After World War II, Gita Lisker’s parents came to the United States as post-holocaust refugees with nothing; however, they were both committed to their own education and went on to earn PhDs – her father in economics, her mother in physics.
“My father’s philosophy was ‘invest in education,’” recalls Lisker. Her parents practiced what they preached, paying tuition for both Gita and her husband, Jay, when the young couple enrolled at Einstein.
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Now Gita and Jay, who both graduated from Einstein in 2000, have established the Joseph and Rozalie Schachter Endowed Scholarship in honor of her parents in support of an Einstein student coming from Yeshiva University, where the Liskers both completed their undergraduate degrees.
“We have tremendous gratitude to our parents and grandparents, whose devotion to family, education and religion – and, especially, to the education of Orthodox Jewish women – made it possible for us to be what we are today,” says Gita, Medical Director of the Respiratory Care Unit at Long Island Jewish Medical Center of Northwell Health. “My mother was given special permission by the Satmar Hasidic community to go to college because of her exceptional mind. So, we’re saying, ‘thank you’ and continuing their legacy of enabling students to attend Einstein with a little less to worry about.”
Einstein, which had its own shul and part-time rabbi, also provided the Liskers with an on-campus orthodox Jewish community where they made friends that they still see to this day.
“Einstein was foundational for how I work as a doctor and in my community,” says Jay, who serves as Medical Director for a 10-member cardiology group within Northwell. “Being kind to the stranger is the core commandment in the Bible, and Einstein faculty members like Ed Burns and Harris Goldstein really stressed humanity in medicine as well as excellence in clinical care and research. Unfortunately, that’s not as common as it should be. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t say, ‘I want everyone to be well’ without both kinds of knowledge to make them better.”
The Liskers, who met in summer camp when they were fifteen, have brought that combination to bear in their own careers. Both teach at Hofstra and both have published on clinical practice issues in their respective fields. At the height of the pandemic, Gita created a telehealth program that enabled some 4,000 Covid patients to avoid hospitalization and be monitored at home by doctors, nurses and phlebotomists. It has since morphed into a home-based telehealth program that serves pulmonary patients from the moment they are discharged from the hospital.
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During the pandemic, Gita also served on the three-member medical committee at her children’s school in the Bronx. The other two members – Joshua Rocker, Director of the Pediatric Emergency Center Division at Cohen Children’s Medical Center, and Joshua Milner, Chief of Allergy and Immunology at Columbia, both also graduated Einstein the same year as Jay and Gita.
“None of us were exactly sitting around doing nothing at that point,” she says. “But on top of the crazy amounts of work required by our jobs, we still lived Einstein’s core value of giving back to the community.”
Like other Einstein alumni with roots at Yeshiva, the Liskers were concerned when Einstein and Yeshiva separated in 2015. “There were fears that Einstein would forget how and why it was founded – that it would no longer be a place where Yeshiva students would want to go,” Gita says. “But that’s turned out to be false. The school has stayed true to its roots, a place where people still want to send their children.”
The Liskers’ own daughter, Talya, born during their fourth year at Einstein, will be a member of this fall’s entering class, joining her cousin, Allison Schachter Baron, who will be completing her final year.
As a first-year, Talya doesn’t yet know what her specialty will be. But “she just finished a master’s in bioethics at Montefiore-Cardozo, through Einstein,” Gita says. “So, we know she’ll be an ethical doctor.”
Like so many Einstein alumni, the Liskers have been inspired by the transformational gift made by Dr. Ruth Gottesman, which made the College of Medicine tuition free for all incoming and continuing students. While we celebrate this significant milestone, it is important to note that tuition only accounts for 65 percent of the total cost of attendance at Einstein. Each student needs an additional $35,000 per year to cover other educational expenses, on top of housing, healthcare, food, and travel. Moving forward, all new endowed scholarships will provide additional financial support beyond tuition, easing the burden for students, so they can focus on their studies and training, ultimately empowering them to become compassionate and skilled physicians and scientists.
– Joe Levine
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