved daughter, Jenny Makofsky, and his brother-in-law and friend, Michael Tanzer. He is survived by his devoted daughter, Serena Makofsky, her husband, Steve Lafler, and grandchildren, Addam and Max Lafler, whom he adored. He is also survived by his sister, Judy Tanzer, and her family, and his companion, Elizabeth Ooms.   Here's to a life lived brightly and courageously. The world is a better place due to visionaries like David. May his good work live on. No Service Thursday, July 07, 2022