Victor Parsonnet, left, receives a menora, the Lasting Impressions Award, from Howard Kiesel, president of the Jewish Historical Society of MetroWest.
Photos by Robert Wiener
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Lawrence Goldman, president and CEO of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, said people ask how Victor Parsonnet can “be good at so many things?”
May 28, 2009
Dr. Victor Parsonnet, a world-renowned cardiac surgeon and a pioneer in the fields of heart transplants and pacemakers, was honored May 20 with the 2009 Lasting Impressions Award by the Jewish Historical Society of MetroWest.
Recognized for his devotion to classical music as well as his cutting-edge medical skills, Parsonnet is director of surgical research at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and chairman emeritus of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
He was toasted by his friend Lawrence Goldman, president and CEO of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, in an after-dinner ceremony at the Crystal Plaza in Livingston. NJPAC in Newark is home base for the orchestra.
Parsonnet is also a benefactor of the annual UJA MetroWest Benefit Concert held at NJPAC.
Goldman took note of the doctor’s lineage as the grandson of Max Danzis and the first Victor Parsonnet — the founders of Newark Beth Israel.
“The Parsonnet name will always be an important name in Newark…. The family for generations has been deeply and effectively committed to the betterment of Newark and the world,” Goldman said. “This is not an ordinary person. This is someone to learn from.”
He praised Parsonnet for making sure there was cooperation, not competition, between the orchestra and NJPAC in the realm of fund-raising.
As a result, the arts center could afford first-class acoustics in its concert hall “to make us feel like we’re sitting inside a cello.”
Calling Parsonnet “a very gentle human being,” Goldman said, “Sometimes he’s a creampuff. Sometimes he is a tough cookie. But even when he is tough cookie, he is a sweet tough cookie….
“Those who know Victor ask how can one person — who is not Leonardo da Vinci, who is not Thomas Jefferson, who is not Einstein, who is not Paul Robeson — be good at so many things?”
Listing the doctor’s accomplishments in surgery, tennis, philanthropy, leadership, and music, Goldman said jokingly, “It’s not fair.”
JHS president Howard Kiesel presented Parsonnet with a glass menora etched with images of klezmer musicians.
As he accepted his award, the honoree told the JHS guests he “was not interested in history” as a student.
“My worst course in college was English history. I hated it,” Parsonnet confessed. “Probably it was taught badly or maybe it was just me. Maybe I was too young to understand it. But you have to get older before you feel these things.”
He urged the JHS “to find a way to reach our young people. It’s a shame our youngsters don’t have this feeling about history….”
Young people must likewise be taught to appreciate music, he said. “When we play serious music, the audience is 65 and older,” he said. “We have to find a way to make it germane to their lives, and we can do that if we start making it like the last presidential campaign, where everybody communicated by Internet. Things are fun on the Internet, and when kids are text messaging and other things they do with those gadgets. We ought to be able to get through to them using those sources.”
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