RUTH MARKOVITZ

MARKOVITZ--Ruth Helen, in her sleep on Wednesday morning, October 28. Ruth, 84, passed away at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital. The immediate cause of death was pneumonia, in conjunction with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, diagnosed in August 2017. She was at peace, totally coherent, and not in pain. Her last thoughts were of her family and friends, her cousins and all of those people important in her life that she loved dearly. Ruth graduated as Valedictorian from Bayside High School, Summa Cum Laude from Brandeis University (where she was also Editor in Chief of The Justice), completed all of her studies, except for the dissertation in sociology as a Woodrow Wilson and Mc- Enerny scholar at U.C. (Berkeley), and obtained a law degree from Columbia where she was a Barbara Black Scholar, a Stone Scholar, and declined an invitation to join the Columbia Law Review. She tremendously enjoyed her work and her colleagues in the NYC Law Department, at the NYC Department of Mental Health, and as Chief Deputy Nassau County Attorney. Trying to retire, she was called back several times, including to the 2010 NYC Charter Revision Commission, and as the Deputy Administrative Justice Coordinator of the NYC Office of the Mayor. She was a boon companion in all of life's activities. She loved to travel. She had a vast capacity for the enjoyment of theater and the arts, food, and especially of a wide range of people, whom she understood in their complexities and whom she took seriously - and with respect. It was with a critical empathy that she took the measure of all things. Justice was a life- long concern. She felt the pain, both personally and socially, suffered by the most vulnerable, and in her work and life did what she could to alleviate moral indignities, oppression, and harassment. She was a person of grace, of dignity, of beauty, who was a pleasure to talk to and who listened. Married for 62 years to Lenny Markovitz, she was a wonderful cook, baked challah almost every Friday, and loved her children and their spouses: Amy Markovitz and Maurice Beaudry; Jonathan Markovitz and Christine Photinos.