DR. NISSIM EZRA NISSIM
A few days after I arrived in Israel this year, I heard that Dr. Nissim Nissim, my science teacher at Shamash School in Baghdad, was no longer with us.
With great sorrow, I gathered with others among Dr. Nissim's friends from many walks of life to attend shloshim services at his home. Next day I drove with his son to be present at services conducted at Dr. Nissim's graveside.
Life and death are full of strange coincidences. Just in the next row of graves, clearly visible from Dr. Nissim's grave, was a gravestone erected to another Nissim Nissim. I wondered what the coincidence meant, why it was that the headstone of one Nissim Nissim almost touched the headstone of another Nissim Nissim, who was my friend and my teacher. I did not understand it. but standing there saying kaddish, I was keenly aware that the Nissim Nissim I knew had touched my life deeply.
Dr. Nissim Nissim was born in 1917 near Diwaniya in Iraq. Orphaned at an early age, he was raised by his aunt. His intellectual capacity and abilities were recognized even when he was very young. When he graduated top of his high school class the Iraqi government awarded him a scholarship to continue his studies in Beirut.
Later, the Jewish community helped him to continue his studies in the United States at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he received his MS in clinical and medical science. He returned to Iraq where he lectured in various institutions, including Shamash School where I came under his influence.
It is from Dr. Nissim that I learned a fundamental lesson which proved useful when it was my turn to teach in graduate schools: never to be afraid to admit I didn't know something.
From him I learned that we cannot know everything, that knowledge is too wide to be totally encompassed by any one person.When a student asked a question to which he didn't know the answer, he readily confessed his ignorance, promising to find the answer for that student. I never forgot that.
Another teacher might have shoved the question aside, or blustered his way through with an answer that did not address the question, but not Dr. Nissim. He respected knowledge and truth too much.
Dr. Nissim came to Israel in March 1951 and lived in Ma'abarat Ramat Hasharon for four years. Those years had a profound influence on his life, resulting in his becoming a activist in the cause of equality of opportunity for the Iraqi Jewish community.
He married Suzette Gabai in 1954; his son Uzzi was born in 1956. Dr. Nissim received a PhD from the Hebrew University in 1959. He published in scientific journals and wrote two general chemistry textbooks, but he also wrote poetry and literary criticism.
Dr. Nissim was a man of many talents, but he was also a caring person of great integrity, a pillar of the Iraqi community in Ramat Gan.
He was instrumental in establishing an evening high school in Ramat Gan at a time when high school tuition was out of reach for many people. This high school was free, and the teachers, including Dr. Nissim, were all volunteers. Many graduates of this high school went on to college.
Dr. Nissim was a member of the Board of the Histadrut and of the Jews of Babylonian Origin, as well as serving on the board of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center. He was deeply involved in politics and made himself available to anyone who needed help.
When my daughter Aziza turned to him for help with her doctoral dissertation, he made his time and his knowledge available to her. It touched me deeply to know that this great man, who influenced me so greatly, was also an influence in my daughter's life.
I write this tribute with a great sense of joy and gratitude, aware of the gift that the life and accomplishments of this man was to the Babylonian community. And yet the joy is mingled with a deep sadness because he has left us. May his soul be bound up in the bond of eternity.
To an old friend, teacher and role model- farewell!
Prof. J. Daniel Khazzoom
San Francisco