Justin Simon M.D.

1927 - 2021

Justin Simon was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa on March 8, 1927. His mother, Grace Simon was a homemaker and his father, Max Simon, ran a successful meat business. The family moved to Omaha, Nebraska when he was young. He spent summers with the family and his beloved older brother, Stuart, at Lake Okoboji. He graduated from Central High School in 1944. He attended the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, graduating in 1948 and then attended Medical School there. After receiving his M.D. in 1952, Dr. Simon moved to San Francisco, CA where he did his residency at Mt. Zion hospital and received psychoanalytic training from the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute.

Dr. Simon moved his family to Brooklyn, NY in 1963 to conduct psychotherapy research at Downstate Medical Hospital with Dr. Merton Gill. In the 1960s, Dr. Simon was active in the Medical Committee for Human Rights, traveling to the south to support civil rights protests and voter registration drives. In 1970, Dr. Simon returned to Berkeley, CA to be the Director of the Herrick Berkeley Community Mental Health Center. He received approval for a $2,000,000 grant to fund this project and was disappointed when the funding became unavailable due to the Vietnam War. He was honored to be elected to a Fellowship in the American Psychiatric Association in 1970. In the course of Dr. Simon's long professional career, he published 44 book reviews and six professional papers in The American Journal of Psychiatry. Dr. Simon was in private practice for many years and has helped thousands of patients improve their lives.

Dr. Simon married Frayda June Radner in 1949. While they were married they had four children, Julie Simon (Knoll) (aged 67), Benjamin Simon (aged 65), Eli Simon (aged 63) and Ruth Simon (aged 58). He led a very active and adventuresome life that included SCUBA diving, hang-gliding, motorcycle riding, sailing, and running. Between the ages of 49 and 61, he ran a total of 26 marathons! In 1988, he married Abby Wolfson and they adopted a son, Max Wolfson Simon who died in 2020 at the age of 27. Dr. Simon was known for his enthusiasm for new experiences, his love of stained glass and jazz, as well as his impish smile and midwestern sense of humor.

He is survived by his former wife, four children, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren from his first marriage, and his second wife, all of whom loved him until the end of his life.