KASRIEL EILENDER

EILENDER--Kasriel K. , MD.

Age 93. Died on January 24, 2017. Physician of Internal Medicine since 1962. Beloved by all his patients and colleagues. Affiliated with the former Flower Fifth Ave and Doctors Hospitals (later known as Beth Israel North). He was a Fellow of the American College of Angiology, and a member of the American Medical Association, American Society of Internal Medicine, and the American Society of Geriatrics. Dr. Eilender was in private practice in the Yorkville section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan for more than 35 years. He was known for being among the few physicians who made house calls in the area to care for the homebound elderly, many of which were immigrants from Europe. Dr. Eilender was fluent in many languages, including Polish, German, Russian, French, Hebrew, Yiddish, and English, and was widely known and cherished in the neighborhood where he practiced. His devotion to compassionate and humanitarian patient care was chronicled in the 1990s in The New York Times, New York Newsday, and a segment on CNN, and he was honored with a community service award from the East Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, as well as a Wholeness of Life Award by the chaplaincy at Beth Israel North. He was deeply touched by and proud of this acknowledgment, and for many years reminded many of us of his gratitude at being a survivor of the World War II "killing fields" only to become a lifelong participant in America's "healing fields." Dr. Eilender was a survivor of the Holocaust where he lost his entire family, and devoted his life to keeping the memory of those who died alive through a memoir he had written and providing testimonies to the USC Shoah Foundation (founded by Steven Spielberg in 1994). He was born in 1923 in Suwalki, Poland, and was imprisoned in several concentration camps before being liberated by the Russians on May 8, 1945. After the War, he attended the Ludvig Maxamilian University School of Medicine in Munich, Germany, and completed his medical residency at New York Medical College. For many years he was an active member of the Independent Suwalki and Vicinity Benevolent Society, working to preserve the memory and vibrant cultural life of the Eastern European Jewry that had existed in his native city. Dr. Eilender is survived by his wife of 52 years Teresa Eilender, his son Jeffrey and daughter-in-law Deborah, daughter Elizabeth and son- in-law Nicholas, and five grandchildren. We will never forget. Funeral Services will be held at Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan on Friday, January 27th at 11:30am. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to either the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum or the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.