In a surprise presentation, Healthcare Foundation chair and founder Lester Z. Lieberman receives the first Humanism in Healthcare Award named in his honor from foundation vice chair Beth Levithan.
Photos by Robert Wiener
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Newark Mayor Cory Booker said the Healthcare Foundation “continues to pursue the high ideals” of battling pain and injustice.
July 23, 2009
In an event that was part awards ceremony and part surprise party, the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey presented a special honor to its chair and founder, Lester Z. Lieberman.
It came in a double-barreled moment at a July 20 dinner at the Hamilton Park Hotel in Florham Park.
As she launched the surprise event, foundation vice chair Beth Levithan spoke of a “very important change” that was about to occur “without the knowledge of our esteemed chair.”
Levithan told the audience that the foundation’s annual Community Humanism in Healthcare Award had been renamed the Lester Z. Lieberman Humanism in Healthcare Award.
Then came the second unexpected announcement: The first recipient was Lieberman himself. Lieberman was chair of the board at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and arranged its sale to the Saint Barnabas Health Care System. Proceeds from that 1996 transaction became seed money for the foundation.
“Through his vision and determination and dedication to helping vulnerable populations in the Newark area and the Jewish community, he was responsible for establishing this healthcare foundation,” Levithan said.
“His compassion has influenced so many of the humanistic grants we have given in the last 13 years…. Lester Lieberman is a true example of a man who has made a difference in this world.”
Without acknowledging whether he had known about the closely guarded secret, Lieberman said, “Humanism is embedded in our history.”
“This is our foundation’s bar mitzva year,” he said. “But growth does not stop because we achieve official adulthood…. We can expect the Healthcare Foundation to meet the demands of the times and the needs of the people we serve.”
In his keynote address, Newark Mayor Cory Booker alluded to three people who were murdered and seven others who were wounded in three separate shootings in his city that day.
“We have challenges that should shake us to our core and demand from us a greater response,” he said.
Booker recalled the black-Jewish alliance in urging attendees to work for its revival.
“It falls upon our generation now to do something for which we will be remembered,” he said. “I look at America today and I see we have not made real our children’s call that we will be one nation…. The streets of Newark speak to our unfinished business.”
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