Jew in Leningrad Receives Pacemaker from Israel

Prof. Henri Neufeld, head of the Heart Institute at the Tel Hashomer Hospital’s Sheba Medical Center, confirmed today that he sent a pacemaker to a Jew in Leningrad whom he had never seen but who had written to him describing his heart ailment. A pacemaker is an electronic device implanted in a patient’s body to maintain a regular heart beat. Prof. Neufeld said his correspondence was with a 53-year-old man whose family name is Gurewitz.

“I got his letter giving me the details of the illness. I made the diagnosis and thought the patient needed a pacemaker,” Prof. Neufeld said. “I wrote to him about my findings and suggestions and told him to consult his doctors. Then I got a letter saying the Russian physicians agreed with my diagnosis and suggestions and asked me to send a pacemaker. A fortnight ago I sent the pacemaker to Leningrad and yesterday received a cable confirming it was received,” he said. Prof. Neufeld said he had no idea how Gurewitz got his name unless it was given to him by a Russian doctor who knew of it from various publications.

William Howard Stein, a professor at Rockefeller University in New York and one of the three winners Thursday of the 1972 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, is a member of the medical advisory board of the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem and a trustee of the Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. Dr. Christian Boehmer Anfinson, a non-Jew who is a biochemist at the National Institute of Health in Washington, is a member of the Board of Governors of the Weizmann Institute and chairman of the Institute’s scientific and academic advisory committee.

Plans to revamp the lagging Jewish school system in Iran were announced in Jerusalem. A permanent international committee headquartered in Israel’s capital will be set up to implement plans in coordination with a subcommittee in Teheran. Louis Pincus, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, will head the international committee.