In Memory of Victoria Buch – The Brave and True Scientist

During the Shiva for my mother, Victoria Buch, my aunt Nina Mayorek and I agreed upon one aspect of Victoria that is indisputable: her untimely death notwithstanding, my mother lived her life with the intensity of three life spans.

My mother gave her heart and soul to every activity she was involved in, be it personal, political or academic. For example, during my teenage years, my high school invited various lecturers to speak about chemistry, physics, astronomy, and other topics within the natural sciences. Most of the lecturers tended to lull the students to sleep with dry speeches and elaborate taxonomy. My mother, however, dedicated an entire week to constructing a beautiful PowerPoint presentation with dazzling pictures of supernovas, falling stars, and black holes. In simple, colloquial language, she held the attention of an entire classroom of high school teenagers, even eliciting bursts of laughter as she joked with them about the principles of astrophysics. After the lecture was over, and my co-students burst in applause, she asked me with typical modesty, “I didn’t embarrass myself before your friends, did I?”

In the final weeks of her life, my mother still refused to relinquish her goals in face of the illness that afflicted her. Barely three weeks before her death, while heavily medicated, she insisted on holding an academic conference in our house. Victoria collected herself, fought away the effects of her medication, sat in front of her computer and invited over her two postdoctoral students and her colleague, Paul Devlin. She then supervised the meeting, formulated scientific ideas, and engaged in active academic discourse for several hours straight. A week before her death, she finished the article that her group was working on.

The best way to honor my mother’s memory, I believe, is to live as she lived, with absolute loyalty and dedication to those things in life that were truly dear to her. May we all have the insight, the strength and the conviction to do so.

Friends,
I have sad news. A dear friend, teacher, colleague, and wonderful human being, Professor Victoria Buch, has passed away today, after a long struggle with a fatal disease.

I want to write a few personal words about the Victoria I will miss very much. Victoria the "real" person. Very few are, in my view.

I see in Victoria a real scientist. She did not follow trendy puffs of wind; she chose instead to grapple with the more basic, deep and difficult scientific questions of chemistry. She had the "nose" for asking those really interesting fundamental questions in her field and the creativity to develop theoretical and computational methods to answer them. Some highlights of Victoria's career include the brilliant diffusion Monte Carlo method she developed for rigid bodies and her many important landmark works on the structure and spectroscopy of ice and water, their surfaces and their chemistry.

Victoria is a real human being. Yes, she was too often late to here and unintentionally absent from there… sometimes totally forgetting her schedule… or where she left her cell-phone... But I knew: this is just scratching the surface. Actually, I always felt this "absent-minded-professor" was much more in touch with reality, connected to this world, than I will ever be!

This is because Victoria's eyes and heart were open to see and feel the harsh events around us here in Israel. She made no concessions, no compromise, always true to her conscious. She fiercely demanded and fought for justice and compassion in times few have the patience and integrity to rise above their anger to do so.

Victoria willingly paid a high price for her social and political activities. Few would be able to stay so scientifically prolific, highly cited and internationally acknowledged as Victoria while concurrently devoting a huge portion of their time and patience to actively help the weak, the vulnerable and the suffering.

Indeed, Victoria was constantly busy demonstrating, blockade-watching, writing letters, publishing petitions and lecturing about these "real world" matters! Some people in our department may have bitterly disagreed with her views and actions. But I am sure they were secretly impressed by her sincere and pure intentions realizing she was constantly searching for the 'good thing to do'. (And perhaps that made them even more cross…)

I was not a student of Victoria. Never took a formal course or class with her. But I learned a lot from her – just by watching. And she was a great teacher!

It is so sad for me that a beautiful person as Victoria was snatched from my world, so suddenly, so brutally and so much too early!

I owe so much to Victoria Buch,and have learned so much from her as a scientist and as a person,that I am naturally flooded by memories from the many years of working and interacting with her.My thoughts right now are dominated by one recent experience. A few days ago,I visited Victoria at her deathbed.She found time and strength to see me,by sacrificing some of the few precious hours in which she was not sedated by morphine.We both knew this was a farewell visit,though we did not say this.Victoria said nothing of her suffering,which was terrible .Victoria spoke of science and of interesting research problems.She outlined very nice ideas,and expressed a vision for her research field.She was going to do whatever possible to complete projects she began,and was hopeful that they will be published.She knew the situation, and was prepared to suffer just to communicate for the future ideas that are important. This is a real Victory of commitment to science and to research over illness. Quite apart from the courage,in that discussion Victoria had the sharpness of mind and brilliance of argument characteristic of her. Victoria's ideas ,research approaches and passion for science will be with me as long as I work and live.Her ideas will influence my work also in the future,and I think this is correct for a large group of scientists who new her. I am very fortunate that I had Victoria Buch as my student,then my friend and my colleague.

