Ora Pescovitz
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Interviewee: ORA PESCOVITZ
Interviewer: Dena Scher
Interview Date: May 2, 2023
Location: President’s Office; Oakland University, Rochester Hills, Michigan
DOB: 9/23/1966
Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
Interview No.: 05.02.23-OP (audio digital file)
(Approximate total length: 1 hour 18 minutes)
Transcription: Yousaidit (DS), Fiverr
Themes: Jewish Identity, Holocaust, Immigration, Observance, Upbringing
Summary: Ora Pescovitz grew up in a home where Hebrew was the family language. Her mother was born in Poland and grew up in the Ural Mountains of Russia. Ora’s mother spoke six languages, but not English. Many members of the maternal family died in the Auschwitz concentration camp. After the war, Ora’s mother survived for two years in displaced person camps and then arrived in Israel on May 16th, 1948. My mother ended up on the very first boat that landed in Israel after it was declared a state. Ora’s father’s family came to Cleveland in the United States in the early 1900’s from Eastern Europe (Hungary). Her father was an esteemed Rabbi who led the Reform movement to become Zionist. The family moved from Denver to Chicago (where Ora and her three younger brothers were born), and then to Washington, DC when her father became the founding director of the Religious Action Center. She and her brothers belonged to Reform congregations, went to an Orthodox yeshiva and a conservative Hebrew school as well as public school in Bethesda, MD. In 1973, the whole family made Aliyah (immigrated) to Israel---it was right before the Yom Kippur War. She graduated high school before moving to Israel. Her college education was at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. At the suggestion of her uncle who lived in Chicago, she applied to Northwestern University--there she received her medical school degree and met her husband-to-be, who was a year ahead of her. She became a pediatric endocrinologist and her husband’s specialty was transplant surgery. They had 3 children and worked in Indianapolis and Michigan. At the time of her husband’s death, Ora was the CEO of the University of Michigan health system. Her husband died in 2010 in a winter ice storm auto accident. It was helpful to realize that, although it was terrible, my circumstances were not more difficult than many other people who had difficult circumstances…. So, I didn’t feel that I could pity myself.
Note: At the time of this interview (May, 2023) Dr. Pescovitz is the President of Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan. She became president in 2017. This interview does not cover the tenure of her presidency.
Example of proper citation/ attribution:
Scher, D. (Interviewer) & Pescovitz, O. (Interviewee). (2023) Ora Pescovitz: Jewish Journeys [Interview transcript]. Retrieved from Jewish Journeys Oral History Collection of Congregation Shir Tikvah: https://shirtikvah.org/cstoralhistoryarchive
Additional Materials
Note: Ora’s father, Richard Hirsch, wrote about their marriage in an article, “Let me hear you voice. A lover is listening.” That article and a picture of Richard & Bella follows:
Note: Her father with President Lyndon Johnson at signing of Civil Rights Act.
Note: I have three great children, three great in-law children, and eight grandchildren: Pictures of the books by her children and her brothers are displayed below as well as a children's book by President Pescovitz:
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Interviewer: [00:00:44] So, When was it that you first knew that you were Jewish?
Interviewee: [00:00:53] At conception. I mean, I’ve always know that I was Jewish.
Interviewer: [00:00:57] Okay. So, what were some of those early remembrances of yours? Maybe Jewish holidays or something, the earliest ones that you can think of.
Interviewee: [00:01:09] Well, you know, my parents- I grew up in a Jewish home. My father was a rabbi, my mother didn’t speak English as a first language, so Hebrew was my first language.
Interviewer: [00:01:23] Was your mother’s first language Hebrew?
Interviewee: [00:01:25] No. My mother’s first language was Polish, Russian, Yiddish. English was her last language. So, Hebrew was my first language. So, I grew up in a home that was infused with Judaism.
Interviewer: [00:01:43] Okay. And you had brothers and sisters?
Interviewee: [00:01:46] I was the oldest of four children, and I had three younger brothers.
Interviewer: [00:01:52] And where did your parents come from? What’s their background?
Interviewee: [00:01:57] My mother was born in Łódź, Poland, but grew up in city called Zlatoust, in the Ural Mountains in Russia. Her father was killed by Stalin in 1937. She was there with her mother and her three siblings. They survived the war barely, but with starvation. The rest of her family, a large part of her family, was in the Łódź ghetto, and was killed in Auschwitz. So, I don’t know most of my great grandparents, aunts and uncles, great aunts and uncles.
Interviewer: [00:02:44] This is on your mother’s side.
Interviewee: [00:02:45] On my mother’s side. My mother spent the war years largely starving in the Soviet Union. And then, after the war, she spent two years in displaced persons camps throughout Europe, largely in Bergen-Belsen. And then, she ended up in Israel.
Interviewer: [00:03:10] Wait, before you say ended up, how did that happen?
Interviewee: [00:03:13] You know how after the war, displaced persons ended up going to various countries. Some came to America, some went to Canada.
Interviewer: [00:03:22] Was there a Jewish agency?
Interviewee: [00:03:24] Yes, through the Jewish Agency. The Jewish Agency sent people to various countries. My mother ended up on the very first boat that landed in Israel after it was declared a state. They left illegally…
Interviewer: [00:03:36] 1948?
Interviewee: [00:03:38] She ended up in Israel on May 16th 1948. She was 17 or 18 years old. She was taken straight to the army. She was the only woman in a battalion of 60 men, and handed a gun. She was a nurse, and she served on the front lines in the war of independence in Israel.
Interviewer: [00:04:01] Amazing. So…
Interviewee: [00:04:06] So, that was the beginning of my mother’s story. Not the beginning- she lived a very difficult childhood. Landed in Israel in 1948. And her family, on my mother’s side, is all in Israel. On my father’s side, his family came from Eastern Europe, largely Hungary. But they came to the United States in the early 1900s, I think maybe 1912.
Interviewer: [00:04:44] Did they come as a group?
Interviewee: [00:04:47] No. Individually. My grandmother’s brother - they were one of 10 or 12 children - came alone, a 12-year-old child. He came alone, and then…
Interviewer: [00:05:05] To New York?
Interviewee: [00:05:06] They landed in Cleveland. And so, my grandmother and my grandfather ended up in Cleveland, and my father grew up in Cleveland. And my father became very interested… At the age of 13, he won an oratorical contest…
Interviewer: [00:05:28] This is back in Hungary?
Interviewee: [00:05:30] No, in Cleveland. And he was praised by Abba Hillel Silver, who was a very famous rabbi. He won Abba Hillel Silver’s oratorical contest.
Interviewer: [00:05:43] Interesting,at the age of 13.
Interviewee: [00:05:46] And decided to become a rabbi.
Interviewer: [00:05:48] They were already enmeshed in the Jewish community in Cleveland, I take it.
Interviewee: [00:05:51] I don’t know that his family was that enmeshed. They were Jewish, they were very aware of being Jewish, but my father was a very good speaker, even at the age of 13. And I think he was very cognizant of his good speaking skills, and he became interested in Zionism at a very young age.
Interviewer: [00:06:19] Was he in a Jewish school?
Interviewee: [00:06:22] No, not a Jewish day school, a public school.
Interviewer: [00:06:24] And he was speaking English. But he also knew…
Interviewee: [00:06:28] Something about Israel, and became very excited about Israel. And so, he decided to go to rabbinical school, and was encouraged to do that.
Interviewer: [00:06:39] So, in his high school years he had this interest, and then when he graduated from high school…
Interviewee: [00:06:45] Went to college at Case Western Reserve, and then went to Hebrew Union College to go to rabbinical school.
Interviewer: [00:06:53] And how many brothers and sisters did he have?
Interviewee: [00:06:55] He had one brother who became a child psychiatrist, who actually was also very important in my life because he actually influenced me in medicine.
