Max Berenbom, of Overland Park, passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, on Nov. 27, 2014, at the age of 95. Funeral services were Nov. 30 at Louis Memorial Chapel; interment at Mount Carmel Cemetery. Contributions in memory of Max may be made to the Jewish Vocational Service, the University of Kansas Cancer Center Endowment, or the charitable organization of your choice.
The youngest of Mordechai and Sarah Berenbom’s four children, Max was born Sept. 4, 1919, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Having lost his father the day before he was born, Max grew up poor — though “never hungry” — and paid his own way through the University of Saskatchewan, via scholarships and odd jobs such as cleaning out the campus animal barns and mowing the football field, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biochemistry.
It was as a graduate assistant in the chemistry labs that he met a coed named Doreen Sybil Katz, whom he would marry on June 1, 1947 — by which point he had also received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Toronto. The newlyweds moved to Bethesda, Md., where Max began his long, accomplished career in cancer research with a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute.
In 1951, the Berenboms relocated to Kansas City, where Max joined the research faculty at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Several years later, he assumed directorship of the chemistry labs at Menorah Medical Center, where he also continued his research until his retirement in 1989. Within a year he had returned to research, this time in nephrology at Children’s Mercy Hospital, finally retiring in 2012.
Max was passionate about his work, taking extreme pride in his efforts to streamline research methods and advance the endeavors of the labs he supervised. In the late 1960s, he was invited to share his approach at a research symposium in Jerusalem.
Yet his strongest commitment was always to his family. Max and Doreen scheduled their lives around the weekly Shabbat dinners they hosted and their annual summer road trips to Canada with the kids and grandkids. Family vacations were always active, and their children remember hiking trails from Kansas City to Saskatchewan.
Synagogue and community life was also always important. For many years, Max chaired the youth committee, and then the school committee, at Congregation Beth Shalom, where he also served as a life board member. Rabbi Gershon Hadas chose Max to succeed him in overseeing the rabbi’s Guardian Society, a scholarship fund for Beth Shalom students and youth group members. For more than a decade in the 1970s and 1980s, Max and Doreen chaired the synagogue’s Russian Resettlement Committee, creating dozens of homes for new immigrants in Kansas City.
Max and Doreen were married for more than 64 years, until her passing in October 2011. They are both remembered by their children Paula (Cliff) Cohen and Loren (Merilyn) Berenbom; grandchildren Hilary (Jeremy) Singer, Alison Cohen (Brian Czarski), Annie (Victor) Wishna, Michael (Mollie) Berenbom, and Katie Berenbom and fiancé J.R. Berger; great-grandchildren Lila Singer, Zander Czarski, Vivien and Abraham Wishna, and Eliana and Adam Berenbom; nephew Mark (Diane) Davidner, and their children and grandchildren; and by numerous cousins, extended family, and dear friends.
Max was always available to family, friends and colleagues for advice, support and encouragement, and will be remembered and cherished for his love, intelligence, commitment and generosity. As a teenager, he served for several years as his synagogue’s cantor in Saskatoon, and his children and grandchildren knew to expect a serenade on their birthdays, and any random evening. He was dearly loved and will be terribly missed by many, but will live on in their hearts and memories, and through the good acts of those who follow the example set by his life of service.