The Common Vein

Posted August 24th 2009

Married to Raymond Pollak

live in Skokie Illinois USA

children :Joel Barry, Beth, Nathan

work: physical therapist

hobbies: artist, floral arrangement, biking, swimming

contact: facebook

Bio Naomi Pollak (nee Perkel)

Linking some memories

My early high school days in KDHS were a difficult adjustment period for me. I had come from Orange Grove elementary school and except for Martin Dogon and Ivor Myerson who were with me in primary school, I knew nobody.   At home, my oldest sister got married and left for Israel. My brother had been drafted into the South African Defence force.  I had suddenly become the oldest child in the family and I had no friends in the new high school.  I loved swimming-but only made the B team. I had no knowledge of the prayer routine and I was frankly overwhelmed.  I also discovered that the kids at KDHS were rather smart and more advanced than those with whom I had been at school before.

My first year at high school, my Hebrew was weak and I struggled.  At night, I would go home and sit with my dad(Z?L) and he would help me with the Hebrew.  My father had left Warsaw Poland in 1924 for Palestine.  In 1932, after the Hebron riots, he came to Cape Town. Rather penniless, he started his new life in Cape Town.  He had a great background in both spoken Hebrew and Torah studies.  However, it took me two years of Hebrew lessons before I started to vaguely comprehend the Hebrew lessons.  Mrs. Leah Wolf was the teacher who actually helped me catch up in Hebrew.  I developed such a strong love for the language.  I sometimes take advanced Hebrew classes here and whenever I go back to Israel, I just jump right back into fluency.  I do lack some vocabulary as I do not use the language often enough.  I loved science and biology.  Mrs. Pisa?s lessons made me want to learn more.  Mr. Pearce and Mr. Uranowsky enabled my interest in science.  Mr Lowry taught us the French Revolution as if he personally had been there and I can never forget his lessons and the lessons of history that he taught me.  I have vague memories of the other teachers.  For some reason I messed around in Form 4 maths. I also did not prepare adequately for English literature.  Somehow I crammed my studies toward Matric and the memory  of my laxity in those subjects managed to turn peaceful sleep into a nightmares for many years after high school.

The six day war was certainly a most moving and anxious time.  This was particularly true for me as I had both a brother and sister and most of my father?s family in Israel.  I prayed and hoped for a safe Israel and its inhabitants. It was certainly an inspirational time to be at King David and share the anxiety, hope and relief together.

One incident at high school often haunts me: We were supposed to be watching a rugby match.  Somehow a bee hive was disturbed and the angry swarm attacked many kids.  I remember Sharon Diamond wound up in hospital as a result.  Mr. Pearce helped the students and herded them into classrooms to escape the chaos and the bees. I have some distant memories of friendships and events.  I remember waiting for the bus on Twelfth street, Sydenham with Barry Yudelman.  Sometimes I would miss the bus, and take an alternative.  Then I would walk down tenth street passed Zena Abramavoch?s home and finally make my way home. I vaguely remember the preparations for our matric dance. I think the theme was ? The Age Of Aquarius? and we decorated the hall in fish netting.  My last memory of high school seems to be at the tennis courts where we had a ?last day? event.

As time went by, I made new friends at KDHS, and I am still in contact with some of them. Since we matriculated, Naomi Stein (now Slivka) and I have met on several occasions-either in Toronto, Chicago or in Florida.  When Sam Sharp and Avril were in Minnesota, we reconnected when I visited Minneapolis about 24 years ago.  I also visited Sydney, Australia in 1990 and met up with Hazel Becker(Polon) and Arlene Schwartz (Tanchum).  About four years ago, I again met Arlene in New York.

 

There were some darker sides that I recall as a KDHS student. I still reflect on the discipline by the ?boss? at KDHS.  Some of his methods of discipline were extreme, unnecessary and he created an atmosphere of fear and  punishment, rather than moral responsibility, pride in leadership and the joy of learning.  I remember how the windows of our classrooms were tinted to decrease glare on the black board, but that half of the middle window of each classroom was left untinted so that the boss could make his rounds unannounced and ?catch? students who were involved in some minor infringement.  Today it seems so odd that it was an accepted norm to ?flap? the male students for odd violations- including long side burns of hair.  I still cannot understand the psychology behind this form of punishment.  For the girls, punishment was to memorize Tehillim or to write out the verses.  These days, this kind of discipline seems so foreign and unnecessary and counterproductive for a Jewish school.   In the USA, after attending Jewish elementary schools, our children in the USA went to public high school in our neighborhood.    I never saw kids lingering in the hallways. When students were disciplined, the discipline was to empower the students to correct their behaviors and comprehend the consequences of their actions in a more mature way.

