My parents Ron and Aliza were born in Warsaw and Lublin in Poland where they lived a middle-class lifestyle as children until they were forced to abandon their houses and flee when the Nazis invaded Poland.
They spent their teenage years with their respective families in small god-forsaken villages in Siberia, hungry and poor, sometimes living off a single loaf of bread for the whole family for a whole day. Their families eventually made their way to Israel where they were faced with a new culture, a new language, poverty and a lack of education. Despite all these odds, they both went on to earn Ph.D. degrees and became internationally recognized leaders in their fields.
My father served in 3 armies: as an officer cadet in the Polish Anders Army during the Holocaust (that’s how he survived). Then, he transferred to become an officer in the British Army, and finally he served as an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces.
Ron Adler headed up the Mapping Agency of Israel for 21 years, and was a Professor of Mapping and Geo-Information at the Technion until his retirement in 2007, and a visiting professor at Ohio State University. Ron Adler’s Master’s Thesis from Ohio State University (1963) is considered one of the first quantitative analyses of Glacier movement, which contributed greatly to the scientific understanding of global warming.
Here is a biographical interview (in Hebrew) with Ron Adler at the Israel Mapping Agency Site. The English translation of the interview is here.
Here is a link to Ron Adler’s accomplishments during his career at The Israel Mapping Agency (Hebrew).
Ron Adler’s many accomplishments were recognized by Israel’s leadership, including then president Haim Herzog:
Ron Adler published a number of technical books including these:
Ron Adler passed away in 2015. We celebrated our last Passover together that same year:
The following video Interview with Ron Adler was filmed in 2010 in Tel Aviv:
A Video Interview with Ron Adler’s brother: Jan (Yanek/Yochanan) Adler. April 1932 – March 2016. Filmed in Queens, NY in 2010.
My mother, Aliza, went on to become a world renowned Cancer Researcher. She earned her PhD in Microbiology from Tel Aviv University.
Dr. Aliza Adler published many seminal papers in Cancer Research with many of the leading Immunologists in Israel and around the world. Some of her papers are:
- “Interleukin 2 Induction of Lymphokine-Activated Killer (LAK) Activity in the Peripheral Blood and Bone Marrow of Acute Leukemia Patients. I. Feasibility of LAK Generation in Adult Patients With Active Disease and in Remission” By Aliza Adler, Paul A. Chervenick, Theresa L. Whiteside, Eva Lotzova,and Ronald B. Herberman, 1988
- “Characterization of Soluble gpl3O Released by Melanoma Cell Lines: A Polyvalent Antagonist of Cytokines from the Interleukin 6 Family’” By Felix A. Montero-Julian, Herve Brailly, Catherine Sautes, Isabelle Joyeux, Thierry Dorval, Veronique Mosseri, Kiyoshi Yasukawa, John Wijdenes, Aliza Adler, Isabelle Gorin, Wolf H. Fridman, and Eric Tartourı, 1997
- “lmmunocompetence, Immunosuppression, and Human Breast Cancer: III. Prognostic Significance of Initial Level of lmmunocompetence in Early and Advanced Disease” ALIZA ADLER, PHD, JOSEPH A. STEIN, MD, SHLOMO BEN-EFRAIM, PHD, 1980
- “IMMUNOCOMPETENCE, IMMUNOSUPPRESSION, AND HUMAN BREAST CANCER: I. An Analysis of Their Relationship by Known Parameters of Cell-Mediated Immunity in Well-Dejined Clinical Stages of Disease” JOSEPH A. STEIN, MD, ALIZA ADLER, PhD, SHLOMO BEN EFRAIM, PHD, MOSHE MAOR, MD, 1976
- “Immunocompetence, Immunosuppression, and Human Breast Cancer: II. Further Evidence of Initial Immune Impairment by Integrated Assessment Effect of Nodal Involvement (N) and of Primary Tumor Size”, ALIZA ADLER, PhD, JOSEPH A. STEIN, MD, AND SHLOMO BEN-EFRAIM, PHD, 1980
My mother passed away in February 2013. You can watch her tell her story in this video:
You can find more information about our 2011 Roots Trip To Poland.
Guta Zyzskind (1929-2005) is mentioned in some of the video clips. Please visit her memorial page that includes her story.