2010 Schick Award winner: Doctor always, pianist sometimes

2010 Schick Award winner, Dr. Gordon Goodman. plays at the dinner. Photo by BOB CULMER PHOTOGRAPHY More than 100 community members turned out on Sunday, Jan. 10 for the 15th annual Maimonides Society reception and program honoring Dr. Gordon Goodman as recipient of this year’s Alfred Schick MD Memorial award.

The award honors doctors and other health care professionals for outstanding commitment to their community. This year’s Maimonides event was at Café Ponte in Clearwater.

After opening remarks by Maimonides Co-chairs, Drs. Martin Bialow and John Rinde, Federation Campaign Chair Sheldon Scheinert delivered an impassioned plea for increased support of the Annual Campaign of the Jewish Federation of Pinellas and Pasco Counties.

Scheinert spoke of a young boy who was helped by generous strangers after the devastation of World War II and the Holocaust. This young boy grew up to do as was done for him, and he became a leading philanthropist in the Pinellas County Jewish community. The young boy? Dr. John Rinde.

Past Schick Award winners with new inductee Gordon Goodman and benefactor Lisl Schick: (Back Row L-R) Bruce Epstein, Mandel Sher, Robert Entel, David Wolstein, Bernardo Stein, Steve Warren, Michael Slomka. (Front Row L-R) Morris LeVine, Goodman, Schick, Karen Reich, Sheldon Schienert “Your dollars,” said Scheinert, “make a lasting impact on those who are less fortunate than ourselves.”

As dinner was served, pianist and composer Jon Simon took his place at the grand piano and began his program of jazz interpretations of favorite Jewish melodies. Included in his repertoire were original versions of such classics as “Dreidel, Dreidel Dreidel” and Passover favorite “Dayenu.”

Simon, who lives in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area, has appeared numerous times at the Kennedy Center as well as at concert halls, jazz clubs, synagogues and community centers throughout North America.

(L to R) Jen Goodman, Dr. Gordon Goodman, Barbara Goodman, Dr. Amy Goodman A surprise addition to the entertainment was a rendition of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” performed by honoree Goodman.

Lisl Schick, wife of the late Alfred Schick, presented Goodman with the bust of the famed physician Maimonides, signifying his selection as the 2010 Alfred Schick MD Memorial Award winner.

The Schick Award was established in 1995 to perpetuate the commitment of Alfred Schick to medical excellence and service to both the Jewish and secular community. The first Jewish doctor in north Pinellas County and Morton Plant Hospital’s first director of medical education, he also served as president of Temple B’nai Israel in Clearwater.

Goodman, surrounded by family and friends who flew in from around the country, accepted the award and thanked the Schick family. “I am here in Pinellas County because of Alfred, who invited me to join his practice. He took me around and showed me neighborhoods close to the hospital and the Temple (B’nai Israel). I immediately knew I had found a home here.”

Goodman has been a board member of the Jewish Federation for six years, in addition to chairing the Covenant Fund twice and the Diplomat division of the Annual Campaign for three years. He has a radiology practice at Morton Plant hospital.

The Maimonides Society is a division of the Jewish Federation of Pinellas and Pasco Counties. It is open to all health care professionals who contribute a minimum of $1,000 to the Federation’s Annual Campaign.

For more information, call the Federation at (727) 530-3223.