25 January 2005- From Don Silverberg
Dear George
Just a note about my family. We still live in Israel where we have been since 1976. What started out as a one year sabbatical from the University Hospital Dept of Nephrology in Edmonton ended up as a lifetime love affair with this wonderful but embattled country. I worked as a nephrologist for 2 years in Tel Aviv and then became director of a National program on Hypertension control for the country which I did for 9 years. I then was Chief Medical Officer for Tel Aviv for 5 years and in 1990 went back to Nephrology in the Tel Aviv Medical Center.I have worked there ever since but partly retired 2 years ago. My research interests in the treatment of anemia with Erythropoietin and IV iron in both renal failure and heart failure have lead me to publish quite a lot and I am involved in lectures and/or research projects on anemia in renal failure and heart failure in Brasil, the US, Australia, New Zealand, England, Russia, Italy, Portugal, Germany and Greece as well as in Israel.
My lovely redhead Myrna has had about 14 professions in Israel since we got here- working as a gardener, a social worker, a community worker, a newspaper editor and most recently teaching English as a second language. Oh yes she is also a house wife and our 3 kids are all fully grown as are all of yours. We have lived on a kibbutz, on a moshav- another kind of collective settlement and most recently in a small village with a home overlooking the Mediteranean about half an hour north of Tel Aviv- a lovely place with lots of land and fruit trees to which you are all invited to visit when (not if) you come here.
Our daughter Harriet is a movie and TV director whose major claim to fame was working with Spielberg on the movie Schindler's List. She is married and just moved to Palo Alto with her husband and 2 kids where he is in computers.
Our eldest son Monte was a lawyer an LA and later in Israel and now works in Israel for a start up company. They have 2 kids as well.
Our second son Danny is a surgeon in Mount Sinai in NY as is his wife. They are awaiting their first kid who apparently is a boy. When Dan finishes a year of vascular surgery training they will move back to Israel.
That is our brood.
I can't tell you how proud I am of the likes of Al, John, Barry and Garry but I am not surprised. We were a great group and we were plants that were well watered and well nurtured by the likes of Doupe and Nickerson etc etc. Everyone I met at the Arizona and Winnipeg get-together was successful in their own way. How lucky we were to have lived where we lived when we did. And how lucky we were that the class was small enough for us to really be a family and so it has remained. Which is why we feel the losses of our members as we do.
My best to all
Don
Editors note: WOW! The accomplishments of you and your family are truly astounding Don!