Perhaps a fault that is a common theme in many systems including KDHS is that not all students achieve their potential and appear to be performing at a mediocre or below average level.  The old South African system (and many others) seemed to punish ignorance or mediocrity, not realizing that not every student has the ability to flourish in some way.   Our high school system seemed to recognize high academics, but failed to recognize the many other wonderful dimensions and talents that many of the students possessed.  Students also were labeled at a very young age.  When the teachers stopped believing in them, they had years of ?catch up? before they found their niche and were able to start believing in themselves again.

Because I attended the Medical School at Wits and studied physiotherapy, I was rarely on the main Wits campus and so it is only now 40 years later that I am seeing and meeting everyone on FB for the first time.  At Medical school,   I loved studying anatomy with Prof. Phillip Tobias, and later I was sorry that I did not continue to study in that department.  At the end of my second year (1971), Arlene (Tanchum) persuaded me to join her as a councilor at Bikur Cholim camp.  At that point, my ambitions were to graduate from physiotherapy, travel, work and explore the world and I was not interested in planning for relationships or marriage.  However, it was at that camp in Lakeside (near Muizenburg), that I was fortunate to meet my future husband, Raymond.   Raymond was a medical student at the time.  After he completed his medical school training we married in 1974 during his internship at the ?old? Johannesburg General Hospital.  We have now been married for over 35 years. Thereafter and following his army training, we decided to take some time off and back-pack through Europe before settling down.  In June 1976, we were in Denmark in a park.  We noticed a news stand and were able to comprehend from the headlines that there had been a riot in Soweto. It was very disturbing to us.  While in Scandinavia, we also had the opportunity of celebrating mid-summer with our newly found friends, the Kaplans, from Goteborg.  Midsummer celebrations included sitting up all night, as it never got dark, being festive, and making numerous toasts (?skoll?) with potent peach brandy to welcome the new fruits of the season.

As part of our travels, we had planned to travel to the USA, so that Raymond could interview for a residency in surgery, transplantation and immunology.  At the end of the 10 or so interviews in many large cities in the USA, Raymond was accepted into a surgical residency at the University of Illinois Medical School in Chicago and began his studies in June 1977.

I loved Chicago from the day that I arrived here.  My first impression was on a summer?s day.  I was on a bus and I travelled on the north shore along Lake Michigan.  Everything was clean and beautiful.  The buildings were architecturally magnificent.  I was aware of the amazing culture, music, theatre, sport and cosmopolitan atmosphere.  I knew that I could live in Chicago, and I was fiercely optimistic about our future and potential success here.  I knew that the winters would be cold, but I never imagined how cold, nor how long and dark the winters? days would be. To this day, we still love Chicago, despite the weather.  Summers are like a paradise and we bike in the forest preserve and along the lake. I swim daily outdoors before I go to work.  We are able to relax on the beaches of Lake Michigan and enjoy the gorgeous foliage in the autumn. The architecture of the city has become even more spectacular over the years. New buildings and parks have been built.  This is the home of Frank Lloyd Wright-the originator of the ?modern school? and of skyscrapers. We used to live near his home and studio in Oak Park.  The prairie style architecture of the homes there are unique and I once joined the Chicago Architectural Society . I went on boating and bicycle tours and studied different homes.  I love the Art Institute of Chicago, especially the hall of impressionist art.  We go to outdoor concerts in the summer.  I take walks alone at night.  The air is lovely, and fresh.  Sometimes our summers can get too hot and humid. We enjoy a magnificent botanical garden and I have had the opportunity to take courses in bonsai, and floral arranging.

