Daniel Levinson

Levinson—Daniel Levinson, 91, on July 26, 2017, in Tempe, Ariz. Dan was born on April, 23, 1926, in Chicago, Ill. His father was a lawyer and a rabbi. Receiving an undergraduate and medical degree from University of Chicago, Dan met Howard Brinton, author of _Friends for 300 Years, _while doing his residency in Seattle, Wash.

He married Virginia Murray in 1960. In Tucson, Ariz., he taught at University of Arizona Medical School, first family and community medicine and later psychiatry. He also directed a mental health clinic in Tucson, co-founded the Committee for the Study of Peace and Conflict Resolution, and directed a conference on peace education. He joined Pima Meeting in Tucson in 1981. Pima Friends remember him with affection for his caring and compassion. He served on Adult Education, Hospitality, and Ministry and Oversight Committees. He also worked to offer help in supplying special needs, by setting up a pilot project called Support Services Network. He and Virginia divorced in 1996.

In 2006 he and his second wife, Ellen McMillin Rojas, moved to Tempe, and he transferred his membership to Tempe Meeting, where he offered counseling to those who asked for help. Tempe Friends greatly appreciated his view of Quakerism, which focused on service, where the Light he held greeted the Light in the other. His Quaker principles were sacrificial in that they involved caring for and helping others. He struggled with walking cheerfully despite his commitment to Quaker awareness of the divine spark in all persons. The diminishment of age was not kind to him, and Tempe Friends grieve that they did not do more to reciprocate his service.

He read many biographies such as a biography of President Herbert Hoover, and shared ideas with others about them. He faithfully followed PBS NewsHour. Aside from Brinton’s work, he found meaningful Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Among the papers he saved was an excerpt from The Jewish Spy (1766) that was published in a 1983 Friends Journal under the title “An 18th-Century Jewish View of Quakerism.” He had also kept, from the Institute of General Semantics, “Flaws,” a story about a water bearer with a pot that was cracked. When the pot told the water bearer he was ashamed of losing so much water, the water bearer replied that where the water fell, he planted flowers.

Dan is survived by his first wife, Virginia Murray Levinson; his second wife, Ellen McMillin Levinson; two children, David Levinson (Corey) and Miriam Thain (Gregg); a stepson, Gilbert Levinson; and four grandchildren.