Interviewer: [00:07:10] So, your father becomes a rabbi, and your mother is growing up…
Interviewee: [00:07:17] In Russia, by the way…
Interviewer: [00:07:19] In Israel now.
Interviewee: [00:07:20] Well, she grew up in Russia, and interestingly, even though my family was very aware that they were Jewish, my grandmother only really spoke Yiddish. She never really spoke Russian.
Interviewer: [00:07:35] She never spoke Russian?
Interviewee: [00:07:36] She understood Russian, but they came from Poland. So, my mother spoke six languages, but my grandmother mostly spoke Yiddish. Even when they went to Israel she understood Hebrew, but her language was Yiddish.
Interviewer: [00:07:56] And your father’s language was English.
Interviewee: [00:07:59] And he read and studied Hebrew, but he mainly spoke English.
Interviewer: [00:08:06] Let me just stop here for a minute. So, the earlier family was in the Pale,right? That part of Poland and Russia. And they suffered through Stalin, and they suffered- many of them died. But your grandmother, auspiciously, went to Israel at the very beginning, when Israel became a state. And she fought for Israel…
Interviewee: [00:08:39] My mother.
Interviewer: [00:08:40] Your mother. Your grandmother survived…
Interviewee: [00:08:45] My grandmother was led too, along with her four children. My mother was one of the four children.
Interviewer: [00:08:52] And then, on the other side of the world, your father’s family had emigrated mostly from Hungary.
Interviewee: [00:09:03] Yeah. I think mostly Hungary.
Interviewer: [00:09:07] And he came very early, when he was a young boy.
Interviewee: [00:09:12] My grandparents. My father was born in Cleveland.
Interviewer: [00:09:16] Okay. And when your father became around 13, he won a contest, he was already a spokesperson, and then he continued on to become a rabbi.
Interviewee: [00:09:29] Yes.
Interviewer: [00:09:30] Let’s continue. Did I get that?
Interviewee: [00:09:32] Yes.
Interviewer: [00:09:33] Okay. So, then, can you continue the story of either of them, and how they met?
Interviewee: [00:09:41] Yes. interestingly, in 1948 or 1949, my father took a trip to Israel because he was very interested in Israel. He was a Zionist, which was very rare, by the way, for Reform Jews in that era. Because Reform Jews- You’re part of Reform?
Interviewer: [00:10:05] I’m conservative reform.
Interviewee: [00:10:07] Yes. But in that period of time, reform Jews were not interested in Israel. So, it was very rare for reform Jews to be interested in Israel. But my father always had an interest in…
Interviewer: [00:10:18] Do you know why? Do you have any sense of what it was?
Interviewee: [00:10:22] It was part of the reform movement, actually, to be anti-Zionist. In fact, my father is known today as the architect of Reform Zionism. His history is…
Interviewer: [00:10:33] Yes. Do you know why he, at that time, thought differently than the other Jews?
Interviewee: [00:10:39] I think he was influenced by a few leaders at the time. And he was also impacted by the whole idea of the Holocaust, and the idea that Israel should serve as a homeland. So, he took a trip to Israel shortly after WWII in 1949. I think it was 1949. And coincidentally, as my parents eventually learned after they married one another, they discovered that they were in a few of the same places at the same time, and could have met earlier than they did, but it wasn’t there. In fact, my father even had some amazing 60mm movies of his trip then, which we still have. They're quite fantastic movies. Movies of Ben Gurion, Mount Hermon, amazing movies, historical movies which are very valuable today. Places where he and my mother were at the same time. They were able to document, subsequently, that they were there together, but they did not meet. My mother was living in Israel. By this point, she had served in the Haganah and in the War of Independence. As I said, she was a soldier. She was quite a courageous and unbelievably impressive person. She had lived this very difficult life. And my father, after this trip, came back and served as a rabbi, and he had his first pulpit in Denver. And during this time, one of the things he did was become a rabbi for a camp in Denver called Camp Shwayder, which was a summer camp in the Denver mountains. There’s a family here, and I think they're connected here in Detroit too, the Shwayder Camp that owns Samsonite luggage.
Interviewer: [00:12:46] Okay. Now, you said you were the eldest. How old were you at this time?
Interviewee: [00:12:53] I was not in the story yet. I’m gonna tell you how my parents met. So, Camp Shwayder was founded by the Shwayder family, the Samsonite luggage family. And they started this Jewish camp in the mountains in Denver. And my father was the director of the camp. And my mother - they didn’t know each other - my mother- this is 1954. My mother had been working in Israel as a nurse, in clinics in Israel as a nurse. She decided to take a trip to visit the United States.
Interviewer: [00:13:38] By herself?
Interviewee: [00:13:39] By herself. And so, of this family from Poland that she had, a large family from Łódź, most of whom did not survive the Holocaust, there were two survivors. Actually, there were three survivors. One was in Israel, and two were in the United States. So, she wanted to take this trip to travel. She was in her mid 20s. So, she went to visit the American family. One lived in New York, and one lived in Denver.
Interviewer: [00:14:26] So, she had kept in touch.
Interviewee: [00:14:27] I don’t know exactly…
Interviewer: [00:14:29] She knew there was somebody.
Interviewee: [00:14:30] Mainly she was a young woman, 25 or 26, and she was interested in travel, and she was an adventurous person, a very courageous, adventurous, beautiful person. Very stylish, very adventurous, extremely attractive. And she mainly wanted an excuse, I think, to travel. So, she went to visit the two relatives, the one in New York and the one in Denver. When she got to the relative in Denver, they have a family with three daughters, and she didn’t really have enough money to complete all the traveling she wanted to do. She went with the family who had three little daughters, she went with them to their pediatrician’s appointment, and they said Bella - my mother’s name - Bella could use a job. And the pediatrician said, ‘Well, you know, the director at the summer camp at Camp Shwayder is looking for a nurse. Maybe you could ask her to get an interview with the rabbi. Check it out with the rabbi.’ So, she got an interview with the rabbi. The rabbi met her and said, ‘Bella, would you like a summer job as a nurse at Camp Shwayder?’
Interviewer: [00:15:57] Was he thinking in his head, ‘And she’s beautiful?’
Interviewee: [00:16:01] I’ll let you read the book, that chapter. But he hired her. At the end of the summer- actually, what’s not in this chapter I’m gonna let you read is that many years later, I found - I was a nosy teenager - and I was reading- my parents lived in Israel. I’ll tell you that later. But, my parents lived in Israel for four years. I was rummaging through my mother’s stuff. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I was just looking. You know how kids sometimes do. I don’t know what I was looking for. I found a letter in Hebrew - because I have to tell you, they didn’t have a common language except for Hebrew. My mother didn’t speak English. So, she spoke six languages, but English wasn’t one of them. I found a letter my mother wrote to my father in Hebrew, which said, ‘Dear Dick, it was lovely knowing you.’ It was dated August 25th. ‘It was lovely knowing you. I’m sorry our summer is coming to an end. It was nice knowing you, I’m sorry we’ll never see each other again.’ Some version of that. They were married September 5th.
Interviewer: [00:17:26] He got the message, did he?
Interviewee: [00:14:28] There’s a version that he writes in this chapter. Let me see how it is. It’s very nice. He writes… Yeah, he wrote it here. He said: “Bella and I bade farewell to each other with no commitment for the future. I almost flubbed it. But after one day alone without Bella, I panicked. How could I lose her? I called her on the phone to tell her that I was driving from camp down to Denver immediately because I had an important question to ask her. When I arrived, I blurted it out. How would you like to spend the rest of your life with me? She responded characteristically, ‘It’s not a bad idea.’ We embraced. Several days later we flew together to Miami” - where his mother, my grandmother, lived - “On Sunday, September 5th 1954, we were married in a modest ceremony at the home of my parents.”
Interviewer: [00:18:24] Wonderful. Who can top that?
