Moises loved being a physicist. He told us shortly before he died that he’d thoroughly enjoyed his life because he’d spent it ‘playing’. He was a truly modern renaissance man with a deep appreciation of history, music, philosophy and Norwich City football club! He travelled the world, accompanied by Yolanda, and as a friend commented: if there was a university in the South Pole, he would already have given a seminar there and we would have had penguins to stay at our house during their sabbatical in Norwich. He was a man of boundless energy, curiosity, generosity, humour, commitment, vitality, child-like wonder, enthusiasm and integrity – but he shied away from the limelight and he would be very embarrassed to hear us say so.
Moises’ achievements are made more extraordinary when one appreciates his humble beginnings. His was an immigrant family trying to escape the horror of the pogroms at the turn of the 20th century. His father, Aron, came from Romania (then Moldavia), and his mother, Sofia, from the Ukraine.
Aron was the youngest of six children. His eldest brother, Alfredo had left for Buenos Aires when he was barely 18, found work and sent back money for his parents and the rest of the siblings, who arrived one by one. Aron was the last to make the journey when he was 12 years old. He cried so much during the trip that he was detained in Le Havre, where travellers changed boats, because the French authorities thought he was suffering from trachoma, an eye infection that forbids you entrance to Argentina. Sofia had only one sibling. Their father was forced to leave his family for four years and worked as a farmer in Argentina, to pay for his wife and children to join him. It took two years for that brave mother to reach Argentina and she suffered enormous hardship on the way. ‘That’, Moises, remarked ‘was feminism’. Aron and Sofia met and married in Concordia, at that time a small town surrounded by clusters of Jewish settlements, founded by Baron Hirsh who bought the land and helped to maintain that little homestead. Aron and Sofia had 3 children: Gila, Moshé and Haim (Jaime). In 1950, Gila emigrated to Israel, followed by her parents in1959 and Jaime in 1961 (although he returned to Argentina in 1983).
And Moises…? He stayed put. He’d excelled at his local school and consequently enrolled at La Plata University to study engineering. Recognising his gifts, a lecturer had suggested he give up engineering for physics and so he found his vocation. Penniless, he worked during the day and studied by night. He was very engaged in student politics and other extra-curricular activities and, despite numerous offers from Israel, he was determined to gain his PHD from ‘his’ university. A post doctorate at Newcastle University followed, and then a permanent post at the University of East Anglia.
Norwich was home to Moises. He was certain of that. When the time came for him to decide where he should be buried, he chose Norwich because it was the city he had brought up his children. He arrived in the UK with very little English and no fall back position and made a life for himself and his family. Few people will have an adventure like his and what breaks our hearts is he still had appetite for a great deal more. We will never forget the four of us…and then there was three.
Theoretical physicist born 13 November 1936, died 30th October 2011. He married Yolanda Silbert in 1962 who survives him with their two children Roxana and Leo.
Yolanda, Roxana and Leo Silbert