Holocaust activist on skates.
Loren Galler Rabinowitz makes it look so easy.
Rabinowitz, a third-year medical student at Columbia University, is also a classical pianist, a champion ice dancer, a public speaker, and a poet.
Oh, and a former Miss Massachusetts.
Crowned in 2010, Rabinowitz used her podium to promote Holocaust education and share the story of her beloved grandmother Eva Galler, a Holocaust survivor who died in 2005.
The 5-foot-1 Rabinowitz, 2011’s most petite Miss America contestant, won the Pageant’s “Miracle Maker Award” — given to the young woman who raises the most money for her local children’s hospital (she raised $21,000 for Boston Children’s Hospital for hosting a figure skating benefit in her hometown).
She continues to do public speaking to elementary and high school students about the Holocaust, the value of math and science education for girls, and how “it is more important to be smart than pretty.”
Honored by the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 for winning a bronze medal in the 2004 U.S. Figure Skating Championships with partner David Mitchell, Rabinowitz insists that off the ice she’s a “klutz.”
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard with a degree in English, she writes short stories and poetry in her spare time.
She believes healing is art as well as science. “When you see so many people, and the stories are sad, the defense mechanism is to detach, but it’s very important to retain your humanity,” she said. “A pat on the shoulder, asking about someone’s kids — it can go a long way.”
Last spring, she spoke at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Young Leadership Conference about her grandparents’ experiences as survivors and “how important it is not to forget survivors and be kind to one another.”
Guilty pleasures: As a med student, Rabinowitz seldom has down time and doesn’t own a TV. But to unwind, she likes streaming a Louisiana-based reality show called “Swamp People” on her computer — and baking apple cake using her grandmother’s recipe.
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