Interviewee: [00:18:28] So, great story. But they didn’t have a language in common except for Hebrew. I don’t know that my dad’s Hebrew at the time was… I don’t know, but I don’t think it was totally fluent, because…
Interviewer: [00:18:43] So did she go back to Israel after they got married, or did she immediately… ?
Interviewee: [00:18:48] She stayed. I mean, then they ended up making many trips back and forth, including with us as children.
Interviewer: [00:18:52] Sure, but that September, they got married, and she left the people in Israel, the nurses…
Interviewee: [00:19:03] I think so, I don’t know.
Interviewer: [00:19:03] So, they made their first home in Denver.
Interviewee: [00:19:09] In Denver. I think I was conceived there. And then they moved to Chicago, where he had a pulpit.
Interviewer: [00:19:16] Okay. So, do you remember…
Interviewee: [00:19:20] I don’t remember how I was conceived in Denver.
Interviewer: [00:19:22] You were born…
Interviewee: [00:19:24] I was born in Chicago.
Interviewer: [00:19:25] In Chicago. So, at this point, was your father moving to a larger congregation?
Interviewee: [00:19:31] I think so. He might have been an assistant rabbi in Denver. And I think he might have been an assistant rabbi in Chicago too. He was a rabbi in Temple Israel in Chicago.
Interviewer: [00:19:45] I’ll come back to where we were, but did he stay very long in Chicago?
Interviewee: [00:19:50] He was in Chicago until I was- I was born in Chicago, my three brothers were born in Chicago. I was born in 1956, and I think we stayed there until 1961 or 1962.
Interviewer: [00:20:09] And then where did he go?
Interviewee: [00:20:10] Then he got a job, and he was the founding director of the religious action center in Washington. And I believe that was- I have to look that up.
Interviewer: [00:20:20] So, you were still a young girl then?
Interviewee: [00:20:26] I was five.
Interviewer: [00:20:29] Okay. so, let’s go back to the home that you remember, which was in Chicago.
Interviewee: [00:20:34] I do remember it. I was born in Rogers Park. We had a very small apartment…
Interviewer: [00:20:38] Excuse me? You were born in the park?
Interviewee: [00:20:40] Rogers Park.
Interviewer: [00:20:41] Okay.
Interviewee: [00:20:43] Rogers Park in Chicago.
Interviewer: [00:20:45] Is that a hospital?
Interviewee: [00:20:46] No.
Interviewer: [00:20:46] Is that a park?
Interviewee: [00:20:48] No, it’s a neighborhood in Chicago.
Interviewer: [00:20:50] Okay thank you.
Interviewee: [00:20:53] It’s a Jewish neighborhood in Chicago.
Interviewer: [00:20:55] Okay. So, then your brothers came along.
Interviewee: [00:21:00] Four children in three and a half years.
Interviewer: [00:21:03] Your mother was dynamic. Okay.
Interviewee: [00:21:06] My mother was amazing.
Interviewer: [00:21:08] So, tell me about the early memories that you have.
Interviewee: [00:21:13] I just have a memory of… First of all, I have strong memories of both my parents who are both deceased recently, relatively recently.
Interviewer: [00:21:22] Sorry.
Interviewee: [00:21:23] But my parents were a dynamic duo. First of all, as I said, my parents spoke Hebrew at home, because first of all, they wanted us to learn Hebrew, but initially it was the language that they had in common.
Interviewer: [00:21:39] And that reflected your father’s Zionism.
Interviewee: [00:21:45] Well, both of them. But you should know that my mom, although she grew up in… My mother never stepped foot in a synagogue in her life until she met my dad. Because she…
Interviewer: [00:22:00] She lived in the state of Israel.
Interviewee: [00:22:00] Well, first of all, in Russia, they didn’t have- I mean, she knew she was Jewish, and in fact they were probably discriminated against because they were Jewish. At the same time, they had no actual formal forms of religion. When she got to Israel, they were mostly secular. I mean, they lit candles, they were aware that they were Jewish, it was a Jewish state, but they were not religious, they were mostly secular. And when she told her family in Israel that she was marrying a rabbi, they cracked up, because their vision of a rabbi was a Hasidic rabbi. So, it was not something that they could conceive. So, she had never been in a synagogue before she met my father.
Interviewer: [00:22:49] And then she marries a rabbi.
Interviewee: [00:22:51] So, when she became rebbetzin… You know, for them, the concept was anathema. They really couldn’t conceive of the idea. But she became an amazing partner to my father and his work, because she became a wonderful and critical partner to his lifelong work, which was very significant. My father eventually- first, he was the founding- after those few years as a congregational rabbi, he became an institutional rabbi. He became the founding director of the Religious Action Center, and then he became the executive director of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. And he was also an executive of the Jewish Agency. So, he had major positions in the Jewish world, and my mother was a major partner in all of that, and she really supported his work. So, she was a quick study, and she learned… She learned about it, she learned how to support him, and she was a wonderful partner. A big part of that was hosting functions in our home. As a child, our home was always the center of many communal events. And we lived relatively modestly, but we always had people, whether it was Jewish people, or legislators, or inter-clergy people in our home…
Interviewer: [00:24:29] Is that what you remember as a child? You remember that there were always people around?
Interviewee: [00:24:32] Always. Always.
Interviewer: [00:24:34] And your parents being very involved.
Interviewee: [00:24:38] Always. And I also remember very- a great deal of tolerance, a great deal of debate in my family of differing views, a great deal of acceptance of varying viewpoints. Starting, by the way, with my own parents. Because my parents themselves did not share political views. They loved each other, it was a passionate, incredible love affair, but they almost never voted the same in an election. They were dual citizens. They were citizens of Israel. I didn’t say that they moved to Israel, but I haven't gotten that far. But they were dual citizens of both Israel and the United States, but they almost never voted- their votes always canceled each other out, both in Israeli and in American elections.
Interviewer: [00:25:37] So, I have a hard time figuring out which way either of them were.
Interviewee: [00:25:44] It’s actually not that hard to figure out if you remember that my mother grew up in communist Russia, because a lot of people who were exposed to communism, whether it was in Russia or Cuba, or other people who grew up under communism, became very passionate about the United States. They loved the United States with an enormous degree of passion. My mother was passionate about America.
Interviewer: [00:26:15] So, she voted more right.
Interviewee: [00:26:16] That's correct. Except on social issues. But she was a capitalist, because she learned what communism was about.
Interviewer: [00:26:27] In your family there were lots of people around. Do you remember these kinds of issues being talked about?
Interviewee: [00:26:33] Always. So, we had people of different faiths, we had people of different racial groups, we had people of different socioeconomic groups, and we had people of different viewpoints, especially during the Washington years. So, when we lived in Washington, we always had heated debates at our table, and my parents included us as children in the dinner discussions.
Interviewer: [00:26:59] So, that's what I’d like to hear more about, the viewpoint you had as a child of this home that was active, and so intellectual, and so dynamic.
Interviewee: [00:27:13] It was an amazing way to grow up. First of all, Washington was an amazing place, and we grew up there in the 60s. I mean, that was my childhood, from the early 60s until 1973, when my parents made Aliyah. I mean, that was really my childhood. I don’t really remember much from Chicago. 1956 until 1960, I was a young child. What I remember is 1960 to 1973.
Interviewer: [00:27:42] And that was the Washington years?
Interviewee: [00:27:42] Yes. And that was when my father…
Interviewer: [00:27:46] Do you remember playing with your brothers?
Interviewee: [00:27:49] Yes.
Interviewer: [00:27:50] What was that like?
Interviewee: [00:27:51] I was bossy. We were very close in age. We were boom-boom-boom, a child every year. But I was bossy.
Interviewer: [00:28:01] You ruled the roost. Okay. Tell me something about holidays.
