Nobel Prize Winner Was
Product of Yiddish Ghetto

By JOSEPH POLAKOFF

Nobel Prize winner Julius Axelrod
of the National Institute of Mental
Health in suburban Bethesda, Maryland,
is among the world's foremost authori-
ties in the chemistry of nerve transmis-
sion, esoteric as that is! and yet he talks
with warmth and simplicity,, tinged when
suitable with a delightful Yiddish accent
in a manner characteristic of unabashed
first-generation American Jews of East-
ern European origin.

He lost the sight of his left eye when
a bottle containing ammonia exploded
in his face a quarter of a century ago
but he has stuck to the hazards of his
lab and the intricacies of research with
the tenacity and intensity of those who
devoted their lives to studying every
syllable of the wisdom of the prophets.

Everybody loves this 58-year-old bio-
chemist-his family, his staff, his col-
leagues, his boss, his maid-for his hu-
maneness, his work, his intelligence.

A conversation with him took place a
few hours after the announcement in
Stockholm on October 15 that two Jew-
ish scientists-Dr.  Axelrod and Sir
Bernhard Katz, professor of biophysics
at University C,ollege in London-and
Sweden's eminent Professor Ulf von ELI-
ler-had been named the winners of the
1970 Nobel Peace Prize in Phyi
siology and Medicine for their indepen-
dent basic research concerning the reg-
ulatory mechanisms in the nervous sys-
tems. Their discoveries may result in the
possibility of effecting the nervous sys-
tem to correct nervous and mental dis-
orders, including schizophrenia and high
blood pressure.

"Mazeltov" said the Jewish Telegra-
phic Agency's correspondent, when `br.
Axelrod came to the phone in his apart-
ment in heavilv Jewish suburban Rock-
ville, Maryland, to answer the call.
There was a chuckle from the now world
famous biochemist. "Thank you," he re-
plied.  "It's good to hear."
"All the media," the JTA man said,

"will tell the world about your scienti-
fic achievement. But would you tell me
something about yourself and your fam-
ily background?"

And so. Dr. Axelrod first sooke about
his Orthodox Jewish- pare&--`Ttzic-
Izzie (yes, for Isadore) and Molly" Axel-
rod who now live at 460 Neptune Ave-
nue in Brooklyn. They emigrated from
Galicia to New York City when each was
14 years old and they met and married
in New York.

"My father made straw baskets for a
living,"  the scientist said.   "He was
called `Itzic der Keichel Maeher'."

Dr. Axelrod, who is short and slight of
build, was born on May 30, 1912 on East
Houston Street--"the Yiddish ghetto,"
he termed it. He went to "P. S. 22" and
Seward Park High School-"opposite the
knish factorv."

"I went t; cheder and was Bar Mitz-
vah," Dr. Axelrod said.  "I identify very
strongly with Israel but not in a religious
way. 1 feel a strong Jewish identity."
Dr. Axelrod said he knows many Is-

raeli scientists and has many colleagues
in Israel which he visited for about two
weeks in 1966 after he had been invited
to lecture there.

With his family in humble economic
circumstances, "the only way I could
get a free education was to go to City
College" lnow the Citv University of
New York) where he was graduated in
1933, in the midst of the Great Depres-
sion, with a bachelor of science degree.

"My-mother wanted me to be a doc-
tor," Dr. Axelrod recalled.  "It was hard
in those days for Jews to get into medi-
cal schools. I wasn't that good a student
but if my name was Bigelow I probably
would have gotten in."

So Dr. Axelrod went to work in the
Department of Bacteriology at New
York University for the ne xt two years

and then switched to the university's
laboratory of industrial hygiene where
he remained for eleven Years. Mean-
while, in 1941, he acquire-d his master's
degree at NYU.

From 1946-49 he was a research asso-
ciate at the Goldwater Memorial Hos-
pital in New York and late in 1949 he
came to the National Heart Institute in
Bethesda, on Washington's northwest
edge. In 1955-the year that he received
his doctorate in physiology at George
Washington University here-he accept-
ed the offer of the National Institute of
Mental Health to the position he now
holds. He is chief of the section of phar-
macology working with chemicals in
animals in the laboratory of chemical
science.  Shortly afterwards he began
the amazing studies that extended over
a dozen years and culminated in the
award to him of the world's highest hon-
ors in his field.

