Cardiologist Aaron Feingold ’72 began amassing rare books and historical artifacts while in medical school. His collection grew to include hundreds of medical texts and records, World War II pharmacy coupons from the European ghettos, archeological artifacts from Egypt and 19th century Italian Hagaddahs, as well as the entire transcript, in English, of the Nuremberg trials.
Among his vast holdings are two items of particular interest to Union: a first edition of Albert Einstein’s “Relativity: The Special and the General Theory” (1920, Henry Holt & Co.) and a rare, annotated typed manuscript by Charles Proteus Steinmetz, which dates to 1921.
The Steinmetz manuscript is the second of four lectures the Union faculty member and prominent GE scientist gave at Schenectady’s Unitarian Church on Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Feingold presented these historical treasures to President Stephen C Ainlay at the Terrace Council and Ramée Circle Society Reception at the Nott Memorial during ReUnion weekend. Alumni and friends who gathered included Trustee Stephen Ritterbush ’68; Ellen Fladger, head of Special Collections at Schaffer Library; Librarian Thomas McFadden; and faculty members John Spinelli, chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Chad Orzel, assistant professor of Physics.
“The Charles Steinmetz manuscript corresponds with Einstein’s trip to America in 1921. It's valuable because it’s the first time it was published in English,” Feingold said.
Feingold’s most recent donations join several dozen books he’s given Union over the years, including first editions of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” and “Tender is the Night”; a first edition of Charles Darwin’s “The Expression of the Emotions” (1872); “Military Commission to Europe in 1855 and 1856” (published in 1860); eight volumes of “Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression,” written in 1946; and his own book, “Three Jewish Physicians of the Renaissance: The Marriage of Science and Ethics” (1994).
“I’m a physician with a liberal arts background,” said Feingold, 57, a native of Hillside, N.J. “I love to look in the old bookstores, to hold these rare old books in my hand; it’s all living history.”
Feingold is president and senior physician of Raritan Bay Cardiology in Edison. He completed Chicago Medical School in 1976, did an internship and residency at New York Medical College and a fellowship at NYU Medical School. Many of his Jewish artifacts have been shown in museums here and in Israel. He donated a Statue of Liberty Hanukkah lamp to the Smithsonian.
A week before ReUnion, Feingold was on campus with his wife, Brenda Liebowitz, and twin daughters Zara and Rachel, high school juniors. In between Admissions tours and discussions, he had a chance to peruse a copy of his class yearbook, where he saw a photo of himself, long-haired and lounging beside a large poster of Einstein.
“Union allowed me to engage in intellectual pursuits that I wasn’t previously able to discover,” Feingold mused. “Union gave me the freedom to be well-rounded, the intellectual background to appreciate, explore and enjoy all these different areas of life.
“Union also allowed me to learn what I wanted to be and to deal with my own existential dilemma.”
Feingold was searching for meaning in his life when he spent winter term of his junior year on a kibbutz in the Jordan Valley doing an independent study with two classmates, Robert Michaelson and Roger Friedman. They were the first Union students to spend a trimester in Israel.
A political science major, Feingold had taken no pre-med courses, and then one day, he said, “I had an epiphany while picking bananas. I realized I wanted to be a doctor.”