Interviewee: [00:28:08] Well, like I said, my dad had this big job, and we were basically members of all the congregations in Washington because of my father’s position. And then we also went to Hebrew school, we were members of all the Reform congregations. So, we went to Hebrew school at the conservative congregation, and then we also went to an Orthodox yeshiva, because our parents wanted to make sure that we had a really good Jewish education. And we spoke Hebrew at home, and we were also close to the members of the Israeli embassy who were there. Yitzhak Rabin was the ambassador to Israel at the time, and Yuval Rabin, the son of Yitzhak Rabin, was one of my close friends. So, we had the full spectrum, from secular, to Reform, to Orthodox, to conservative, and we were friends with everyone.
Interviewer: [00:29:12] But you didn’t see it that way. Were you cognizant that now you’re going to the conservative, and now you’re going to the…
Interviewee: [00:29:22] I was totally cognizant of it, but it didn't really matter.
Interviewer: [00:29:26] And they were your friends?
Interviewee: [00:29:27] All of them.
Interviewer: [00:29:29] So, your schooling was…
Interviewee: [00:29:32] I went to public school. Because I went to public school, our parents were concerned that we didn’t have enough of a Jewish education.
Interviewer: [00:29:41] So, in the afternoon, on the weekends…
Interviewee: [00:29:44] We celebrated every holiday.
Interviewer: [00:29:48] What was your favorite?
Interviewee: [00:29:51] My favorite Jewish holiday? Pesach.
Interviewer: [00:29:54] And not Jewish? I mean, you said that…
Interviewee: [00:29:57] Thanksgiving. ANd that's still true today.
Interviewer: [00:30:02] And the other was Pesach?
Interviewee: [00:30:05] Pesach and Thanksgiving.
Interviewer: [00:30:06] Because?
Interviewee: [00:30:09] Family.
Interviewer: [00:30:10] What were your Pesachs like?
Interviewee: [00:30:12] Huge. And they got bigger when I started to host them.
Interviewer: [00:30:17] Okay, we’ll get there. And Thanksgiving was also huge? Okay. What was it like…
Interviewee: [00:30:24] But they also got bigger later.
Interviewer: [00:30:26] Okay. So, what was it like as a child in public school, with your background? Was your public school everybody, was this…
Interviewee: [00:30:37] I went to a really good public school in Bethesda.
Interviewer: [00:30:42] Is that where you lived?
Interviewee: [00:30:43] Yeah.
Interviewer: [00:30:43] Okay. And were the students mostly Jewish?
Interviewee: [00:30:50] No. I mean, it was a public school, but there were Jews in our community, so it wasn’t like we were the only Jews. However… I’m just gonna stop for a second. I’ll just go get a picture. My dad was really active in the Civil Rights movement, so I’ll just go to that part of things. It was a period that was stressful. I don’t know if you know this part. It sounded like you knew part of my dad’s story. I don’t know if you know that my father was very close with Martin Luther King.
Interviewer: [00:31:25] Okay. I did not know that.
Interviewee: [00:31:31] So, MLK used my father’s offices when he came to Washington. That was the home base. The Religious Action Center is where - and it’s still on the historic registry - for where the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that's where those were drafted. And that was a very- that's why so much activity took place at my house. My parents took me with them to the March on Washington.
Interviewer: [00:32:15] How old were you then?
Interviewee: [00:32:16] I was six, almost seven. So, a big part of my childhood was this activity that my father was really active in. This is a picture of my father with Johnson, getting one of the pens that was used to sign the Civil Rights Act. And a few years ago we were in my parents’ apartment in Jerusalem, cleaning out the apartment, and I found several pictures that Juanita Roberts, the secretary to President Johnson, wrote to my dad. “Dear Rabbi Hersch, the president was looking through some of his pictures today, and thought you might like to have this. So, this is a picture of him getting one of the pens, and then here was another one. But what I do remember, even though there were Jews in public school, but I remember that not everybody was happy with my dad’s activities. And I remember, as a child, having our driveway and front yard- having swastikas painted on our driveway, and I remember our front yard being toilet papered.
Interviewer: [00:33:39] Remind me again what age you were?
Interviewee: [00:33:43] I don’t remember. I could have been a little older. I could have been 10.
Interviewer: [00:33:47] Was that your first direct occasion of antisemitism?
Interviewee: [00:33:52] I’m not sure if it was antisemitism or anti my father’s activities in the Civil Rights Movement.
Interviewer: [00:33:58] But how did you experience it as a child? What did you think about it?
Interviewee: [00:34:03] I don’t remember thinking it was antisemitism. I remembered being fearful for my father. The other time I remember being fearful- I don’t remember thinking it was antisemitism. I don’t remember that was my thought.
Interviewer: [00:34:21] You were just scared for your father.
Interviewee: [00:34:22] I was scared for my father. The other time I was very frightened for him, MLK asked him to come to Selma. And he went to Selma, and it was right after people had been killed. If you remember those three people that were killed. And he was asked to come there. And I remember my mother said, ‘You have to go’ to my dad. And I remember saying, ‘No, you don’t.’
Interviewer: [00:34:49] Okay. You could say that to your brothers, and they’d listen, but I don’t think he listened.
Interviewee: [00:34:55] No, he didn’t listen. He went, and he… I remember that he went, and I remember saying ‘No, you don’t’, and I remember he said, ‘Yes I do.’ ‘Ora/la, yes I do’
Interviewer: [00:35:10] So, still, I wanna get back to your story, and particularly your childhood in this public school.
Interviewee: [00:35:17] Yeah. But I don’t remember feeling… Honestly, I don't remember experiencing antisemitism. But maybe that was just because so much of our lives was tied up with being Jewish. We went to synagogue, we had…
Interviewer: [00:35:40] Did you have a Bat Mitzvah?
Interviewee: [00:35:41] My Bat Mitzvah was in Israel, because we were living- My dad had a sabbatical in… It must have been 1969. I was 12, I wasn’t 13. And I had- I think it was the first time in the history of Israel where a girl read from the Torah.
Interviewer: [00:36:01] Did you get a special dispensation, or you just did it?
Interviewee: [00:36:06] I think we might have just done it. But what we did get a special dispensation for, which was years later, was my wedding. It was also in Israel. But you probably wanna wait a little while for that. But I did have a Bat Mitzvah in Israel.
Interviewer: [00:36:23] So, your life was really encompassed by the dynamic, the amazing family- and you had a big family also, just with the brothers and all. Who were your friends at public school? Were they Jewish?
Interviewee: [00:36:41] I had a lot of friends, Jewish and non-Jewish. But I probably gravitated towards Jewish kids. It was very active in USY. By the time I got to junior high and high school, I was very active in USY. I told you I went to a conservative Hebrew afterschool.
Interviewer: [00:37:01] Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, right?
Interviewee: [00:37:04] Right. So, most of my friends…
Interviewer: [00:37:07] But you knew Hebrew, so it was easy for you.
Interviewee: [00:37:11] It was very easy for me. I was ahead of the pack.
Interviewer: [00:37:15] So, that was the conservative part.
Interviewee: [00:37:18] That's where most of my friends- I would say that by the time I was in junior high and high school, my social life was USY. And I started to date, and I dated from there.
Interviewer: [00:37:35] Okay. So, when you started to date…
Interviewee: [00:37:37] I had a boyfriend who was two years older than me, he was the head of USY.
Interviewer: [00:37:44] So it was exclusively Jewish boys that you dated.
