Nathaniel Gold-finger, the AFL-CIO’s director of research who died July 22 of cancer, was eulogized at his funeral Sunday by three speakers who recalled his special regard for the well-being of Israel and agonized in the suffering of fellow Jews in lands not kindly disposed to them. Goldfinger was closely associated with Israel’s Histadrut for many years. He had attended Temple Sinai in Washington.
Rabbi David Saperstein of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations said Goldfinger applied the basic tenets of Judaism for equality and justice for all men by his work in the labor movement. Lane Kirdland, Secretary Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, and Prof. Hester Rapkin, a Princeton urbanologist who had known Goldfinger since their high school days in New York, were other speakers at services at the Danzansky Goldberg Memorial Chapel in Rockville, Md. Burial was in King David Memorial Garden in nearby Virginia.
Goldfinger, 59, was described by the AFL-CIO announcement of his death as “organized labor’s too economist.” Its president. George Meany. said Goldfinger “was one of the most decent, warm human beings we ever knew.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
