Born in Charleroi, Pennsylvania on March 16, 1932, Elaine Danzig, a gifted artist, community leader, and longtime resident of Little Silver, died peacefully on July 13, 2024. Elaine was the loving daughter of Leonard Snyder and Gertrude Westerman Snyder, devoted wife of the late Dr. Leonard S. Danzig for 54 years, and the younger sister of the late Bernard Snyder and Muriel Gluckman.
After graduating as valedictorian of her high school class of 1950, Elaine followed her older sister Muriel to the University of Pennsylvania, College for Women, majoring in Psychology and graduating in 1954 with the Phi Beta Kappa designation earned in her junior year. While at Penn she met her beloved Leonard on a blind date and the two married on December 26, 1953 in Pittsburgh. They moved to Boston and then to Red Bank where Leonard established his medical practice. In 1959 they moved to Little Silver where they raised their four children.
As an artist, Elaine was well known locally for her bronze and terra cotta sculpture and oil painting. She held several one-woman shows in New Jersey and also exhibited in New York City and Chicago. She studied with Chaim Gross at the New School for Social Research.
Elaine was also active in volunteer work, serving on the Board of the local Planned Parenthood and as Chair of the Monmouth Arts Foundation, where she instituted Musicales, including fundraising concerts to fund student art scholarships. She was also involved in arranging traveling theater productions at Red Bank’s Carlton Theater, since renamed the Count Basie Theater.
Elaine was a longtime member of Congregation B’nai Israel in Rumson, Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls and, more recently, Congregation Or Zarua, in New York City. She and Leonard traveled widely and shared a great love of classical music and opera, enjoying a decades long subscription to the Metropolitan Opera.
Elaine is survived by son Allen Danzig (Lynn), daughter Anne Schneider (Reed), son Andrew Danzig (Nancy), and son Robert Danzig (Lorraine), grandchildren Lauren, Jonathan, Mariel, Emily and Sophia, and great grandsons, Samuel, Levi and Michael. She is predeceased by her grandson Theodore.
Burial at Beth El Cemetery, Neptune. Gathering for family and friends following burial at Rumson Jewish Center at Congregation B’nai Israel.
Contributions in Elaine’s memory may be made to the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County, 310 Mounts Corner Drive, P.O. Box 7078, Freehold Township, NJ 07728; https://www.jhmomc.org/
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Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth CountyP.O. Box 7078, Freehold Township, New Jersey 07728
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