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