Israeli Prof. among Virginia Tech Victims
By Tzippe Barrow
CBN News - Jerusalem Bureau
April 17, 2007
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - In the aftermath of yesterday's massacre at Virginia Tech, Israelis learned that international lecturer and research scientist Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, was among the 32 victims shot to death before the killer turned the gun on himself.
According to a statement by one of his students to The Associated Press, the 76-year-old professor sacrificed his life trying to block the killer's entrance into the classroom.
"The students lived because of him," Asael Arad, an Israeli student at Virginia Tech, told Army Radio.
The professor and his wife, Marlena, both Holocaust survivors, made aliyah--immigrated to Israel--from Romania in 1978. (Ironically, he was killed on the day that Israel and the world remember those who died in and those who survived the Holocaust).
The Romanian communist government at the time had no intention of letting the eminent research scientist leave the country. But an appeal by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Romanian president paved the way for them to immigrate to Israel.
From 1982 through 1985, Prof. Librescu served on the international organizing committee for the Israel National Conference on Aviation and Astronautics.
In 1986, following a move to Virginia for a sabbatical, the couple decided to make it their home. There, the professor continued his impressive work in the field of thermal stresses, aeroelasticity and composite structure technology.
"He has been teaching there for 20 years," his daughter-in-law, Ayala, told YNet news service. "He was a senior, world-renowned lecturer…with the highest number of publications in the history of Virginia Tech," she said.
Professor Librescu, who will be buried in Israel, is survived by his wife and two sons, Arieh and Joe.
Sources: YNet, Haaretz
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