But to get back to Dr. Axelrod's fam-
ily life. His wife was Sallv Taub before
they were married in 1938". Like the sci-
entist, she was born and raised in New
York and graduated from Hunter Col-
lege in 1942. Mrs. Axelrod at present is
a second grade teacher in the Kent Mill
Public School in Maryland's Montgom-
ery County which borders on the Dis-
trict of Columbia. When JTA asked Dr.
Axelrod to speak with her, she respond-
ed through him that she did not want
to be interviewed.

The Axelrods have two sons. Paul,
25, is studying anthropology at the Uni-
versity of North Carolina's graduate
school at Chapel Hill. Fred, 21, is an un-
dergraduate in forestry at the Universi-
ty of Minnesota. He snent the summer
Brachuting from the skies in Alaska,
fv yoming and Washington, to help fight
forest fires.

In the Axelrod apartment is an eight-
branch candelabra for Hanuka. "We
used to light it when the kids were
home," Dr. Axelrod v&d.
Dr. Axelrod first heard he had been

awarded the Nobel Prize from his friend
Dr. Ben A. Williamowsky, a dentist,
whose office is in Silver Spring, anoth-
er Washington suburb with a large Jew-
ish population,

Dr. Williamowsky, whose father is a
rabbi, Dr. Axelrod said, greeted him up-
on his arrival about 8:30 a.m. with the
question: "Julie, what's this I hear about
you and the Nobel Peace Prize?" He
had heard a broadcast to that effect.

"I see Ben about once a year and to-
day was the day for my appointment,"
Dr. Axelrod said.  `Ben always amuses
people and I thought this was his way
of making a joke."

About a half-hour later, while his
mouth was stuffed with instruments and
cotton, an urgent phone message came
to him at the dentist's office informing

him that he had won the prize.

-

But for Mrs. Axelrod the news came
after an anxious half-hour. She was at-
tending a teachers' meeting in Baltimore
when she was informed there was an
"emergency" call for her Dr. Axelrod
said. The "emergency call" did not come
through for what seemed hours and
meanwhile Mrs. Axelrod's anxiety kept
mounting. Finally, the good news came.

The self-effacing, pleasant Dr. Axel-
rod was extolled from ali sides. Daniel
G. Rice, a spokesman for NIMH, said
An indication of Dr. Axelrod's fami-
ly feeling is that while congratulatory
calls and messages were pouring in on
him from all over, among his first
thoughts were to inform his aged pa-
rents and to remember his sisters in
New York-Mrs. Pearl `Denmark and
Mrs. Gertrude Brodsky.

DR. JULIUS AXELROD

Dr. Axelrod was "non-plussed, without
words but very, very pleased and total-
ly and genuinely surprised" when he
was informed of the award.

"His colleagues all love him" Mr.
Rice, who is not Jewish, said. "He is
very well respected at NIMH. He never
closes the door of his lab office. Those
working with him are always in to see
him. He is so open andgracious with his
time and energy, He is highly respected
by the ,younger people."

Mr. Rice pointed out that Dr. AxeI-
rod's small staff is highly dedicated to
him and emphasized the special dedica-
tion of Mrs. Helen Hunt, a Negro as-
sistant who has worked with him for
sixteen years.

"Mrs. Hunt," Mr. Rice said, "some-
times comes in at five or six a.m. and
works nights and weekends, too, when
necessary."

Dr. Axelrod's immediate suberiar at
NIMH is Dr. Irwin J. Kopin,- 41-year-
old chief of the laboratory of clinical
sciences since 1968.  Dr. Kopin, who
holds a bachelor's and medical doctorate-
degrees from McGill University, also ig
a native of New York City.  A member
of Bethesda's Beth El Congregation, Dr.
Kopin said he would not have been at
the Institute on the day of the Nobel
announcement because it was sukkot
but he came to join in congratulating
Dr. Axelrod.

In Stockholm on Dec. 10, Dr. Axel-
rod, Sir Bernard and Professor van Eu-
ler will meet for the first time and re-
ceive their Nobel Prizes which includes
a one-third share each of the $78,000
award. -                  .

DIV. Axe&d and Sir Bernard also

have a factor in common besides sci-
ence and Jewishness. Both look to the
welfare of youth.

What a great December day it will bs
in Stockholm for everybody who Sara
about people!
In his news conference here, Dr.
Axlerod said he was worried ebout cuti
in funds for basia research esgecially
because it would reduce the chances of
young people to compete and establish
themselves.  And at the University of
California, Berkeley, whee he received
the announcement, Sir Bernard left hia
news conference hurriedly to see a y~~ng
undergraduate student who had been
kept, he said, "waiting to see me for 45
$?%% characteristic of Sir Bernard
      A press report pointed out

that he felt the student's time was more
important than anything else.