Obituary
Herbert Dickstein, MD, 92, peacefully died on January 16, 2025 at home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Herb was born in Brooklyn, NY, on March 21, 1932, to Harry and Pauline (Milevsky). As a boy, his maternal grandfather taught him to fish in Sheepshead Bay and he participated in the US Navy Bluejackets. He graduated from James Madison High School, then New York University - University Heights Campus in The Bronx, where he majored in math, in 1953. He spent time working at his father’s tailor shop, and in summers sold drinks on the beach at Coney Island, and even was a coffee boy at a hotel in the Catskills, among other jobs.
In 1952, he was set up by a friend to meet Leah Chernoble on a blind date two weeks before New Year’s Eve. Knowing that he had an interest in medicine, a group of friends suggested applying to medical school in Belgium, when they were not accepted due to quotas on Jews in American medical schools at the time. He was accepted at the Rijksuniversiteit Ghent, and traveled there by steamship in the fall of 1953. All the classes and exams were in Flemish – a language which he did not know, but it was similar to Yiddish, which was spoken at home. During the first two years of school, he lived at a boarding house with other medical and graduate students, some of whom became life-long friends. His relationship with Leah continued throughout his first year in medical school, remaining in touch through letters. She encouraged him to continue despite having to repeat his second year. They were married in 1955 and lived in Europe until he was able to complete the program. They returned to New York for his required year of internship to earn his medical degree in 1960. He did his residency in pathology at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, and then was hired as a pathologist at Long Island Jewish Hospital.
In 1966, he moved with his wife and their toddler to Louisville, KY, so that Leah could attend medical school at the University of Louisville. After doing part-time work for the first six months, he eventually found a position as associate pathologist at the former St. Anthony’s Hospital. He was a much loved member of the laboratory staff and remained there until the hospital was sold in 1995. His work as a physician brought him satisfaction to help colleagues make accurate diagnoses using his microscope and his mind. Most notably, in the 1970s, he and others helped identify a cluster of patients suffering from hepatic hemangiosarcoma, a rare form of fatal liver cancer among workers at a local rubber plant. Additionally, he served as a member of the voluntary faculty for the University of Louisville School of Medicine.
At home, family activities included travel, as well as using his engineering mind to solve small and large problems, including such feats as installing an indoor gutter system to solve chronic leaks in his modern home that also included an indoor pool, for which he was frequently designing new cover systems. Over a period of two years, he rebuilt his Chevrolet V8 engine using only a repair manual and his perseverance. When his sons were in the Boy Scouts, he assisted with summer camp physicals with Troop 30, and a high adventure canoe trip on the Abitibi River to Moosonee, Ontario, Canada with the former Troop 318.
His artistic talent surfaced early in life, and included photography with a Kodak Brownie camera, and progressed to drawing, and painting, with a variety of media. His signature artistic work involved a 40-year exploration of his self-named ‘string art’ or ‘shmatta and patschka’ using cotton string, glue, and acrylic on canvas: https://herbertdickstein.wixsite.com/thestringartist/about
As a talented baker, he made delicious challah, birthday cakes, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and hamentashen. His favorite food was semi-sweet chocolate chips.
His later years were blessed by time with grandchildren, building model ships using found materials, such as clementine boxes, milk jugs, and string. He loved ships of all kinds, and both traveled on, read about, and followed their movements on his iPad. Over the last five years, he enjoyed the weekly online Shabbat services from the Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale, NY.
He was a member of the Greater Louisville Medical Society, Kentucky Medical Association, and the American Medical Association, and a laboratory examiner for the College of American Pathologists.
He was predeceased by his wife Leah Joan (Chernoble) Dickstein, MD, and is survived by his sons Stuart (Nancy Shapiro), Daniel (Elizabeth Jacobs), and Steven, and beloved grandchildren.
Services were held Monday, January 20, 2025, 10:45AM, at Cedar Park Cemetery Oradell (Paramus NJ). To watch a recording of the funeral:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/gLJoBlZMX3_dFDxCPkZqb3vtfxzovj0pIz7LrMFucTNBEnze3q0QX-iYDZei87Sa.pvbpr1sxeV0PEdzo
Arrangements by Weinstein Chapels. www.weinsteinchapels.com
Donations
Donations in Herbert's memory can be made to:
CSAIR Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale
475 West 250th Street
Riverdale, NY 10471