We have a strong and diverse Jewish community here, with only about 10% of Jews following the orthodox tradition or minhag familiar to most South African Jews.  Perhaps that has been one of the most difficult aspects of being here because we have failed to find the type of Jewish community that we enjoyed in our youth. We were able to send our children to a ?conservative? Jewish day elementary school, named after Rabbi Solomon Schechter.  Our children received an excellent education and the religious curriculum was probably more intense than KDHS, except with a ?conservative? emphasis.

Soon after I arrived in Chicago, I was able to obtain my Illinois Physical Therapy license and I started to work at Loyola University Medical Center where I worked as a general physical therapist (PT), and then later in pediatric physical therapy and the neonatal intensive care unit.  However in the 1980?s, I started to work in Geriatric PT, where  I found my niche and I still do this work today.  I went back to university and I got my Master of Science degree in PT.  My research utilized the Rausch model of statistic analysis to examine ordinal measures in a functional instrument of motor performance.  I spent two years working on this and I received awards and recognition for my research.   I was asked to teach in a physical therapy school part time. I also ran a few workshops on this topic.  However, I found that part ?time teaching was quite challenging to me as a clinician and after a few years, I stopped this and I went back to clinical work.  I have conducted well elderly walking clubs and exercise classes. I am currently employed as a PT in home health care.  I take care of patients who are unable to go out to a clinic to obtain treatment.  Most are elderly and many have been in the hospital.  They need my services to enable them to return to community mobility.

Beside the clinical aspect of my day to day work, the patients are extremely interesting.  I have worked with holocaust survivors and former prisoners and heroes of world war II, Korea and Vietnam. In one week, I took care of a former German soldier (who might have been in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943),   a holocaust survivor, and a Polish woman (though I think that she was secretly Jewish).  She had been rescued from the rubble after the allies bombed Warsaw.   I never know what surprise awaits me when I walk into a home.  Once I found a huge, potbelly Vietnamese pig snoring on the couch of a patient?s home.  Another time, a rather lazy patient faked a hypoglycemic incident so that I would have to make her a ham sandwich.  I have been in the homes of both rich and poor, and people who live here in this ?promised land? come from all corners of the globe. Each visit to a patient?s home is a new experience.  I can walk into a drug lord house, or a home of the elite philanthropists of our city.  Sometimes when I am in a terrible, filthy, run down home, I have a private question to G-d, ? G-d- do people really live like this??  My life is enriched by my experiences and I am inspired by the faith of my patients.  I feel privileged to have a window into other peoples? lives and problems.  I try to enable them to be part of the solution to their problems.

We have been blessed with and raised three children here.  When they were infants and toddlers, taking them out in the cold was a nightmare and an exercise in how to dress one?s children in multilayers, including hats, gloves and boots.  When we had our second and then later, our third child, it was a rather long process to get them into the car to go out.  One had to say a special prayer so that one of the kids did not request the toilet once they were all in the car. One toilet request would require taking all the kids back into the house, where they would start to undress (because the houses are all heated), while their sibling did the necessary. Our eldest, Joel Barry is now 32 years of age and recently graduated from Harvard Law School.  He is the author of hundreds of articles, and he worked as Tony Leon?s chief speechwriter in South Africa for a number of years following his undergraduate degree also from Harvard.  He has recently worked as the chief researcher for Alan Dershowitz and was acknowledged by Dershowitz in some of his recent books.  Joel is also a published author; his first book was published in November of 2008 and is titled, ?The Kasrils Affair: Jews and Minority Politics in Post-Apartheid South Africa?. The book is now available on Amazon.  His other recently published book analyzed the events of the 2008 Presidential election in the USA. It is titled? Don?t Tell me Words don?t Matter: How Rhetoric won the 2008 Presidential Election?.  Joel will soon marry Julia Bertelsmann (the daughter of well known South African activist Rhoda Kadalie and Richard Bertelsmann) and we expect the wedding to be in Cape Town toward the end of the year.

Our daughter, Beth Sarah, looks very much like myself.  She graduated with a degree in Journalism from Northwestern University and was a journalist for two years. After volunteering in Israel for a year, she returned to live in New York and received her Master of Education degree in bilingual/bicultural education.  She now works as a bilingual teacher (Spanish ?English) for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students in a public school in Washington Heights (a neighborhood on the north of Manhattan near the Bronx). She loves New York City and leads an active Jewish life.

