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Misha Shalom \quad}

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%Misha Shalom.
\title{MISHA SHALOM}

\author{JOSHUA ZAK}

\address{Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel}

\maketitle

\abstracts{
These are some recollections I have of Professor 
Michael (Misha) Marinov after his arrival in Israel, from talking to 
him and his family, from excursions with him, and from seeing him 
in action.} 

Misha came 
to the Physics Department of the Technion in 1988  and  soon after that 
the Marinov family rented an apartment in the Technion housing 
(called Shikun Hatechnion)in Ahuza, Haifa, where I live, and thus
becoming neighbors of mine. They spent about two years there and then 
moved to an apartment of their own in the same neighborhood. I also 
had the privilege to be on Misha's appointment committee for 
the position of a full professor at the Technion and had a chance 
to talk to people about the Marinovs and about Misha's  academic 
achievements. This gave me the opportunity and pleasure to get to 
know the family, and Misha, in particular, already in the early stages 
after their arrival in Israel. 

The Marinovs made aliya\,\footnote{\,[This literally means ``to go up'' but
is used to describe immigration to Israel.]} 
to Israel 
in 1987 and Misha appeared in our department after 
spending a year in the Racah Institute of Physics of the 
Hebrew University in Jerusalem. While working there the 
Marinovs lived in Gilo, Jerusalem. Misha also taught 
in the Judea and Samaria College in Ariel, helping to establish there 
a new college where at that time there were about 1,000 students. Since 
then this college has grown in size and has 
an enrollment of about 6,500 students. Recently, Gilo, where Misha's 
sister and her family still live, is often in the news, being a target 
of Palestinian terror shelling. 

After coming to our department Misha soon established himself 
as an expert and source of information on Soviet Union 
immigrants, both for staff and students. There is a saying in 
Yiddish that ``one goes to him like to a good Jew," and people came to Misha 
in large numbers, and he helped many of them to start their lives 
in Israel. He told me that he advised newcomers with academic degrees 
to go to libraries and get acquainted with the activities of people 
and institutions in Israel as a way to choose the 
right place for future work. In my view this was very 
valuable advice. Misha was also instrumental in advising 
new students on all levels how to continue their studies 
in Israel. He was active in selecting the good students for admission 
to the Technion, and at the same time to cut the not so good 
ones in a very firm way. On a Technion mission to the States and Canada 
Misha was acquainting people with the problems and needs of the big 
immigration wave to Israel from the Soviet Union. Very few people could 
do this job better than Misha. 

Our Physics Department has tea time twice a day and Misha attended 
it regularly. This was an opportunity to listen to him talk on many 
different subjects and to appreciate the breadth of Misha's universal 
knowledge. He liked to enter into discussions on subjects that 
supposedly should have been in the field of expertise of his opponents, 
like talking to people about the history of their native town or 
country, discussing their literature and arts, origins of languages and 
many other matters. It was at these times when one was often overwhelmed by 
the depth and detail of Misha's encyclopedic knowledge. When talking 
to a religious Jew Misha's knowledge would be superior on Biblical stories, 
and 
when talking to a religious Christian he would often know  
the New Testament better than his opponent. Misha could get into 
a discussion on Royal families with a knowledge above any expectations 
of the details about their marriages and divorces, children (both legitimate 
and illegitimate), family ties and many other issues. Of course, one of 
the popular subjects at our tea times in the department is Israeli 
politics, with Misha representing there the right wing of the 
political spectrum. Among our professors he was in a very small 
minority, but he, nevertheless, managed to put across his strong views 
and convictions. His opponents might not have agreed with him but 
the power of his knowledge of facts and his phenomenal
 memory made them listen to him. 

Another thing that comes to my mind 
about tea time is that Misha would often drink his black coffee 
with lemon which was very unusual to many of us. Misha called this 
the Moscow style coffee but he would say that he had no interest in 
going back to Russia where he, his family and Jews, in general, were 
badly mistreated. This is very different than what Solzhenitsyn says 
in his recent book ``200 years together" where he tries to paint 
a rather rosy picture of the Jewish-Russian coexistence. Misha had good 
reasons to be bitter about the Soviet Union after having spent 
8 years (1979-1987) as an unemployed refusnik. During that time 
he made a living 
%mostly
as a construction laborer and 
%then, after breaking a leg, he engaged in translations 
translator of literature in mathematics 
and physics. While being a refusnik Misha did not lose contact with physics 
and physicists, including people from outside the Soviet Union. He soon 
became well known as a refusnik  in the scientific world, and 
at the same time he achieved wide recognition in mathematical physics 
and quantum field theory.

I had the opportunity to listen to Misha's lectures and found him 
to be an excellent and conscientious lecturer. It did not take Misha 
too much time to attract graduate students; during his tenure at 
the Technion Misha was thesis advisor to 6 PhD students and was adored 
by them.  Misha devoted much time to his teaching duties, in general, 
and to his graduate students in particular. He had the skills to 
teach students how to tell the important from the less important. 
I remember that during his lectures to graduate students in 
1991 he discussed the Gauss-Bonnet equation in topology and he called 
it ``the mother of all equations" in the spirit of the Gulf War, which 
Saddam Hussein called ``the mother of all wars". Also, in Moscow 
(1980-82) while a refusnik himself, Misha gave a 4-term course on 
Modern Theoretical Physics for students who, because of their Jewish 
origin, were not accepted to Moscow State University.

Misha liked Israel, liked Haifa, and swimming in the Mediterranean, hiking 
in the Carmel National Park and picking mushrooms. In all these activities 
the whole family, his wife, Lilia, and daughters, 
Masha 
%Maria 
and Dina, would 
often be with him. Education was important in the family. Lilia is in 
computer science and works at Haifa University. 
Masha
%Maria 
is a PhD student at the Technion working on urban and regional planning, 
her hobbies are rock climbing and paragliding. 
Dina is also  at the Technion as undergraduate in the Department 
of Industrial Management.
She has reached the highest level 
in Israel in rodeo wheels, in which she is presently an instructor. 
Dina also leads Israeli youth groups for competitions abroad.

It took doctors in Israel a long time to diagnose Misha's disease and 
when it was established that he had lung cancer, he told us the story 
about his visit to Kazakhstan in the late 50's. He was sent there with 
a group of students from the Moscow State University to work in 
agriculture. Not far from where they were stationed the Soviet 
Government was conducting nuclear tests, and Misha told us that they had 
seen the bright flashes of the explosions. Many of the 
students of this group died of cancer. Misha fought the disease till 
the last day, and never lost hope. Already on his deathbed, there was 
a group of professors from our department who visited him in 
the hospital, and this was during the period of peace 
talks with Syria. Somebody pointed out to Misha that Israel would 
receive 10 billion dollars from the States as compensation for leaving 
the Golan Heights. Misha's response was immediate. He said that if we 
leave all of Israel to the Arabs we might get 100 billion dollars. 
Misha was a proud Jew with a strong affinity for the Zionist cause 
and the State of Israel.

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