Michael Korenblit

Dr. Michael Korenblit, 87, of Boca Raton, Florida passed away on Sunday, February 9, 2025. A funeral service for Misha was held Monday, February 10, 2025, at 1:30 PM at IJ Morris at Star of David of the Palm Beaches, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He is mourned by his wife, four children, and two grandchildren.

Misha was born in Nemirov in the Ukraine during the famine of the 1930's. With the advance of the Nazi's in the early 1940's, his mother took him, his sister, Ida, and his infant nephew, Boris, to the East by train through Tashkent to Siberia. There they barely subsisted until the end of the war while his two elder brothers fought in the Soviet army. Friends and family, including his grandparents, who remained in Nemirov, were slaughtered by the Nazis.

He was one of only five Jews permitted to attend the college of dentistry in his area. He underwent subsequent education as an oral surgeon at the Pavlov Institute in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. He was first involved in Zionist activities in 1962, being detained by the KGB. Nevertheless, he continued his Zionist pursuits. He made an unthinkable sacrifice for the sake of Soviet Jews yearning for freedom, serving 7 years in a Soviet prison camp in the Gulag for his part in the 1970 plot to hijack a plane to Sweden with Jewish passengers who had been denied Soviet permission to go to Israel, known as "Operation Wedding."

Misha was not a religiously observant person, but he had an deep appreciation of the natural world, and an innate, absolute, faith in the creator. He loved to walk in the woods in Jerusalem and appreciated all living creatures, from a mundane mushroom growing under a pine tree that struck him as beautiful, to the rare regal sight of a gazelle.

He lived a life of self denial for his children. He worked long hours six days a week, and refused to leave his office when things were slow because he felt obligated to provide for his family. On Fridays, he would work a shorter day and carried enough food from the market for Shabbat that would nearly cover the living room floor.

He had the soul of an artist, with the discipline of a soldier. He valued education and the pursuit of knowledge, and was a prolific reader. He studied the authoritarianism that had touched his life.

After arriving in Israel in 1977, he served as a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces as a Dentist Medical Officer until he was 54 years old. His service included action in the first Lebanese War and later at the Anwar Detention camp in Lebanon, humanely treating PLO terrorist prisoners with skill and kindness, earning their appreciation and respect. From Nazis to communists, to terrorists, to run-of-the-mill anti-Semites, he never gave up the fight.

He walked a righteous path where others would not. He lived a life of courage and resilience, cheating death from childhood on.

Despite observing the worst darkness of humanity, he chose to help his fellow man. Practicing dentistry in Jerusalem for more than 37 years, he helped the destitute, the disabled, and immigrants, without seeking any recognition and at personal cost. When he had a patient with whose lifestyle he did not agree, he treated that person with even greater gentleness and caring. He taught his children, by the example of how he lived his life - that we have an obligation to help others. He never sought attention, recognition, or credit. He lived humbly, abhorring decadence, superficiality, frivolity, hypocrisy, and small-mindedness.

Despite life’s difficulties, he trudged on as a complex person who did his personal best. You can’t ask for more than that. Through every tragedy, every difficult decision, every sacrifice, he led his family with a noble model to strive towards, however impossible, giving them a chance to walk the path of the righteous.

He yearned and struggled to live even at the end, holding on in a manner that defies logic. And in a moment of agony, somehow, he mustered a sliver of lucidity and said to his daughter, "You cannot help me. It is impossible," because his eyes had caught hers. His mind registered her tears and pulled his consciousness to the fore, to comfort her. Even then, his concern was for someone else.

One of the many authors he enjoyed was Somerset Maugham. He tried to get his daughter to read Of Human Bondage while on maternity leave. (It's only 700 pages.) Maugham wrote that, "Only a mediocre person is always at his best." Misha lived a life devoid of mediocrity. The world is a darker place with the loss of a great man who sought justice. But he made sure to leave a light on in his wake, so others may walk the path with a little more certainty.

Contributions in Misha's memory may be made to Hadassah, www.hadassah.org; FIDF, https://support.fidf.org; and FIDV/Beit Halochem, www.fidv.org.