Interviewee: [00:37:47] That's true. And I have a very interesting story. My father had received a big honor in Israel, and I remember I told this story because- I told it in front of a thousand people. It was a true story. When I was 16 I said to my dad- this is a true story, I told it probably 10, 12 years later, maybe even longer. I remember, as a teenager, I was mostly a goody-goody. But my father was so active in the Civil Rights Movement. And so, one day I came home and I said to him, totally straight-faced, you know, ‘Abba, I just wanna tell you, I have a new boyfriend. So, I just want you to know.’ He said, ‘That’s great, tell me about him.’ I said, ‘Well, he’s this really wonderful guy.’ He said, ‘Great, tell me more about him.’ I said, ‘Well, he’s Black.’ So, totally straight-faced, he said, ‘That’s fine, Ora-la, as long as he’s Jewish.’
Interviewer: [00:39:03] Had you made up the whole thing?
Interviewee: [00:39:05] Yeah. I had a new boyfriend, but he was Jewish. But I just told him because I was testing him, because he was so active…
Interviewer: [00:39:14] Do you think he knew you were testing him?
Interviewee: [00:39:16] Probably. Because I was just… So, years later I told it at this big event, he was getting this big honor, and he had all four of us speak at his honor.
Interviewer: [00:39:33] So, in fact, you were testing what he would say if you had someone who was outside…
Interviewee: [00:39:39] I was testing his values, because it would have devastated him.
Interviewer: [00:39:43] But, in fact, you’ve never- you always dated at Jewish guys. You were within that, right? Was that true for your brothers?
Interviewee: [00:39:52] Yeah
Interviewer: [00:39:54] That's a whole long story… So, was that true of your brothers too? Okay. So, you were the first, and you got your Bat Mitzvah in Israel. And then, just so I have the mindset, were your brothers also Bar Mitzvah-ed here, or was everyone in Israel?
Interviewee: [00:40:19] They were all Bar Mitzvah-ed in Washington. But the main reason my Bat Mitzvah was in Israel was because we were in Israel that year.
Interviewer: [00:40:26] That was the sabbatical?
Interviewee: [00:40:28] Yeah, My dad had a sabbatical. And the reason I think he might have had that sabbatical that year is, he might have been testing his plan for Aliyah. Because we made Aliyah in 1973, I think this was in 1969.
Interviewer: [00:40:41] So, 1973, the whole family makes Aliyah.
Interviewee: [00:40:48] Before the Yom Kippur war. It’s important to note this, because it was a pivotal time.
Interviewer: [00:40:54] And you were before it, but you didn’t know it was coming.
Interviewee: [00:40:57] Of course not. It was June. We moved in June, and the war was in October.
Interviewer: [00:41:03] So, he has this big important job in Washington, Civil Rights Movement, all of that, and the children are all part of this. Why did they decide to make Aliyah?
Interviewee: [00:41:21] Well, first of all, it’s important to note that his wife was not totally on board. Her family all lived there. His family lived here. He was, you know, a passionate Zionist, and like I said, is known to be the father of Reform Zionism. And my mother supported him, but had mixed feelings about it. She loved America. She loved her husband, but she loved America. And Israel had been through all these wars. And she loved her children. And she knew that if they moved to Israel in 1973, her four children were army age.
Interviewer: [00:42:26] I hadn’t thought of that.
Interviewee: [00:42:27] And Israel was a country of wars. And she loved her children more than she loved Israel.
Interviewer: [00:42:35] Okay. But, she loved her husband too.
Interviewee: [00:42:40] She did, but she loved her children maybe more than she loved her husband. So, it was a very difficult thing for my mother. So, anyway, she was ambivalent, basically. But, my father was maybe the most persuasive person in the world, and I used to say- you know how they said about Steve Jobs, that he had a… What did they call it? Like a distorted reality complex. My dad was such a positive thinker that he believed that he could distort reality to his view of reality. He so believed in Israel, and so believed in the dream of Israel, that he could distort it to his view of it, and his dream of it. So, he believed in Herzl’s view of Israel.
Interviewer: [00:43:39] So, he could do that for the world and for his children, and he did that for your mother too?
Interviewee: [00:43:47] Well, no, my mother had lived in a world where she knew the suffering of the world, and she knew the reality of the world. My mother was much more pragmatic than my father. My father was a dreamer, and my mother was a pragmatist. But that's how they- they were an amazing pair.
Interviewer: [00:44:16] So, I’m sure you took from both of your parents. Do you feel that you took more from one than another?
Interviewee: [00:44:25] I have elements from both of them. I probably resemble my father more. I definitely have my father’s extroversion. My mother was an introvert. So, I have my father’s personality. But, my father was not always realistic. He kept thinking that he could force people to share his views. Which he sometimes did, because he never let up.
Interviewer: [00:44:59] Well, that was also in the Civil Rights Movement.
Interviewee: [00:45:01] Right. He never got angry at anyone, people adored him. He was charismatic. And people never got angry at him. They were angry with his views. But he was never upset with anyone. So, eventually people came around, or they didn’t, but he was never upset with them, even if they didn’t.
Interviewer: [00:45:28] Let’s go to getting to Israel.
Interviewee: [00:45:31] So, my father was offered the job of executive director of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, which is the worldwide Reform movement. That's where your congregation belongs. All Reform synagogues in the world belong to WUPJ.
Interviewer: [00:45:47] And he was offered that position in…?
Interviewee: [00:45:52] No, it was based in New York. And my father said, ‘If I take this job, we have to move the center to the center of the Jewish world. It should not be based in New York. The center of the Jewish world is in Jerusalem. So, if I take the job, I’m taking the center of WUPJ to the center of the Jewish world. If you want me to take the job, it has to move.’
Interviewer: [00:46:20] And he got his way.
Interviewee: [00:46:22] He always got his way. So, that's why we moved to Israel in 1973. Now, this is actually supposed to be interview about me…
Interviewer: [00:46:36] I’m very aware of that.
Interviewee: [00:46:38] I know that too. So, I was a junior in high school. In Israel they have what’s called the [inaudible], which is like an IB exam, international bachelor exam, which is in your senior year in high school. So, my parents realized, and I realized too, that I didn’t wanna go to Israel and take this exam that I was not prepared to take for my senior in high school. By the way, all four of us were good students. I never told you why we were good students. We were good students because both of my parents, but mostly my mother, who was a dictator-
Interviewer: [00:47:16] She wanted to see your homework?
Interviewee: [00:47:18] She was just very… My mother was an immigrant, and my mother had very high expectations of her children, and she… I looked at this chapter before. When we misbehaved, the punishment was that we couldn’t read a book. We were all good students. My parents had very high expectations of us. Especially my mother insisted that we performed well.
Interviewer: [00:47:53] So, when you came home from school, you had a snack, you practiced the piano, and then you did your homework.
Interviewee: [00:48:02] Yeah. Or we did our other activities, which were all our extracurricular activities. We were all good students, all four of us. And today three of us are doctors, and my next brother is the chair of pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco.
Interviewer: [00:48:19] Okay. Let’s get to how you got to there.
Interviewee: [00:48:21] So, I was able to finish high school a year early. I could graduate high school early instead of doing my senior year in Israel.
Interviewer: [00:48:35] So, you go there with your degree.
Interviewee: [00:48:38] I could finish high school early instead of doing that hard test in Israel, which I wasn’t able to do because I didn’t have the preparation for it that was needed. So, instead I went to Hebrew University.
Interviewer: [00:48:50] Okay. In Jerusalem?
Interviewee: [00:48:51] Yeah. So, that was good, because I didn’t have to take the test, I could go to Hebrew University. Also, my parents didn’t have room in the apartment they were renting for me to stay with them, because it was a small apartment. So, I lived on Mount Scopus. I lived in the dorms, which was wonderful.
Interviewer: [00:49:14] And your brothers lived with them?
Interviewee: [00:49:16] Yeah, because my brothers were- we were one kid every year, but they were a year younger. So, they were in high school.
Interviewer: [00:49:25] They were in high school in Israel.
Interviewee: [00:49:27] They went to high school in Israel.
Interviewer: [00:49:29] And lived with your parents. And you lived in the dorm, and your Hebrew was fine.
