Boruch Dayan Hoemes: Lorne Rozovsky, 70, OBM
Lorne Rozovsky, lawyer, author, educator and human-rights advocate, passed away Aug. 5 at his home in Bloomfield, Conn., after a 15-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 70 years old.
Rozovsky took an active interest in Jewish teachings, life and philosophy and began penning columns for The Richmond Jewish News, a publication of Chabad-Lubavitch of Virginia. “Month after month,” says Allie Vered, former editor of the monthly newspaper, “Lorne came up with new ideas, thoroughly researching rituals, habits and misnomers before transforming them into informative and fascinating columns.”
The grandson of Jewish immigrants from Russia who over a hundred years ago settled in Canada.
Rozovsky spent his latter years in the United States after a distinguished career in Canada, where he was made Queen’s Counsel in Nova Scotia. He wrote 18 books and more than 600 articles on health and Canadian law, where his books became a staple in the Canadian health community and serve as texts in law schools across Canada today.
Before entering private practice, Rozovsky served as legal counsel to the Ministry of Health in Nova Scotia. A past member of the faculties of law, medicine and dentistry at Dalhousie University in Halifax, he was instrumental in establishing the Health Law Institute. A student writing award at the institute was recently established to honor him and his wife, Fay.
Among his books were The Canadian Patient’s Book of Rights, AIDS and Canadian Law, and Canadian Hospital Law, said to be the first book on the subject published in Canada. He was the only Canadian to be named an honorary fellow for life by the American College of Legal Medicine. In 2012, he was named an honorary “Kentucky Colonel” by the governor of that state.
Rozovsky took great pride in his articles on Judaism and was ecstatic when the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute republished one of them. At a meeting, accompanied by his local Chabad Shliach, Rabbi Mendel Samuels, with Rabbi Dovid Zaklikowski, at the time an editor at Chabad.org and director of Lubavitch Archives, he contributed his Richmond Jewish News articles to the Jewish website and built an lasting relationship with Zaklikowski.
“He understood Jewish readership,” says Zaklikowski, who worked with him on Lubavitch Archives latest publication Advice for Life: Education, “he grasped the language that was needed to take a complex subject and make it understandable to the Jew who never had a Jewish background, yet he presented it in a novel way that could be appreciated even by an affiliated Jew.”
Vered says that Rozovsky was always full of ideas and questions, “and he loved to discuss them with others, seeking out their thoughts and opinions. He had tremendous respect for intellect and a mind wide open. His interest was always to fully understand all perspectives, without bias. Conversations with Lorne were always entertaining: his voice had a tone of enthusiasm that was contagious. Lorne found the perfect outlet to delight in the obscure first through The Richmond Jewish News.”
He often would discuss with Zaklikowski, who continued to work with him on a book of simplifying basic Jewish topics, at length Jewish topics, “I would sit with him over a large Talmud or Code of Jewish Law and explain to him from the text the reasoning behind various traditions. He would savor those moments of learning something new and appreciating the complexity of how the Jewish sages reached their conclusions.”
In their last meeting, just over a month ago in Rozovsky’s home, he told Zaklikowski, that life could have not been better to him, “I have a wonderful family, friends and colleagues, I have been blessed with a great life.”
Rozovsky was buried in New Brunswick, Canada.
He is survived by his wife, Fay Rozovsky, and their sons Joshua and Aaron.