Dear Roie,
Sad news
When I think of Victoria I can clearly see her face and hear her rolling laughter, I think of her when she is talking with such enthusiasm and with such love on her science. She was a very warm person who worked on the physical properties of ice and really wished to make our world and our country a better place to live in.
I am sharing with you and with all the members of Fritz Haber, the sorrow for the loss of a friend and colleague.
Please give my condolence to her daughter and to her family.

I knew Victoria only by her regular emails of the Israeli/Palestinian situation. I mourn the loss of Victoria Buch's voice for justice.
Please convey my deepest sympathy to her daughter.

I never had the opportunity to personally meet your Mom but, I knew her through her illness. I too have Stage III C Ovarian Cancer and have been struggling with this beast for almost three years. Viki and I shared our experiences with chemo that ravages the body but, not the souls of strong women. I read her articles and so did my GYN/Oncologist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. His family lives in the West Bank and he so appreciated her zeal and brilliance as an accomplished scientist as well as pacifist.
She related her care in Israel at the University and how important life was and that she would try anything that could possiblygive her better quality of life. I suggested that she come to Seattle for an opinion and that we had a bedroom just for her if she choose to do so. She had been here before as I recall and had friends at Puget Sound U.
Once I asked what she did in her work life. When she mentioned she dabbled in "quantum physics" I was impressed for sure and didn't make further inquiry since my knowledge of that particular part of the universe is limited to say the least.
I have tried to reach her in the last couple of months and was concerned that I hadn't heard from her. My condolences are with you and her family and friends and I am so saddened to her of her loss.
I pray for peace in the world.

Dear Dassi
We don't know each other but now that you send also to me this letter, I want to express to you how much your mother is in my thoughts these days. Though never having been very close, we cooperated through the years on getting things published in the field of peace activism and I also became one of the editors of Occupation Magazine which she founded.
Rereading her January article, now republished on Occupation Magazine, I feel she wrote it knowing that this was the end of her life, and maybe her last opportunity to add her very argued and penetrating voice.
I hope that after the shock passes you will be able to live your life without her keeping a fond memory of her. Your mother, she was not just somebody.

Dear Dassy,
it's for me such a sad task to write appropriate words as a dedication to Victoria's memory. When I knew her several years ago in Jerusalem during a vigil of "Women in Black" I was much impressed by her strong engagement for a just peace. Later she came even to Germany to inform people here about the efforts of Human Rights groups to fight for the end of the occupation and a just solution of the conflict. When I had invited her to our "Middle East Peace-Group " she didn't hesitate to come to us and tell us about her experiences as a Machsomwatch woman. Her lively report about the humiliating measures of the soldiers towards the Palestinians was such an important message and unique for most of our members. She also joined us with another Machsomwatch woman who also visited us reporting about her work near the checkpoints in the Occupied Territories. Last not least I want to appreciate her weekly choosing headlines for the Occupation Magazine and sending it to many people. It is so important to receive such alternative messages! It is so painful to miss her vivid, strong personality. She was a wonderful woman and I will never forget her!

My deepest sympathies to you all on the death of your mother - this is my tribute to her - she meant a great deal to me. Victoria was one of the most courageous women I have ever had the privilege to meet.
Her unflagging work to expose and to try and alleviate the terrible injustice under which the Palestinians have to live was an inspiration to me and to many fellow Scots who also knew her.
She never faltered in her task although her academic career must have been threatened nor did she falter when she became ill. I saw her in Edinburgh last year and her energy seemed undiminished.
I thank God that there are Israelis like her and I hope and pray that those of us who believe as she did in justice and then peace will continue the struggle however longs it takes.