Interviewee: [00:49:36] And it was partly in English too. But I was fine. But, a war broke out on October 6th 1973. And it was a very difficult year in Israel. I knew I wanted to be a physician. I knew I wanted to go to medical school.
Interviewer: [00:49:58] Although there were not doctors in your family at that time.
Interviewee: [00:50:01] Well, my uncle was a physician, my mom was a nurse.
Interviewer: [00:50:08] So, you had decided that, and what happened?
Interviewee: [00:50:12] I was debating between being a pianist and a physician. I was quite good on the piano, but I knew I wanted to be a physician. So, during the war, I served in the Civil Defense in Israel. Everybody did something.
Interviewer: [00:50:30] It was mandatory.
Interviewee: [00:50:31] It wasn’t mandatory. Jerusalem had a blackout. This was a terrible war in Israel. This was an existential threat to Israel. I remember I had gone home- Mount Scopus is far from the center of Jerusalem, which is where we lived. And so, I had gone home to be with my parents and my brothers for Yom Kippur. So, I was not on Mount Scopus, I was with my parents. When the war broke out, the country was traumatized. It was a surprise. So, we were in shock. But then, the war was not over in a day, so Jerusalem was in a complete blackout, and everybody had to go do something to try to support the country. When Jerusalem was in a blackout, I went to try and see what I can do to be helpful, because I knew I wanted to be a physician. I went to serve in what was basically Megged David, which was like Jerusalem’s Red Cross. And I went and served on ambulances, and tried to be as helpful as I could.
Interviewer: [00:51:41] Your mother was a nurse.
Interviewee: [00:51:42] She wasn’t working as a nurse by then. But all my brothers went and did something. I don’t actually know what they did, but I did that. And it was quite traumatic. But my plan had been to apply to Israeli medical schools for the following year. And I did apply, but because of the war, Israeli medical students who that year had left the country to go to medical school in places like Italy, left their academic year and came to Israel to serve in the army, because they were worried about the state of Israel. And they lost an academic year. Some of them died, some of them were killed, some of them were injured. Some of them were taken as POWs. So, Israel tried to accommodate as many of those students as possible in the following year, 1974, that I would have been accepted. And this country was in chaos. So, it took them a long time to figure out who they were gonna accept in the 1974 medical school year. Israel only has six-year medical schools, so it wasn’t like college and medical school. Two of the schools would only take students who had either been Israeli citizens or had served in the army, and I was not either one. So, I was only eligible for two of the schools, Hadassah, and Tel Aviv. those were the two that didn’t require that. And those two were in chaos. And my uncle, who was a psychiatrist, who lived in Chicago, said, ‘Ora should apply to Northwestern, which has a six-year medical program just like Israel.’ So, I applied to three schools: Hadassah, Tel Aviv, and Northwestern. And I got accepted to Northwestern, and I didn’t hear from the other two because they were in chaos. So, I got accepted at Northwestern, and my mother said, ‘You have to go.’
Interviewer: [00:53:53] That must have been hard for you.
Interviewee: [00:53:55] I was 17.
Interviewer: [00:53:57] For you to… Your father is so passionate about Israel, Israel is in a critical state, and your mother, the pragmatic one, says you have to leave.
Interviewee: [00:54:10] And my father basically said you have to leave too, actually, at that time. Because we didn’t know there would be…
Interviewer: [00:54:15] Did you yourself want to leave?
Interviewee: [00:54:17] I was very ambivalent. And I said, why don’t I just wait until I hear from these other two schools? Well, I waited, and I didn’t hear. School was starting. I had heard from the one school that I applied to…
Interviewer: [00:54:35] I’m not sure where Northwestern is.
Interviewee: [00:54:38] Chicago. So, the only place I had a relative - because all my relatives were in Israel - the only other place I had a relative.
Interviewer: [00:54:47] Was that the uncle, the psychiatrist? Okay. So, you go.
Interviewee: [00:54:52] So, I went to school. I met my husband-to-be on the first day of new student week, the very first day I was there. I didn’t know I was gonna marry him, I married him five years later, but…
Interviewer: [00:55:06] This kinda sounds like your parents.
Interviewee: [00:55:08] Well, but that was…
Interviewer: [00:55:09] So, you met him, he was also a medical student.
Interviewee: [00:55:12] He was a year ahead of me in the same class.
Interviewer: [00:55:13] And he was Jewish.
Interviewee: [00:55:15] He was Jewish, and he was a year ahead of me. There were no phones like we have today, you didn’t call people all the time. I would talk to my parents every two or three weeks, because I couldn’t talk to them every day. About a month later, my parents said, ‘Oh, by the way, Ora, you got accepted to Tel Aviv and Hadassah, but we told them you were already in school.’
Interviewer: [00:55:45] I see. Were you mad?
Interviewee: [00:55:46] Very mad.
Interviewer: [00:55:47] You were angry. So, what did you say to them?
Interviewee: [00:55:52] Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come back. They said, ‘You can’t come back, you’ve already been in school for a month.
Interviewer: [00:56:02] How about that? So, how did you deal with that? You just went on, I take it. Okay. So, I wanna back up for a minute, because I don’t wanna forget this question. Were there instances of antisemitism? I’ve heard of none?
Interviewee: [00:56:24] I don’t remember them.
Interviewer: [00:56:26] Okay. So, that was not-
Interviewee: [00:56:28] And in my class in medical school, there actually were quite a few Jews. Northwestern, by the way, used to have a lot of antisemitism, but it was before my time.
Interviewer: [00:56:42] And was this the- you weren't’ boyfriend and girlfriend then, but was the doctor that was a year ahead of you, who became your husband, was that the first major relationship? There were others that didn’t work, but did you know when you met him that that was the one?
Interviewee: [00:57:04] No.
Interviewer: [00:57:04] Okay.
Interviewee: [00:57:05] But he did. I had had several boyfriends before that.
Interviewer: [00:57:13] Through USY?
Interviewee: [00:57:14] I had a boyfriend in high school, I had boyfriends in Israel. I had quite a few boyfriends.
Interviewer: [00:57:22] So, here you are here in Chicago, your uncle was there, your school-
Interviewee: [00:57:28] My aunt and uncle were there. I had four cousins there, they had four children.
Interviewer: [00:57:32] So, the… Did you like the subject matter? Did you like working in science?
Interviewee: [00:57:41] Yes, I loved it.
Interviewer: [00:57:44] Did you continue your piano studies?
Interviewee: [00:57:48] I took piano through Northwestern for the whole first year.
Interviewer: [00:57:53] So, this is a really interesting part of your life, because your family was so significant, and so big…
Interviewee: [00:58:04] In my life.
Interviewer: [00:58:05] And in other people’s lives.
Interviewee: [00:58:07] Yes. And I was far away. It was hard for me. And I’ve recently found the letters that we wrote. We didn’t have internet.
Interviewer: [00:58:17] There were these blue things.
Interviewee: [00:58:18] Right. All those blue letters. I found stacks of them. I wrote them, they wrote me, my brother wrote me. And then, eventually, my brothers went to the army. They were in Israel, so they were in the army. I was far away.
Interviewer: [00:58:40] And you missed your family.
Interviewee: [00:58:41] I did. I went home every time I got a vacation, home being Israel.
Interviewer: [00:58:49] So, what were those years like?
Interviewee: [00:58:52] I remember them being great, actually. I don’t remember them being difficult. It’s funny, people find this interesting when I say this, but I don’t remember being a particularly great student, but people find that surprising when I say it now, because I’ve gotten two distinguished awards from Northwestern. I got one from the medical school and one from the university. And when I got them, I said, I wasn’t that great a student at Northwestern. I mean…
Interviewer: [00:59:36] You didn’t stand out, but you did well.
