Adam Brish, M.D., age 93, of Marquette, Michigan, and Sun City West, Arizona, died Sept. 11, 2018 in Surprise, Arizona.
Dr. Brish was born in Lodz, Poland, to Sura and Yeshayahu Brysz. A Holocaust survivor, he ultimately survived by hiding in the Lodz Ghetto with his father, until liberation by the Russians at the end of World War II. He graduated from the University of Lodz in 1951 with a medical degree and became a neurosurgeon. He served in the Polish army as a doctor but was unable to become head of his unit due to religious discrimination. He left Poland on a tourist visa to visit his father in Israel, never to return to Poland. Dr. Brish joined the Israeli Defense Forces as a neurosurgeon and worked at Tel HaShomer, Israel’s first military hospital. The Israeli government sent him to Ethiopia to help assess the need for neurological facilities in Addis Ababa, where he was invited to attend a conferring of degrees with Emperor Haile Selassie. At Tel HaShomer, he met Patricia Kühl, who was working there as a registered nurse. They were soon married and moved to the United States in 1963. Dr. Brish completed additional training in Brookline, Massachusetts, and New Brunswick, New Jersey, before taking a position in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In 1966, he was offered a job as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan’s first neurosurgeon at St. Luke’s Hospital in Marquette. He spent the remainder of his career at Marquette General Hospital and in his private practice, Neurological Surgery Associates. In 1992, the Adam Brish Neurosciences Lecture Award was created; it is presented annually to a physician at the Marquette General Neuroscience Conference. Dr. Brish was featured in Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation project in July 1998. After retiring in 1993, Dr. Brish spent winters in Arizona.
Survivors include his wife of 55 years, Patricia Brish of Sun City West; children, Susan (Scott Arden) Brish of Tucson and Harry (Maureen) Brish of Tempe; and three grandchildren.
Graveside services were held at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Phoenix.
Memorial contributions may be made to Temple Beth Sholom, 223 Blaker St., Marquette, MI 49855.