I just arrived back from Copenhagen, and read that Victoria left us. I knew It could happen any minute,and yet I was a little bit hoping for miracle. BUT VICTORIA DID NOT WAIT FOR MIRACLE!
She said it almost explicitly. Maybe this fact can console her beloved sister NINA and daughter.Dasi.
I mean the fact that she knew that she is facing the end, and with all her pains and understandings behaved as a QUEEN, she succeeded to organize life after life
I saw her about two weeks ago, when she invited some friends for Audrey's birthday...She thought of everything. To finish as much works as possible, to find the persons with whom her students and colleagues would continue their research instead of herself, to suggest the last book she loved, and I am sure in many other issues she looked for someone instead of herself....
Victoria dear, so many subjects were on schedule between us, and you left just like that in the middle of the conversation.

So sad to hear of her passing.
Victoria seemed to me to be a force of nature.
She was a leader in her scientific field and always seemed to be working on the hottest and most important problems with others desperately trying to catch up.
Then there was her commitment to the peace process in Israel and her bravery in fighting for the human rights of Palestinians when the easiest thing to do would have been to have kept quiet. I first met her when I was but a lowly graduate student and even though I was not and never will be in her intellectual league,she always made time to talk, gossip, tell jokes and offer advice- which I rarely took, though should have. She was a friend to many young scientists and we genuinely enjoyed her company. No, I didn't know her that well, but I always secretly idolized her for her brilliance and her humanity. I once called her 'Queen Victoria' because to me, she was royalty- a towering presence and an icon, but also someone who looked out for us like a favorite aunt.

I met Victoria at a Gordon conference on water, where her work was central to the field, and creating a stir. I was impressed with her relationship to her work, concerned only with the substance of it, quite as willing to give credit to others as to call them to account for their oversights or challenge them on their mistakes. We found we shared a commitment to justice, fair treatment for all of humanity, and as Jews inheriting a tradition of acting in the face of injustice, a need to act on the expropriation of the Palestinians, the occupation of their remaining land and their continuing mistreatment by the Israeli state. She did this in many ways, as I came to find out. One of which was her nearly weekly posting of “Today’s Headlines in the Occupation Magazine”, posted until two weeks before her death, to which I became a subscriber. She had contacts with the resistance to Israeli government policies in Israel and Palestine. She used those contacts to bring the voices of the resistance in its many forms to the United States, where the the Women in Black, the Combatants for Peace, the Anarchists Against the Wall , Rabbi’s for Peace and others were given time on my weekly radio show to share who they were and what they were about to an audience who rarely heard about them, and for the most part, didn’t know they existed. It is difficult to hold out with intelligence and integrity a path to the future that is disavowed and attacked by those in positions of power in your own country, particularly when the mantra of survival as a nation is trumpeted at every turn, and used to excuse every barbarism. Victoria did just that. Her bravery, intelligence and wit will be missed. Her support for the struggle to free humanity from the ghosts of the past will have consequences for all time.

Dear Dassi,
I am shocked and sad - I didn't know Victoria had died. I will collect my thoughts and write something for the memoir. Very best wishes in great sadness,

Dearest Dassi,
Although we've never met and you probably don't remember my brother, Jedidjah de Vries, we wanted to write to express our condolences. We had the good fortune of meeting your mother via my father, Professor Mattanjah de Vries (Chemistry Department, Hebrew University and Gush Shalom). As I am sure you can imagine and no doubt are hearing from others as well, your mother had a tremendous impact on both Jedidjah and myself. Her dedication and more than anything her passion both for her work and for the good of others, are examples which we carry with us always. Especially Jedidjah, who went with your mother and my parents to numerous demonstrations and protests, very often mentions your mother when talking about our moral obligation to stand up and be heard and not to sit idly by. In large part thanks to her example he is his now also an activist. I know that everyone in our family will continue to remember Victoria always, and we will carry her in our hearts to every protest and every good cause, as I am sure many hundreds of others will as well.
Our hearfelt condolences,

I am neither a colleague nor a close friend. I like to think that had we been within 100 mile radius of each other more than a few times in our lives, we would have developed a stronger friendship. But I want very much to write about her. I met Victoria in Jerusalem in 1995. My husband was on a sabbatical at the Hebrew University. Soon after arriving, Dor came home talking about someone named Vicki who, he informed me, was great and I would like her. My first meeting was actually over the phone,and odd as that may sound, I adored her immediately. We had chatted in passing a few times, and were planning to all go hiking together. I made some little comment about finally getting to "see her in the flesh" which for some reason she found the idea of looking forward to THAT very amusing, and she started to laugh and sputter a bit, and tell me in a booming voice that she was not much to see. Which of course was not true. She was much to see.
I feel the loss of her is twofold, an unfathomable one for those who cared about her, but also the world has lost a very dedicated and humane presence. I saw her as a person of rare conviction. She was courageous and honorable and kind. I liked and admired how she conducted herself in the world, if that makes any sense. I loved being around her and Dassie, the two of them were funny and sweet together and challenged each other alot. I have a great memory of sitting on a rooftop with them in Ain Hod, looking at the night sky and talking and laughing in the dark.
It is very sad to no longer have her here on earth.