Interviewee: [00:58:40] I did fine. I did well. But I wasn’t the- My husband was a genius. My husband was a brilliant person. He was a genius. I wasn’t that kind of student. I was a good student, and I was a good student all along, but I wasn’t at the top. It was partly because I was a very social student. I thought that I went to medical school to have a good time. Most people say, ‘Isn’t medical school really difficult, and aren’t you going to medical school to really work your tail off?’ I really didn’t. I really went to medical school to have a medical time. When I say that, people don’t believe that, but I really loved it. And I did not work that hard. I mean, I worked hard, but I loved it. So, I don’t remember that I was killing myself. And that's my recollection of it. And they don’t believe that today, because I really work hard today. And when they see me today, because I work all the time, they don’t think of me- they can’t believe that.
Interviewer: [01:00:54] But you seem to like to look back on that, and to say, ‘This was a time when I decided I’m gonna enjoy myself. I’m gonna work hard enough.’ That's how you looked at it.
Interviewee: [01:01:06] They really don’t believe that. But I was also younger than most students.
Interviewer: [01:01:06] So, I wanna continue from there, but there’s a question in the back of my mind. I would like to ask you about faith. Did you have a sense of faith early on? Did it change?
Interviewee: [01:01:25] Well, I don’t know what faith means.
Interviewer: [01:01:30] Belief in God.
Interviewee: [01:01:02] I’m not sure I ever specifically strongly believed in God. But I believed in my religion.
Interviewer: [01:01:43] Can you…
Interviewee: [01:01:44] Differentiate that? Well, I don’t know what God is. And I will say this: when my husband died, I was pretty sure there was no God. So, I never really had a strong sense of what God is. Is God listening to this conversation?
Interviewer: [01:02:06] If I pray, something will happen.
Interviewee: [01:02:08] If I pray, will something happen? Did God want my husband to die in a car accident? And I can’t believe in anything like that. I don’t think I ever did.
Interviewer: [01:02:18] And your parents?
Interviewee: [01:02:19] I don’t know what they believed. I’ve sometimes tried to probe them, I don’t really know. I’m not sure.
Interviewer: [01:02:25] So, there never was a testing of faith, except maybe when your husband died?
Interviewee: [01:02:31] But I believe- I’m very committed to our religion, and I’m not sure that our religion really requires it of us. So, I’m very committed to Judaism, I’m very committed to our people, I’m very committed to Israel, but I don’t think that God is a necessary piece of it.
Interviewer: [01:02:53] Thank you for that very open answer. Okay, let’s go back to something specific, like your time in…
Interviewee: [01:03:03] By the way, my husband’s death just clinched it for me, if I ever questioned it before. But I didn’t spend too much time worrying about it. And it probably has to do with being a scientist too. Because when I think about science, I just don’t piece the two together.
Interviewer: [01:03:18] I see. But the Jewish values…
Interviewee: [01:03:25] I’m very committed to them.
Interviewer: [01:03:27] And you see those as something that came through from your childhood into your adulthood. So, what kind of doctor did you become?
Interviewee: [01:03:40] I’m a pediatric endocrinologist, and I love my specialty.
Interviewer: [01:03:44] And how long did you work as a doctor?
Interviewee: [01:03:47] Until I left for Michigan, my first time at Michigan, 2009. So, from the time I finished medical school- well, then I went through training-
Interviewer: [01:03:57] Was this in Chicago?
Interviewee: [01:03:58] I finished medical school in Chicago, then I was a trailing spouse, and I followed my husband around.
Interviewer: [01:04:05] And what was his area?
Interviewee: [01:04:05] Transplant surgery.
Interviewer: [01:04:08] Okay. So, he went from…
Interviewee: [01:04:12] He was a year ahead of me. He graduated in 1978, I graduated early in order to be with him. But he went to Minnesota, then we did our fellowships at- Well, then I went to the National Institute of Health to do my fellowship. We spent four years there. Then we went back to Minnesota so he finished his residency and his fellowship in transplant surgery. Then we moved to Indianapolis where he got a job in transplant surgery, and I got a job in pediatric endocrinology.
Interviewer: [01:04:52] So you were both fulfilling your career goals. And there were children along the way?
Interviewee: [01:04:57] We had two children when we were at the NIH, and one child in Minneapolis. So, we had three children in three and a half years, and they're all doing amazing things.
Interviewer: [01:05:10] So, how did you manage? Did you have someone to come in to take care of the children?
Interviewee: [01:05:14] I had a nanny. I had to have a nanny, because his job was very demanding. Being a transplant surgeon is an extremely demanding career.
Interviewer: [01:05:25] Yeah, it could be at any time.
Interviewee: [01:05:27] It was. It wasn’t any time, it was all the time. Because it was either a transplant or a donor 24/7. So, it’s a very demanding job. And my job was very demanding too, because I kept rising up through the academic ranks. Even though I was a trailing spouse, I kept getting promoted. I don’t know if you know, but I have had very senior positions. I wasn’t necessarily looking for these positions, but they kept giving me more and more to do, and I kept accepting them. So, I kept getting more and more promotions in every place I went, and I kept accepting them, and I was very rewarded by it, and I did feel… This might have been my mother’s influence. My mother kept saying, ‘You can do it all, you should do it all.’ My mother pushed me very hard to do all the things I did.
Interviewer: [01:06:27] Did she ever come and take care of the children while you were doing something?
Interviewee: [01:06:29] She didn’t stay, but she did. And she was a wonderful mother and grandmother. But she definitely was the influence behind what I’ve done. There’s no question that she was the person who said there’s no reason you can’t do all these things.
Interviewer: [01:06:46] You got a lot from both of them.
Interviewee: [01:06:48] Yeah. There’s no question that my mother- when I was a child, for example, and I had three brothers, my mother would never say, ‘Ora, you do the dishes, your brothers will watch sports.’ Never. In fact, she wouldn't let me do the girl’s jobs. She would always say, ‘You’re gonna be a doctor.’
Interviewer: [01:07:14] By the way, if there’s a question I ask and you don’t feel comfortable, you can just say to move on. So, in this period when your focus is on your own nuclear family, and your rising career, and your husband’s rising importance and career, what happened to Judaism?
Interviewee: [01:07:38] It was critical in our lives? It was a very important part of our lives. My husband grew up in a conservative family. It was very important to him. At one point, we made a decision that- we tried to talk Hebrew at home, but he didn’t speak Hebrew, so I couldn’t do it alone. But then we decided to send the children to a day school. Indianapolis only had one day school, it was an Orthodox school. So, our children went to a day school through eighth grade, and they all speak Hebrew pretty well, they read and write.
Interviewer: [01:08:17] And there would be trips back to see their grandparents.
Interviewee: [01:08:20] Yeah. And the grandparents came to us often too, as well as the extended family. So, they have cousins in Israel, they’ve all been to Israel, they're all married to Jewish spouses. My oldest daughter’s husband has converted to Judaism. I have eight grandchildren now, they're all married. My older two children, who have children that are old enough to go to school go to day school. So, my grandchildren that are old enough to be in school are in day schools.
Interviewer: [01:08:54] So, how old is your oldest grandchild?
Interviewee: [01:08:59] Eight and a half.
Interviewer: [01:09:00] Okay.
Interviewee: [01:09:01] And my youngest is a month old.
Interviewer: [01:09:05] So they're all continuing that very important…
Interviewee: [01:09:09] And they know how important it is to me.
Interviewer: [01:09:14] And to their grandfather.
Interviewee: [01:09:17] Grandparents. And my second-youngest…
Interviewer: [01:09:22] Your parents have died recently.
Interviewee: [01:09:25] So, my mother died three years ago, my father died a year and a half ago. My second-youngest granddaughter is named for my mother.
Interviewer: [01:09:44] At what point did your husband have that terrible accident?
Interviewee: [01:09:47] He died December 12th 2010.
