Dr John Lourie was born in Liverpool in 1943 and grew up in Oxford, where he later studied medicine, continuing his training in London, and then back in Oxford. Working with the Medical Research Council he conducted research on physiological adaptation in Yemenite and Kurdish Jewish immigrants to Israel, and was based in 1968/9 at the Negev Research Institute in Beersheva. After completing a PhD at the University of London, he trained as an orthopaedic surgeon and also earned a Diploma in Human Biology. After a period living in Papua New Guinea, and then in Australia and New Zealand, he settled with his wife and two children back in the UK near Milton Keynes, a new city halfway between London and Birmingham. From 1986 he worked as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, both in Milton Keynes and for various overseas aid agencies, and also for nearly 20 years as Associate Postgraduate Dean at Oxford’s medical school.
John’s father’s remarkable story reminds us of the importance of seizing opportunities. Thanks to a sudden offer to travel to the Middle East, his father not only discovered the Hebrew University—then in its infancy—but also met his Canadian wife, who was then working under the British Mandate.
After the death of his father, John’s mother established a memorial scholarship project, which John later took over after she died. Now, nearly 100 years since his father first arrived in the land of Israel, John will be honoured by the Hebrew University with an Honorary Fellowship.
This is his story, the third in the A Legacy of Devotion: The UK’s Lifelong Bond with the Hebrew University series.
Emanuel (Mannie) Lourie, John Lourie’s dad
Tell us about your father’s first encounter with the Hebrew University
My father Emanuel (Mannie) Lourie was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1904 to a Zionist family whose origins go back through 15 generation of rabbis in Lithuania, dating back to the brother of the ‘Vilna Ga-On’ – the ‘Wise Man of Vilna’ (now Vilnius). After completing his studies at University College Hospital Medical School (where I also studied, some 45 years later) in London, he worked at the Seamans’ Hospital in Greenwich, where he saw much imported tropical disease. One day in 1927, he attended a lecture in London by Professor Saul Adler, the first Professor of Parasitology at the Hebrew University, which had very recently been opened on Mount Scopus. Adler spoke about sandfly fever and mentioned he would be traveling to Persia via Palestine the very next day to continue his research. He asked my father if he wanted to join him. My father jumped at the opportunity – and the chance to visit Palestine – so Adler told him to be at the docks at Tilbury to board the ship at 8 o’clock the following morning!
Goldie Olga Louis, John Lourie’s mum
He and Adler worked together on sandfly fever for some three months, then my father worked on a kibbutz in the Galilee for several months, and in 1929 met my mother in a ‘pension’ in Jerusalem where they were both staying. My mother, Goldie Olga Louis, had come to Palestine from Montréal where she had trained as a teacher, but could not get a job as in those days there was a quota for Jewish teachers, and this was full. She therefore re-trained as a typist, and went to Jerusalem to work in the Treasury Department of the British Mandate government under Sir Herbert Samuel. The following year, in June 1930, they got married in London.
Has your dad ever returned to Jerusalem after the experience with Prof Adler?
Following that trip, Professor Adler repeatedly encouraged my father over a number of years to consider taking up a post at the University, but for a variety of reasons that never happened. It is however almost certain that he would have visited Mount Scopus on a number of occasions in the late 1920s or during the 1930s. On one later visit, in March 1948, he wrote to my mother back in Liverpool:
John Lourie’s Parents
“Palestine certainly is an armed camp, and there is war in the air, but the people – as far as one can see at first glance – are magnificent. One goes from Lydda to Tel Aviv in a convoy of armoured cars, and everywhere the surrounding consideration, of course, is security… I did not go to see grandmother (his mother’s parents had come to live in Tel Aviv in the early 1920s) immediately on arrival, because there was a convoy due to start out for Rehovoth as soon I got here, and one must seize upon transport opportunities as they arise… The Institute (in Rehovoth) is in many ways a very impressive and imaginative undertaking but they are, of course, working under grave disabilities at the moment. Difficulties of supply, labour, communications, etc. etc., with the younger members of the staff always away training for the warfare that is just around the corner – or rather the warfare that is going on all the time. Jewish defence appears to be highly organised, though seriously hampered by the British. There are roadblocks, guards, barbed wire, etc. etc. Everywhere” (Extracts from Mannie’s letters from Palestine to Olga (in Liverpool) – March 1948)
He also at that time visited the Daniel Sieff Research Institute at Rehovot (not called the Weizmann Institute until 1949) and gave lectures there and at the Medical Faculty of the University. After my father died in 1956 (by which time he was working for the World Health Organization in Geneva), my mother did not return to Palestine/Israel until she and I went to visit her older sister Anne, who was by that time living in Jerusalem, teaching English as a foreign language, in 1958.
And when has your own relationship with the University started?
My own first visit was then, in 1958, and subsequently several times in the 1960s, when I was working at the Negev Research Institute in Beersheva, on a project from the MRC in London where I was at that time based, and more recently too.
Tell us about the Dr Emanuel and Mrs Olga Lourie PhD Scholarships in Tropical Medicine
My mother had contributed to the funding of a scholarship in my father’s name after he died in 1956, but when she died in 1987 I had difficulty tracing what had happened to this endowment, and it was not until 6 or 7 years ago that I decided to make a more permanent contribution in the way of the two postgraduate PhD scholarships in Tropical Medicine in the names of both my parents, which are now ongoing. Each of the students awarded the scholarship receives a letter from me telling them about my parents and their backgrounds. I am sure that Mannie and Olga would be very happy indeed to know that a fund named in their memories has helped these students progress with their research, and their careers.
And now at the upcoming Board of Governors gathering in Jerusalem you’ll be honoured as an Honorary Fellow of the Hebrew University
It is certainly a great and unexpected privilege to be offered an Honorary Fellowship of the Hebrew University. Various other family members have over the years been involved as donors to the HU, and at least one has been a Governor (Michael Greenblatt), and I feel especially pleased to be able to continue my family’s connection with the University in this way.
John Lourie & daughter at the Archives
Describe a standout memory or moment that left a lasting impression on you at the University?
One small anecdote illustrating my family’s connection arose on a visit to the Spielberg Archive, together with my daughter, in 2023. We were shown a number of file boxes containing letters and other documents relating to the film-making activities of my uncle Norman Lourie (my father’s younger brother – who lived in Israel in the 1940s and 50s, and whose daughter-in-law and family live in Jerusalem and are here today). My daughter opened one of the boxes quite at random and completely by chance the first document we saw was a letter I had myself written to Norman in 1961, describing my experiences while working in Fiji, before starting as a medical student.
What legacy do you hope your family’s support will leave at the University?
In view of my father’s career in Tropical Medicine, and my own experience of undertaking medical work – teaching and surgery – in many developing countries in the tropics over the past 43 years, I am more than happy to have the opportunity of contributing to the advancement of the study of tropical medicine. Highly trained and innovative researchers into the devastating diseases prevalent in these almost universally resource-poor regions can only lead to a fairer and healthier world for us all.
How do you envision the Hebrew University in the next decade or two?
In particular, I would like to see the Hebrew University continue to act and promote itself as a truly global institution, teaching and training students from all countries in all continents, irrespective of the financial contribution they are capable of providing, and especially including students from countries not necessarily politically (or religiously) aligned with Israel. In this way the University can demonstrate the truly international nature of science and learning, and in the case of the biomedical disciplines promote a global intent to improve the health of all nations, regardless of the political, religious and diplomatic differences between them.
Want to participate in this project? Have a remarkable story to share? Please reach out to us at Friends@bfhu.org.