Dr. Maurice Brown epitomized the term “Renaissance man,” according to his friend Dr. Emanuel Friedman. The Burlingame pathologist, who was fluent in six languages, died on Sunday. He was 95.
Brown was born in Jerusalem in 1906. He attended high school in Paris and medical school in Geneva. He then returned to Jerusalem, where he established a private medical practice. Among his clients were some of the more prominent members of the Muslim and Greek Orthodox communities.
In 1939, he met Kate Muehlendorf, an emigre from Berlin and a physical therapist. He referred his patients to her. They married in 1940.
Brown volunteered to serve as a physician in the British army at the outbreak of World War II and did so for seven years. “He was away for months and years on end,” said his wife, now 95.
He was a veteran of the evacuation of Dunquerque and the North African campaign in Egypt, and served in Greece in 1944.
The Browns had one son, Ben, who was born in Jerusalem.
After the war ended, Brown served as medical director for the refugee camps in Cyprus, under the auspices of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, returning to Jerusalem in 1946.
Israel’s War of Independence destroyed both his medical practice and the family’s home. The Browns decided to move to San Francisco, where Kate Brown’s family had settled previously. But before they got there, they took a detour to run the first Jewish hospital in Tehran, Iran, also under the auspices of the JDC. Then they moved to Toronto for a year and a half, to await their U.S. visas.
The Browns arrived in the Bay Area in 1953, settling in San Francisco. They moved to Burlingame in 1960 and were members of Peninsula Temple Sholom. They were both avid gardeners, becoming especially known for their orchids. They also collected books, records, sculpture and art, and were interested in archaeology.
Friedman, who met Brown at Peninsula Temple Sholom, recalled a gift he had received from Brown, an antique medical first aid kit that was around 100 years old. Brown’s collection of antique medical books is now at the University of California, San Francisco, Friedman said.
Friedman described his friend as “a classical old-time gentleman in the way he dealt with people.” There was a certain courtesy that was always “in full view with him.”
Brown was featured in a front-page Jewish Bulletin article in 1994 for his involvement with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In 1948, Brown “babysat” pieces of the scrolls, given to him by one of his patients, Archbishop A.Y. Samuel of Jerusalem’s Syrian Jacobite Monastery of St. Mark. Samuel had acquired four pieces of the scrolls from a dealer and loaned them to his doctor, knowing that Brown had an interest in ancient artifacts.
“He asked that [a scroll] be torn so that we could see what’s inside,” Brown told the Bulletin in 1994. “I said no. You don’t tear such things. It’s not my profession, but I know something about antiquities, and I knew immediately, without hesitation, that this was something of great value.”
Brown then got in touch with Rabbi Judah L. Magnes, Kate Brown’s cousin and the first president of Hebrew University, seeking his expertise on the scrolls.
The Browns continued to keep track of the scrolls, following their path until they arrived back in Jerusalem.
“He was a very faithful, caring husband,” said Kate Brown, noting that their 61-year-long marriage should speak for itself. “That tells you how close we were.”
Even though her husband has passed on, Kate Brown said, “I’m still living with him. At 95 years, you don’t change anymore.”
In addition to his wife, Brown is survived by his son, Ben Brown, of Portland, Ore., and one grandson.
Donations can be sent to Peninsula Temple Sholom, 1655 Sebastian Drive, Burlingame, CA 94010.