This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here. Beth Salamensky often kept to herself.
Though she was a regular member of the congregation at Beth Chayim Chadashim in Los Angeles — the first L.G.B.T.Q. synagogue in the country — she usually sat in the back during services.
And she was also alone when she died of the coronavirus, at 43, on April 17 at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Chicago. Her family learned of her death only months later.
She hadn’t mentioned to them that she was sick, and she didn’t have a wallet or a phone at the hospital, or contact information for the staff.