Starling details on fatal elevator shaft plunge

It was a bizarre and abrupt way to die for a man who, by all accounts, went at life full-bore and was fit and agile from riding his bicycle everywhere he went.

But as San Francisco police combed over the evidence Tuesday, investigators said this is what appears to have happened: Dr. Daniel J. Kliman, an Alameda physician and one of the Bay Area’s foremost pro-Israel activists, stepped into an open elevator shaft by accident last week and died.

His body was found Monday by workers inspecting an elevator in the historic, nine-story Sharon Building at 55 New Montgomery St., where Kliman apparently plunged to his death Nov. 25. As news of the discovery filtered out Tuesday, his supporters and friends were in near disbelief that someone so dynamic could be gone.

“The first words that come to mind for me when I think of Daniel are ‘vibrant’ and ‘alive,’ ” said Rabbi Judah Dardik of Beth Jacob Congregation, the orthodox synagogue in Oakland where Kliman was an active member. “That’s why this is such a shock. Whenever he was in the room, he was such a huge presence.”

Many causes

As a passionate vegetarian, Kliman dined regularly with the group Vegi-Jews in San Francisco. As an alternative transportation advocate, he participated in Critical Mass and similar bicycle protests in St. Louis and San Francisco – an issue that became even more personal to him after his father, Gerald Kliman of Schenectady, N.Y., was killed four years ago in a car wreck.

And as a single gay man, Kliman campaigned against Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment that voters approved Nov. 4 to ban same-sex marriage.

“It’s hard for me to see how he found the time to do what he did,” Meltzer said. “He was just a man who absolutely loved life.”

Starling details on fatal elevator shaft plunge
San Francisco Chronicle,  USA