40 | DECEMBER 31 • 2020

SOUL

OF BLESSED MEMORY

D

r. Stanley Hurwick
Levy, whose life
was touched by a
chance meeting with Albert
Einstein, and who came to
Detroit to practice at the
then-new Sinai Hospital
in the early 1950s, died at
his Bloomfield Hills home
Dec. 17, 2020, from natural
causes. He was 94.
Attorney Geoffrey Fieger,
a longtime patient, said
“doctors like him come
along once in a lifetime.
His inquisitive mind never
stopped thinking about
solutions, diagnoses and
possibilities.”
Robert Levy, the younger
of Dr. Levy’s two sons,
said his father “was the
only physician in Detroit
to practice at Sinai from
the day it opened until the
day it closed,” when Sinai
Hospital was merged with
the former Grace Hospital
in 1999.
Dr. Levy, an internal
medicine expert who was
extremely dedicated to his
patients, continued after
that to maintain a private
practice in Detroit, and
later Southfield, where his
waiting room was always
full. He did not retire until
October 2019, by which
time he had practiced
medicine for 70 years.
He was born in Pittsburgh
to David and Eva Hurwick
Levy on July 10, 1926,
and largely grew up there,
though his family lived
briefly in Dallas and Waco,

Texas, during the Great
Depression.
But the main turning
point in his life came during
World War II. In January
1944, he joined the U.S.
Navy and was sent to the
U.S. Navy’s V-12 accelerated
education program at
Princeton, which had been
notoriously reluctant to
admit Jewish students.
That spring, he and a few
classmates were invited to a
seder where he was seated
next to Einstein. Months
later, they had another
conversation on campus
after Levy had spent a day
taking exams. “He was
really interested in how I
had done,” Levy later would
say.
That led to a lifetime
fascination with the great
physicist and his work.
After graduating from
Princeton and earning his
M.D. from the University
of Pittsburgh, Dr. Levy
came to Detroit to open
the Atomic (later Nuclear)
Medicine unit at Sinai,
one of the first of its kind.
He also became a serious
book collector, and the
centerpiece of his vast
personal library was a
collection of works by and
about Einstein.

EINSTEIN MONUMENT
Early this century, Dr. Levy
learned to his shock that
there was no monument
commemorating Einstein in
Princeton, where the great

man lived from the time he
fled the Nazis in 1933 till
his death in 1955. So, Levy
donated a large amount
of money and successfully
led a fund drive to remedy
this. Eventually, the famous
sculptor Robert Berks was
commissioned to do a large
bronze bust of Einstein,
which was dedicated in
April 2005 at what is now
EMC Square.
But besides his practice,
his Einstein stories and his
library, which became well-
known to the nation’s book
collectors, Dr. Levy also
became briefly famous in
the 1990s, when he emerged
as a close friend and strong
supporter of another of
his patients — Dr. Jack
Kevorkian, who fought to
make physician-assisted
suicide acceptable. Dr. Levy
helped organize a group
called Physicians for Mercy,
and appeared in a number
of documentaries about
Kevorkian, who later went
to prison and died in 2011.

Dr. Levy was also an
adjunct professor of
medicine at Wayne State
University for 30 years,
and an active financial and
personal supporter of many
causes ranging from the
Chamber Music Society
of Detroit to Planned
Parenthood and the
Humane Society.
Dr. Levy is survived by his
sons, E.J. Levy and Robert
(Randi Steinbruck) Levy;
his grandchildren, Stephanie
(David Blumenthal) Levy,
Daniel Levy and Alana
Goldstein Levy; and
nieces and nephews, Allen
Aronsson, Dr. Stig Aronsson,
Steven Levy, Carol Levy
and Louise Levy Schuster;
and his longtime caregiver,
Patricia Harris.
He was predeceased by
his parents; his brother, Dr.
Marshall Levy of Pittsburgh;
and two wives, Susanne
Jackson Levy, who died in
1982, and Rita Jacobs Levy,
who died in 2011.
Interment was at Clover
Hill Park Cemetery in
Birmingham. Contributions
may be made to the United
Jewish Foundation of
Metropolitan Detroit for
the Susanne Jackson Levy
Scholarship Fund, (248)
642-4260; JVS Human
Service’ Single Soul Suicide
Prevention Program, (248)
559-5000; or the Peace and
Conflict Studies Program
at Wayne State University.
Arrangements were by Ira
Kaufman Chapel.

Sinai’s Longtime Doctor

Dr. Stanley Levy

JACK LESSENBERRY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS