Dan Hirsch Has Passed Away
Committee to Bridge the Gap
News Release
July 27, 2025
With deep sadness but also with heartfelt gratitude for a life well lived, the Committee to Bridge the Gap announces the death of its founder, Daniel O. Hirsch, on July 19th 2025 at his home in Ben Lomond, California. CBG board chair Jack Miles had earlier accepted Hirsch’s resignation as president of Bridge the Gap on the grounds of grievously worsening health. Anthony Zepeda, CBG secretary, had agreed to succeed Hirsch as president and had begun transitional meetings with CBG staff.
Committee to Bridge the Gap came formally into being as an organization in a meeting at UCLA after Hirsch had returned home to Los Angeles, and in its early years the organization addressed a variety of ongoing social and political issues, notably including the cause of peace and reconciliation in Israel/Palestine. Gradually, however, and particularly after Hirsch’s appointment as director of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, nuclear safety became CBG’s central public-interest mission. Just two days before his death, Hirsch delivered a powerful public comment at a virtual hearing contesting Executive Order 14300 radically reducing radiation safety standards. In that spirit, the work of CBG will continue.
Privately, Hirsch, who never married, lived a life of monastic simplicity and frugality. Though an atheist, he maintained a close spiritual relationship with the sisters of Redwoods Monastery, in rural Humboldt County. By the terms of his will, the wealth he had accumulated through a lifetime of willed poverty will go to the poor. As the crippling effects of chronic Q-fever progressively incapacitated him, Dan Hirsch chose not to prolong a life whose continuation would only squander the wealth he had destined for others. May his memory be a blessing, most especially for all who sacrifice private comfort for the public good and all who when they speak truth to power, do so modestly and with meticulous attention to all the facts.
CBG will announce memorial services for Hirsch when plans are complete. Mourners may make donations in his honor to Doctors Without Borders doctorswithoutborders.org or Give Directly givedirectly.org