Abstract
Elchanan I. Meir, an internationally acclaimed authority on counseling and vocational psychology, died on February 17, 2014, in Jerusalem, Israel, following a long and courageous battle with cancer. He was born on July 10, 1936, in Jerusalem. After completing high school, he studied for 2 months in the renowned rabbinical school (yeshiva) “Kol Tora.” He then served in the Israel Defense Forces and subsequently attended the Hebrew University and earned an undergraduate degree in Sociology, Statistics, and Psychology. While studying, he worked for a youth placement agency guiding youths on the kind of work they were best fitted to pursue. He then earned a postgraduate degree (MA) in psychology from the Hebrew University and his doctorate (PhD) from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands (1968). Following the completion of his studies, Meir worked as head of the research department of the Hadassah Vocational Counseling Institute on a part-time basis for 35 years, while acting as a full-time faculty member at Tel-Aviv University (Department of Psychology) for 39 years, where he gained full professorship. He authored several books and dozens of papers in top journals such as Journal of Career Assessment and Journal of Vocational Behavior.
Throughout his career, Elchanan guided 103 theses and dissertations of which 40% were published as articles in leading academic journals. Furthermore, he was a prominent figure in the Israeli psychological community as evidenced by being elected for two consecutive terms of service (10 years) as the secretary-general of the Israel Psychologists Association. He also chaired the Israel National Council of Psychologists (incorporated in the Health Ministry) for 6 years. Elchanan was admired and perceived as an inspiring scholar and true role model to follow by his colleagues as well as by his students, which was evident in the impressively large crowd that has attended his funeral and paid tribute by visiting his family to extend condolences throughout the week of mourning as well as the numerous letters made public by students and colleagues in his memory. They all cherished him not only for his scholarship but also for his abiding kindness and empathy in addressing all manners of professional and personal concerns. In addition, his love, warmth, and devotion to his wife, children, and grandchildren were without precedent.
Elchanan’s scholarly affinity centered primarily on vocational interests, career choice, and its outcomes (i.e., satisfaction, performance, stability in any activity, role, task, job, or occupation). He has amply demonstrated that interests congruent with occupation can predict a higher level of satisfaction, persistence, and achievements than if congruence does not exist. Likewise, the fit of interests and avocational activities may serve as a substitute for satisfaction that is absent in the individual’s occupation. However, even when occupation is congruent with interests, the match of interests to avocational activities is conducive to even higher levels of satisfaction, persistence, and achievements than if only vocational congruence was existent. He went a step further, asserting and proving empirically that every measure of congruence or fit between interests, abilities, values, and the like with environment, expectations, requirements, or norms is likely to associate positively with components of well-being such as satisfaction, performance, stability and negatively with burnout, anxiety, accidents, and so forth. A related endeavor of investigation centered on the structure of occupations. In a series of studies using the Hebrew interest inventories he had conceived, Ramak, and courses based on Roe’s occupational classification, he explored the structure of occupation to ascertain to what extent the structure of interests is culturally invariable or culturally bound. His findings have immeasurably impacted the professional practice of occupational guidance.
Elchanan is survived by his wife Rachel whom he married in 1963, 5 children, 32 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren. We have all lost a great scholar, a psychologist who has fundamentally molded the counseling/vocational practice, and a man of unique character and personal virtues, and I personally have lost a true, devoted friend—an irreparable loss.