Grapevine: Remembering Enid Wurtman

According to Jewish tradition, people with the purest souls die on Shabbat or on other Jewish holy days. Yom Kippur is the holiest of them all.

Wurtman, her husband, Stuart, and their children were leaders in the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry. She never lost her interest in Soviet Jewry, and almost until her dying day, administered the Emergency Fund for Refuseniks.

Among those who attended the funeral and eulogized her were Natan Sharansky and Yosef Mendelevich. Social media was flooded with memorial tributes to Wurtman.

Nothing deterred the Wurtmans from their mission. They pleaded and argued with Congress. They overcame the voices of hesitation from their own community. They attended rallies and withstood political pressure. Their example set others on the same path.

They never took time out from the battle they waged. They had taken on a mission and were determined to complete it, whatever the cost. Together with likeminded others, they succeeded.

They continued to stay in touch with the people for whose freedom they had fought, and each of them regarded Enid Wurtman as their best friend. For them, her memory is a blessing.

Sometimes, it pays to share your problems instead of keeping them to yourself.

In last Friday’s Grapevine, I wrote that, because Har Hamenuhot Cemetery has been considerably upgraded, I was unable to find the graves of my mother and my husband, and suggested that a computerized map and guide be put up at the entrance to the cemetery.

But last Friday, two readers sent me more or less the same message that a way to locate a grave already exists. They informed me about the Gravez website or app, where one can find the section/plot and a photograph of the grave itself.

To find them on my next visit to the cemetery, I will have to rely on my colleague Gil Hoffman, who, immediately after reading about my problem, messaged me that he would be honored to take me to the cemetery to help find the graves. Gil knows a lot more about computerization than I do, so I guess he’ll succeed when we go.

In another acknowledgment of Hadassah’s standards and achievements, the Israel Science Foundation has given the hospital’s transplant unit a research grant to study liver aging and advance transplant medicine. Headed by Dr. Abed Khaleileh, the unit performs both kidney and liver transplants from living and deceased donors.

The research facilitated by the grant will be led by Khaleileh and Dr. Ashraf Imam, together with Dr. Dudy Tzfati of the Silberman Institute for Life Sciences.

Although close to 950 days have passed since the disappearance of their nine-year-old daughter, Haymanut, it was important to sit with the family in their sukkah and to try to give them hope for the future, said Hagoel.

During his visit, Hagoel met Haymanut’s four-month-old sister, Tsenat, whose name in Amharic means fortitude

Music therapist Dr. Tali Gottfried has received an ISERD Director Award for her European Union-funded research on music therapy to treat recovering drug and alcohol addicts.

Gottfried, who is the academic coordinator of Herzog College’s special education MA program and a lecturer in music therapy, has served as Israel’s representative at the European Music Therapy Confederation since 2014.

In September 2024, her FALCO research project was awarded a prestigious five-year research grant by the EU through the Horizon Europe Fund. The FALCO study, examining music therapy as a rehabilitative tool for drug and alcohol recovery, now spans 14 centers across eight countries, with Gottfried heading the Israeli arm. The research examines the effect of a listening group and an active music-playing group as part of the rehabilitation process.

The Israeli National Contact Point for European R&D (ISERD) operates under the aegis of the Israel Innovation Authority, which typically awards grants to universities rather than colleges.

Recognition of Gottfried’s contribution to music therapy as a vehicle for rehabilitation is a feather in Herzog Academic College’s cap.

In recent years, Israeli researchers have struggled to obtain international research grants, making this award all the more significant. Gottfried said: “I am proud to be establishing the value of music therapy as a serious and regulated field, and using it to help people who need support. The number of people addicted to drugs and alcohol in Israel has risen dramatically over the past three years. According to the latest ICA [Israel Center on Addiction] report, one in four adults uses mind-altering substances to cope with their mental state.

“A research project like FALCO offers a noninvasive, non-harmful therapeutic path for the well-being of those who need it.”