Jo Amer, 79

Jo Amer, a Five Towns community activist, who advocated for Jewish rights and the environment, an was involved in politics, died on Oct. 20 after a five-year bout with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 69.
Amer was born on Nov. 6, 1934 to Lou Taxin and Gertrude Roistacher in the Bronx. Her family moved to Scarsdale when she was a young teen. She graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1951.
She attended Simmons College, where she majored in psychology and sociology. She graduated in 1954, according to her oldest son, Scott. “As a college student, she worked on Adlai Stevenson’s campaign for president,” Scott recalled. “Even early on, she was an activist.”
In the same year she graduated college, she met her husband, Norman, , and raised a family, moving from Brooklyn, to North Woodmere, and eventually settling in Hewlett Bay Park.
She loved the opera, especially Placido Domingo, and the arts, her son said. Amer was a lifetime member of the Museum Of Modern Art. “She was creative and innovative; an accomplished seamstress who designed and created coats and outfits for her grandchildren,” Scott said. “But with all Jo did she was also an incredibly supportive wife, mother and grandmother.”

Her involvement in Jewish causes began not long after giving birth to her youngest child. In 1973, she organized her first rally known as the Women’s Plea for Soviet Jewry and that same year until 1976, she served as the president of the South Shore Women’s Division American Jewish Congress. Around the same time, she served as the chairwoman of the Five Towns protest that opposed a United Nations resolution on Zionism and Racism.
She received the Allard Lowenstein Award for her devotion to justice and human understanding in 1983. Three years later, she marched in Washington, D.C. at the pro-choice rally, National March for Women’s Lives. From 1983 to 1986, she served as trustee at large for the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.
Amer organized the Nassau County-based South Shore Anti-Bias Task Force in the 1990s and directed the Five Towns Jewish Council. In 1998, she received the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. award for her anti-bias work in Nassau County.
In her later years, she was named the community relations director for the American Israel Friendship League. She also founded Graphic Concepts, Inc.: Graphic Designs by Jo Amer. “Her death truly represents the end of an era,” Scott said.
Amer was predeceased by her husband in 2011. She is survived by her younger sister, Sue (John) Baer; her children, Scott (Yvon) Amer, Jeff (Audrey) Amer, Wendy (Howard) Hirsch, and Lori (Dan) Winston; and 13 grandchildren.