More than 1,200 people gathered Tuesday afternoon to honor Rabbi Daniel Goldberger, one of Denver’s most respected and best-known rabbis.
Goldberger, who died Monday at age 83 after years of failing health, was eulogized as a “giant of faith and a great man” by Rabbi Stanley Wagner, a longtime friend.
Wagner said the quiet, unassuming Goldberger would have rejected the idea that he was a great man.
The service was held at BMH-BJ Synagogue.
Wagner said in his 35 years in Denver he had never seen such a crowd there for a funeral.
“No eulogy I can give could more eloquently honor Daniel Goldberger than your presence,” he said.
Steven Cohen, president of Feldman Mortuary said it was one of the largest funerals Feldman had ever handled.
Goldberger was active in every Jewish organization in town and in non-Jewish ones as well, said Sheldon Steinhauser, former director of the Mountain States Anti-Defamation League.
Goldberger was a member of the first Jewish-Catholic interfaith dialogue and had friends in every ethnic and religious group, able to share his own faith and listen to that of others, Steinhauser said.
“He wrote the music and lyrics for this community,” because of his passion about the Jewish people and the wider community, he said.
A regular in the Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Denver, Goldberger received the MLK Humanitarian Award.
A family counselor as well as a rabbi, Goldberger would “be your advocate, stand up for you, set you straight, hug you and stand by you,” said his son, Rabbi Menachem Goldberger of Maryland.
Menachem Goldberger told the story of a Holocaust survivor who came to Daniel Goldberger because she was unable to reconcile what happened to Jews in Nazi Germany.
Daniel Goldberger said he had no words to explain the Holocaust, “but I can cry with you.”
The two cried together and the woman later said “those were the first words that ever brought me comfort.”
Daniel Goldberger, often called Danny by friends, was “propelled” by his belief in the dignity of every person, his faith, his ability to love his neighbor and the pursuit of peace and truth, Wagner said.
He loved people “but not just because it was a rabbinic obligation,” Wagner said.
The Pennsylvania-born Goldberger earned his divinity degree in Chicago and was a fifth-generation rabbi.
Goldberger and his wife, Ida, married in 1947 and moved to Denver in 1951 with $50.
He served Beth Joseph Synagogue in east Denver for 20 years and then did family counseling for eight years before becoming leader of the Hebrew Educational Alliance, where he served for 15 years.
In addition to his wife and son, he is survived by his daughter, Debbie Beren of New York, and two other sons, David Goldberger and Joel Goldberger, both of Washington, D.C., and his sister, Sonia Goldberg of Illinois, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or at 303-954-1223.
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it misstated the years that Rabbi Goldberger served at Beth Joseph Synagogue. He served 20 years at Beth Joseph and 15 years at the Hebrew Educational Alliance. He did family counseling for eight years.
