Abstract
As members of the Israeli Institute of Group Analysis we are deeply mourning the loss of our colleague and beloved friend Dr. Herzel Yogev.
Herzel fought against lung cancer for the past year. He faced this violent attack on his life with unbelievable courage, nobility, and dignity. He chose to share this terrible news with a close group of friends who joined his family members in their prayer for a cure. The truth is however, that he really was the one who gave us the strength to strengthen him. He let us into his personal struggle with an openness and kindness that enabled us to participate in his fighting from up close. His warmth, vitality and resourcefulness was catching: it led us to believe with him and with his family, that he would survive against all odds.
Herzel was a loving father to his two grown up children, a devoted husband to Anat and a rock of support to his five brothers and sister. He was an esteemed member of the institute, a creative thinker in the field of psychology in general and group analysis in particular.
He published numerous articles in the Journal of Group Analysis and in other prestigious professional journals. The issues he explored in our field dealt with the urgent necessity to constitute a culture of mutual understanding and mutual concern between individuals, groups and nations. A quick glance through the key words and abstracts of Herzel’s articles published in the Journal of Group Analysis (in which he served as a reviewer), reveals the broad scope of his thinking; we find notions like holding, empathy, potential space, talking peace, emotional availability, coexistence, ‘to be with’, alongside system’s theories, chaos, mathematics and neurology. They signify the humane essence of his vision and represent his desire to harness theoretical concepts for the healing of relationships between people.
Herzel practised what he preached: The many patients he saw in his private practice (in individual group and family settings) are grieving the loss of a dedicated, warm, wise therapist who made a difference to their lives.
The divide between the living and the dead is the ultimate brutal demarcation. Herzel’s loss is uniquely personal for his family, for each one of us who knew him as friends and colleagues, for us collectively as an institute, and for the larger community of group analysis to which he could have continue to contribute his unique understanding about the values inherent in human connectedness.