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At a time when much of America was avoiding people living with HIV, Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz welcomed them.
"He held a lamp that lit our way," said Michael Kerr, one of the doctor's patients. "With him, we were safe."
On Saturday, 66-year-old Dr. Rabinowitz died with 10 others in a massacre at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
At a time when people complained of rushed visits to the doctor and too focused on billable procedures, Dr. Rabinowitz had come out of another era, according to his patients, depicting the generosity of a small town in a big city. He made house calls just to talk. When the families called the office on Saturday afternoon, Dr. Rabinowitz was there to answer.
He was wearing a bow tie. He hugged his patients. "Be my friend," he said goodbye.
"The family was very important to him," said 33-year-old Avishai Ostrin, the doctor's nephew, in an interview with Israel. "And I included in this definition of" family "his patients."
Dr. Rabinowitz also took risks.
He saw Mr. Kerr for the first time in 1989. It was the beginning of the H.I.V. crisis, and people with new diagnoses have been frightened, ostracized and write their own obituaries.
Mr. Kerr, a young graduate student, was among them. He learned that Dr. Rabinowitz was one of the few doctors in Pittsburgh who could help him.
In his office, Dr. Rabinowitz held Mr. Kerr's hand. At the time, some practitioners used gloves with H.I.V. the patients. Mr. Kerr was reminded in an interview that Dr. Rabinowitz had not done so.
"I was terrified, I lost all my hair," he said, "He kept me calm."
Months later, when a Mr. Kerr swallowed a handful of pills, Dr. Rabinowitz came to his side.
"We have to help you," he remembered the doctor. "There will be drugs coming. So, you have to hang on there. "
In 1995, Dr. Rabinowitz helped Mr. Kerr participate in a drug trial. He treated him for 25 years before Mr. Kerr moved to New York. "For him, giving up this way was not an option," said Mr. Kerr, 54, a volunteer from the activist group Act Up.
"It's him and Act Up who saved my life. They are the real heroes, "he said.
[[[[Read here for more information on the victims of the shooting in the synagogue.]
Dr. Rabinowitz was born in New Jersey and studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, according to his nephew, Mr. Ostrin. He then moved to Pittsburgh, where he opened a small family practice. He is survived by his wife Miri, his mother Sally and his brother Bill, among other members of the family.
Dr. Rabinowitz did not just treat people with HI. He treated everyone and everything: asthma, diabetes, blood clots, lupus. "Because people loved him so much, he had families with three generations of patients," Ostrin said. "Grandparents, parents and children who all went to see him."
Marie Jo Marks, 74, said that Dr. Rabinowitz had treated her and her mother for about 30 years.
Until recently, her mother, Helen Nothwang, 102, lived alone in a house two blocks from the doctor's office. In the past two years or so, when Ms. Marks phoned to ask for information about her mother, Dr. Rabinowitz promised to "see her" at the end of the day.
"He would take his blood pressure – but he would just sit up there and talk with her," said Ms. Marks. "And that's something I will never forget."
Dr. Rabinowitz was also president of his congregation, Dor Hadash, who had gathered at the synagogue of the Tree of Life, said his nephew.
Mr Kerr said that after leaving Pittsburgh for New York, he had thought of writing a letter to the doctor telling him that he had survived – and thank him. "And I did not do it. I did not do it, he said. "I thought," Oh, I'm just one of many. "
"He had my back, but I know he had it for everyone," Kerr added. "And he will never know that I've succeeded."
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