Our youngest son, Nathan Edwin, lives in San Francisco.  He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles.  He worked for a consulting firm for three years before being laid off last December because of our failing economy. In the interim, he managed to retrain and research the market and he hopes to soon open a restaurant, ? The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen? in San Francisco near the new baseball park.  In addition, he has been a part of the music scene in the San Francisco and plays the accordion in an eight piece band called ? Sex with No Hands? (it took me nearly 3 years to be able to say the name of the band!).

I have enjoyed 35 years of a wonderful marriage and exciting life with my caring spouse and best friend, Raymond. Raymond was an organ transplant surgeon, and represented 6 midwestern states to the national committee on organ allocation in the USA.  He also was the head of transplantation and immunology at the University of Illinois Medical School for over 12 years.  At the height of his career, he noticed that the liver transplantation programs in Chicago were not allocating donated liver organs in an ethical and honest way.  He tried to fix the problem and became embroiled in an internal dispute with the Dean of the Medical school who wanted him to act similarly. Because he refused to go along with this unethical (and illegal) scheme, the Dean asked him to step down from his leadership position-an act that shocked the local medical community. Raymond finally took his grievance to the Federal government, who sided with him and prosecuted the dishonest transplant programs in the City of Chicago. The story was published all over the country and achieved great notoriety.  Prime Time television aired his story and interviewed us and wherever I go, people hold up a victory sign to me and tell me that they are proud to know us.  Eventually, the University had to settle Raymond?s law suits. He alleged that the University  had committed libel, fraud, illegal retaliation and created a hostile work environment. Raymond left the University after a protracted legal battle and had to restart his career. He now works in his own business, Hippocrates Consulting LLC  as a medical think tank , second opinion physician, medical researcher and expert witness.

  Dr Raymond Pollak ?

Transplant Surgeon

I have been very fortunate to have my family living nearby.  My mother, despite her advanced years is still doing moderately well.  My sister Sharon and her family live about 15 minutes away.  My brother Manley and his family have recently moved to Phoenix , Arizona, but we have shared many wonderful times together especially when they lived closer in Dayton, Ohio. My older sister Ruth, who married and went to Israel when I started high school, still lives in Israel with her family.

My other love in life is a passion which I discovered later in my life.  I love oil painting, drawing and artistic expression.  I study anywhere from 3-9 hours per week.  I find my hobby extremely gratifying.  I also do floral arrangements as a volunteer for Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and fund raisers.

?Shoes? by Naomi Pollak (Perkel)

My days struggling with Hebrew and the role that my father (z?l) played in helping me overcome my difficulties has come back to me in a positive way.  I volunteer to teach Hebrew reading at a Sunday morning Chabad Hebrew school program designed mostly for Jewish families who are not particularly observant.  I work individually with each child and I never give up on the potential for every Jewish child to learn.  Personally, I love studying Hebrew religious text and philosophy.  I often find an hour in my daily schedule to attend a Torah class between scheduled patients while I am doing my rounds.  I enjoy studying Hebrew text and biblical commentary despite the fact that I never paid attention to a thing in Rabbi Isaac?s Rashi class. I have mended my ways and taught myself to read Rashi as an adult, though I usually use a translation when I study.  I love Jewish history and try to learn and read as much as I can, despite our boring high school text book by Lady Magnus.

My other volunteer position is working as a physical therapist at the medical clinic at ?The Ark?,  a Jewish welfare organization in Chicago.  The Ark takes care of the needs of Jewish families who need food, shelter, clothing and we have a full service medical clinic.  Several physicians, pharmacists, dentists and other clinicians volunteer hours to help out.  They also have a full social welfare department and the program is run entirely on donations from the community.

Lastly, as I have worked in health care and gerontology for so many years, my big spin in life is on preventative medicine and health maintenance for elderly.  I encourage all who read my bio to keep themselves healthy with moderate regular exercise. Aim for a good quality of life by appropriate eating habits, being involved in family and community and keep learning either formally or informally.  Once again I am inspired by many of the older people with whom I have worked whose ages have reached even beyond 100 years. Treasure each day of life as a gift from G-d and never waste a moment. May G-d bless you and your families. May we all be privileged to reach the next big reunion in good health and meet many times over on FB, or in person,  and let us all  continue to exchange news of our lives and share special moments and reflections.

Lehitraot!!!