Eulogy for Shlomo
Leon Deouell
(read at the memorial at UC Berkeley, dept. of psychology)
Shlomo was my mentor, my PhD advisor, and then my friend and
collaborator for many years, and it is beyond words to express how he
influenced my life, as he did to so many others. It is easy to find out what a
great scientist he was – just go to Pubmed or Google scholar. But those of us who had the
privilege of knowing Shlomo in person, especially to be mentored by him, know
how special he was.
Shlomo was the ultimate mentor, and once you got under his
mentorship, he watched after you for the rest of your life. The word that kept
coming up in the last few days from past and present students, and which echoes
exactly the way I feel, was how empowering he was. He was involved in every
detail of the work of his students, sending emails at 4 am, and then calling at
7:30 am to see what we think of his comments. Yet he also gave so much space,
nurtured the talents and creativity of his students, and had this way of
treating everyone, from undergrad RA to post-docs to colleagues, as his equal.
He behaved as if he is the one learning from us, rather than vice versa. And by
this process of empowering, he managed
to raise generation after generation of scholars, who now fill the ranks of
university professors around the globe – from China to Canada, USA, France and
England, not to speak of Israel.
Shlomo was a man with no masks. You knew exactly how he felt
about everything. He was emotional , because he cared so much, cared for people
and for the truth. And lo, was he willing to fight for a cause. A brave field-commander leading his troops in
the real battlefields, an activist in politics fighting for peace, or fighting
over theories in science. The amazing thing though was that somehow those who
were his strongest opponents in science, became his best friends. Bruno Rossion
wrote to me yesterday: "As you
know, Shlomo and I have had many disagreements on the functional interpretation
of the N170, especially at the beginning of my career. But he showed an open
mindedness that I would have never expected from such an important and
established scientist, and he taught me a lesson for the rest of my career. The
turning point was when he invited me in Israel in 2006 to discuss our
respective work for a week. This remains one of the most cherished moment of my
career". I think this could happen because sooner or later it was clear
that Shlomo did it out of love – love for science, love of the truth.
His passion for science was contagious. He would storm into
my office thrilled with every new idea like it was his first, his imagination
rushing on with every piece of data, excited and proud with his 150-something
paper accepted, as you were excited with your first paper published, and
frustrated with any stupid reviewer comment as if his career depended on it. In our last exchange in skype, just hours
before the accident, he told me of his plans for the next few months, and it
was dazzling. His productivity was legendary, and I am sorry he never shared
the details of his most important discovery – how to have more than 24 hours a
day. This passion for discovery, and for
the life of a scientist, were and will always be an inspiration for all of us.
Of course, Shlomo was also passionate about everything else
he did. I hope some of you were lucky
enough to indulge on his cooking. I had the opportunity to watch him and Miri
dance in gala dinners and family occasions, and they were pros at this too. But he was most passionate
about his family. Shlomo was involved deeply in their lives, and we kept
hearing in the lab the stories and praise of Miri, of his children Shai, Einat,
and Ayala, then of their spouses, and then the grandchildren. He was so proud
of them.
Only 3 months ago we had a party at my place honoring Shlomo
when he got the Israel prize for science. Literally dozens of students
and alumni of the lab were there, and some sent their digital greetings from
abroad, we had a great time, and we had the opportunity to embarrass Shlomo and
say all this praise to him in person. It
is just heartbreaking that we lost him so soon after.
