moments Jewish Contributions to Humanity #4 in a series JAN. 7 Ozeran Jonathan and Abby (Goldstein) Ozeran of Chicago, Ill., are thrilled to announce the birth of their daughter, Ella Madelyn. Sharing in their joy are Bubbie and Zaydie, Francine and Ira Ozeran of West Bloomfield; Nana and Pop, Anna and Gary Lichtenstein of Highland Park, Ill.; and Gigi and Papa, Susie and Michael Goldstein of Chicago. Ella is named in loving memory of cherished great-grand- parents (E)velyn Goldstein, (L)eonard Goldstein, (L)ena Obar, (A)dam Obar, and Muriel and Morris Smith. Maxwell Philip Victor (Meir Peleh) of Huntington Woods will be called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah on Saturday, Feb. 3, at Congregation Victor Shaarey Zedek, in Southfield. Joining in his celebration will be his parents, Rachel and Hugh Victor, older sister Sydney and proud grandparents Joyce and Saul Rubenstein. Max is also the grandson of the late Janet and Robert Victor. Max is a student at Norup International School in Oak Park. As part of his mitzvah projects, he volun- teered with PeerCorps Detroit, where he was involved in gardening, summer camps with youth from Detroit and occasional mural painting. Smith 70th A rt and Dotty Smith of West Bloomfield were married Jan. 27, 1948, at Adat Shalom in Detroit. Arthur was a certified public accountant. Dotty was a spe- cial education teacher who began her teaching career in Dearborn. They have two children, Mindy and Fredric Smith, and four grandchil- dren, Jenny Crakes, Alec and Hunter Ramsay-Smith, and Isaac Smith. The couple will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary with friends and family at a luncheon. • Wartel-Weiss K aryn and Danny Wartel, and Andi and Mark Weiss are thrilled to announce the engagement of their children Elyse Wartel and Scott Weiss. Grandparents are the late Jeannette and the late Ruben Wartel, and the late Lois and the late Arthur Felinski, Rose and Mark Hechler, and the late Betty and the late Sidney Weiss. A 2019 wedding is planned. • Mollie Elisabeth Weiner will chant from the Torah as she becomes a bat mitzvah at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield on Friday, Feb. 2. She Weiner will be joined in cel- ebration by proud parents, Kara and A.J. Weiner, and brother Charlie. She is the loving granddaughter of Annette and the late Lee Friedman, and Karen and Jerry Weiner. Mollie is a student at West Hills Middle School in Bloomfield Hills. For her most meaningful mitzvah project, she volunteered at Temple Israel, where she assisted in providing the meals for the residents of South Oakland Shelter. How Jewish Health Care Reformers Raised the Bar for Medical Treatment. ABRAHAM FLEXNER (1866-1959) b . Louisville, Kentucky. The academic reformer. Abraham Flexner was an unlikely candidate to be one of the greatest reformers of American medicine. After all, he wasn’t a doctor and had no medical training. And yet, his proposal to re- form health education created the medical school system that remains with us today. A high school teacher and principal, Flexner first made waves in 1908 when he published a book critical of Ameri- can universities—particularly their penchant to prioritize research over schooling and their prefer- ence for large lectures instead of intimate class- room settings. That book, “The American Col- lege,” received the attention of the president of the Carnegie Foundation, Henry Pritchett, who then commissioned Flexner to write the “Flexner Re- port,” a 1910 analysis of American medical train- ing. His report called on schools to raise the bar on admission and graduation standards, follow mainstream scientific and medical theories, take control of clinical training in hospitals, and to be subjected to stronger state medical licensing regulations. In the 25 years following the publication of his report, more than half of America’s medical schools, including a number of the handful that existed for black students, closed or merged—he wanted to cut the annual number of medical school graduates from 4,400 to 2,200. His impact on American education continued in 1930 when he helped found the Insti- tute for Advanced Study, a postdoctoral research center in Princeton. LILLIAN WALD (1867-1940) b. Cincinnati, Ohio. Raised among the wealthy, she toiled among the needy. Raised in relative wealth, Lillian Wald chose to live a life dedicated to those who lived in poverty—and in the process she helped create lasting in- stitutions in America that fulfilled and still fulfill her vision of supporting the needy. After training as a nurse in New York, Wald eschewed the traditional hospital path to instead set up shop on the Lower East Side, where donors supported her mission of providing free medical care for poor com- munities that had few medical resources. The term “public health nurse” was first used in connection with her clinic. Her nurse shop—which added dozens of staff—became the Henry Street Settlement, which exists today and annu- ally aids about 50,000 low-income New York residents, with health care being but one of its many social services. In ad- dition to this local triumph, Wald partnered Henry Street with a major insurance company, which inspired countless other insurance companies to embark on social service projects. She was also a founding member of the NAACP, and hosted the group’s founding meeting at Henry Street. A female leader at a time when few women held leadership roles in America, Wald was a relentless activist in concretely improving the lives of the working poor. She was also a co-founder in the early 1900’s of the National Child Labor Committee, a group that was chartered by Congress in 1907 and, to this day, exposes and fights cases of child labor in the United States. Original Research by Walter L. Field Sponsored by Irwin S. Field Written by Jared Sichel jn February 1 • 2018 17