Interviewer: [01:09:50] And how long had you been married?
Interviewee: [01:09:54] 31 years.
Interviewer: [01:09:58] And at that time you were where?
Interviewee: [01:10:01] I was at the University of Michigan. I was the CEO of the health system.
Interviewer: [01:10:04] And that was a huge position. You had worked up to that huge position. And you probably never thought that would be what you would do, be a CEO. Or by then it was just a natural… ?
Interviewee: [01:10:23] At that point, it wasn’t that much bigger a job than the three jobs I had before that. I was doing three jobs in Indiana. That job at Michigan was bigger than any of the three jobs I was doing, but not bigger than all three together, which is what I was doing in Indiana at the time.
Interviewer: [01:10:46] And all of those jobs you liked?
Interviewee: [01:10:51] That's true.
Interviewer: [01:10:52] And then- and your husband, before he died, he was doing what?
Interviewee: [01:10:58] He was a transplant surgeon at Indiana, and he was doing many things. He was very active. One of the reasons- he wasn’t offered a position at Michigan which was comparable to what he was doing in Indiana. He had several million dollars in research funding, he was very active in his research, which was very productive and very successful. In addition, on the Jewish side - because this is sort of a Jewish interview, right?
Interviewer: [01:11:32] It is.
Interviewee: [01:11:34] He was heading the federation campaign. He was the chair of the Indianapolis Jewish Federation campaign when he died.
Interviewer: [01:11:44] He had so much else to do, and he took that on as well.
Interviewee: [01:11:49] He was so active. He was a remarkable person. So, in addition to his professional work, he was on the boards of many other organizations. He was on the board of the opera, he was on the board of the Indianapolis State Museum. He was active in art…
Interviewer: [01:12:09] So, when you came to Michigan, he didn’t come?
Interviewee: [01:12:10] He never came. We were commuting. That's how he died. He died commuting. He was here in Michigan for what was called the Big Chill. It was a hockey game between Michigan and Michigan State at the Big House. And it was an icy weekend, and he was driving back to Indianapolis, and he died in an ice storm.
Interviewer: [01:12:37] How did you get through it?
Interviewee: [01:12:39] I don’t know. You know…
Interviewer: [01:12:45] Just one foot in front of the other?
Interviewee: [01:12:47] Yeah. Well, I wrote an article, you might be interested in seeing it. There are two things that I didn’t make copies for you that you might wanna look up. One is a short article I wrote for fortune.com, where I talked about how I got through it. I wrote it only a few years ago, it was many years after it happened. Just look up Pescovitz fortune.com. They asked me to write an article, something about how to deal with adversity or something like that. What I wrote about was the fact that I had a busy job. That helped a lot. I was so busy at work, it was just very helpful. And also, I talked about the fact that it was helpful to realize that, although it was terrible, my circumstances were not more difficult than many other people who had difficult circumstances. Many people suffered more than I did in all kinds of other ways. And I realized that I had a lot of resources that I didn’t have. I had the love of my family, I had plenty of financial resources, and I was fortunate in the scheme of things. So, I didn’t feel that I could pity myself. And then I also took the time to try to immerse myself in doing good things. And so, I didn't think I could afford to pity myself.
Interviewer: [01:14:21] It’s just an amazing thing to think about. And somehow I think that's Jewish…
Interviewee: [01:14:27] It’s sort of a Jewish approach to the world. And also, if you think about Judaism, the approach to grief, it’s also very helpful. You know, you have the week of shiva, you have the shloshim, and then you have the year, and then you gotta get on with life. You cannot just sit and be depressed for the rest of your life. I was 54, so I wasn’t old enough to say that life is over. I felt like I had to continue to move on. And I had two children who were not young, but they also had to move on. And I wanted to be a good example to them. All three of them were at the funeral with somebody else. Two of them went on the marry the people they were with, the third one broke up with the guy she was with, but today is married to a wonderful guy. So, they all got married, they all had children, they're all living a great life. My children are very successful. I should tell you about my children.
Interviewer: [01:15:27] You should, but I should tell you that you have a hard stop.
Interviewee: [01:15:31] Okay. When?
Interviewer: [01:15:32] It’s ten.
Interviewee: [01:15:32] Okay.
Interviewer: [01:15:33] Is there any- I’m going to stop this.
Interviewee: [01:15:37] I wanna tell you about my children.
Interviewer: [01:15:39] You have a hard stop. I don’t.
Interviewee: [01:15:40] I wanna tell you about them because I wanna make sure that you hear about them.
Interviewer: [01:15:42] Okay. And the last question I’m gonna ask you is, is there anything else you would like to tell people? But let’s hear about your children.
Interviewee: [01:15:51] Yeah, because I’m very proud of my children. I have three great children, three great in-law children, and eight grandchildren. The grandchildren are too little to have accomplished anything. My children are terrific. My children are my husband’s children, they're terrific. So, my oldest daughter Eliza is a lawyer. She just made partner in a new law firm, so I’m very proud of her. Her husband is also a lawyer.
Interviewer: [01:16:17] Where do they live?
Interviewee: [01:16:18] They now live in Vienna, Virginia, just outside of Washington. And they have three children, so I’m very proud of them. Ari is an architect.
Interviewer: [01:16:31] I love this, they all went in interesting directions.
Interviewee: [01:16:33] He has four degrees, but one of the reasons I pulled this book out is, Ari is also an artist. He has four degrees, one of his degrees is in metal smithing, and this is the 500 most important pieces of Judaica. I’m gonna show you some of his work. So, these are his pieces that are in this book, and they're really impressive. So, he does all kinds of amazing art. He’s an architect, but on the side he does art.
Interviewer: [01:17:03] I bet you have some pieces of his in your home.
Interviewee: [01:17:03] I do. But here are three of his pieces that are published in this book. I have this piece in the house. He’s an amazing artist. He’s married to a surgeon, and they have three daughters. And then Naomi… I don’t have anything of hers here right now. Naomi is a broadcast journalist on CBS news.
Interviewer: [01:17:35] What’s her name?
Interviewee: [01:17:36] Naomi Ruchin. And she’s married to a partner in a hedge fund, and they live in Manhattan. Ari and Alisson live in Brooklyn. And they have two children.
Interviewer: [01:17:49] So, you have New York roots too. I mean, you have places…
Interviewee: [01:17:53] Well, two of the kids live in New York, one lives in Washington. That's my kids. I’m very proud of them.
Interviewer: [01:18:05] Well, I just wanna thank you so much for this interview. Is there anything else that you…
Interviewee: [01:18:10] No, but there’s a lot here that you…
Interviewer: [01:18:15] I’m gonna stop the interview right now. Is that okay with you?
Interviewee: [01:18:18] Yeah.
Interviewer: [01:18:19] Okay, thank you so much.
Interviewee: [01:18:22] Your brothers: So, I’m the oldest. Raphi is the chair of pediatrics at the University of California in San Francisco. Ami is the senior rabbi at the Steven Weiss COngregation in Manhattan. He wrote this book…
Interviewer: [01:18:38] One People, Two Worlds.
Interviewee: [01:18:39] Yeah, with an Orthodox rabbi. His second book is coming out this month. His second book is coming out this month, I can’t remember the name of it. I have it somewhere. And Emmett is at Northwestern as an obstetrician. He wrote this book. Raphi wrote this book. So, all my brothers have written books.
Interviewer: [01:19:14] Are there any dark sheep in your family?
Interviewee: [01:19:17] No.
Interviewer: [01:19:19] Okay. Well, that's an amazing story, amazing family.
Interviewee: [01:19:24] My father used to say, you know those Emmanuel brothers? ‘I don’t know why Emmanuel raves about his children. I’ve got my own Emmanuel family.’
Interviewer: [01:19:40] Okay. Are we done now? Okay.
[END]