In Memory of Victoria Buch:
Surely many of us recognize Victoria Buch as a modern day heroine. It is an honest view of this wonderful woman who had such a natural inclination to sacrifice time, energy, resources and her own security to work with great determination and obstinacy for justice where she saw injustice. It is no exaggeration to say she put her life on the line for a cause, as those suffering injustice have been a target of hate. She surely lived the dictum “if you seek peace, work for justice”. I have often thought and sometimes expressed the idea that someone should write a book about all aspects of her life, but with particular emphasis on her devotion and actions for justice and peace. The book would, of course, have parallel threads for Victoria and her sister Nina, both of whom have demonstrated so well the power and personal strengths of the modern dedicated woman. The lives of such extraordinary people give meaning and comfort to the rest of us. I am exceedingly fortunate to have been gifted with significant time with Victoria, both in a personal and professional sense, and never ceased to be amazed by the varied achievements of this tremendously caring person with a brilliant mind.

Hi Tova,
I have just known from Christiane (she knew from you) that Victoria passed away. It's a very sad new. Victoria was always very warm with we all "visitors", and one of the responsible people for us losing very fast that label ("visitors") to feel as one more in F.H.
I won't forget helping her doing some phone calls to a lost village of Central America when she was organizing one of her crazy holidays. She was a good scientific, but also a very amusing person.
All my condolences to all of you, their colleagues and friends, in F.H.
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Victoria Buch.
Memories of Clarence and Joan Musgrave, St Andrew’s Church Jerusalem, 2000 - 2006
Ours was an unlikely friendship which started in an unusual way.
My wife and I had arrived in Jerusalem in July 2000, to work at the Scottish Church, when there was that mixture of optimism and apprehension. Camp David came and went, the Intifada started, and was in reality to be with us until we returned to Scotland in 2006. I am a Church of Scotland Minister, having worked for a short time in the USA, a longer time in Zambia, and an even longer time in Edinburgh.
Quite early in the Intifada, Victoria wanted to get some assistance to a friend in Hebron – not the easiest of things for her to arrange. In contact with a professional colleague and friend in Prague, he suggested that she get in touch with the Church of Scotland Minister at St Andrew’s Scottish Church in Jerusalem, whom he knew. Victoria did that, introducing herself at the very outset as a “third-generation atheist.” Labels being unimportant on this occasion, I was able to arrange for her assistance to reach her friend in Hebron.
From this unusual starting point, our friendship developed. We learned a great deal from her – of her background, of her family, of her commitment to opposing the policies of successive Governments of Israel, and of her seemingly boundless energy.
Letters used to find their way from my wife and myself to friends in different parts of the world, telling of our experiences, and sharing the stories of folk such as Victoria. Without ever asking for donations, money did arrive to be used as the need arose.
Victoria had a good sense for the scent of money, and the people who had donated it were more than happy to have her use some of it. Early in our friendship, we were standing one day at the Women in Black demonstration in Jerusalem. Our conversation was short and to the point. “I need money”, said Victoria. “What for?” said I. “Expenses for an operation for a girl from the West Bank,” said Victoria. “How much?” said I. “$5,000.00,” said Victoria. “Done,” said I. The money was available, the operation was carried out, and we became friends with her friends.
It was a recurrent theme of our friendship – the third-generation Jewish atheist asking the Scottish Presbyterian Minister for money to help her Arab Muslim friends – or to help with some of her other commitments. It was a demonstration of what can be done, and an illustration of what should be done by people of different backgrounds, and one which we valued enormously.
Victoria was convinced that we needed “to be educated,” and we were more than happy to accept her as our teacher. We met her family, some of her friends, and accompanied her on expeditions to different parts of Israel, and even on one occasion to Hebron. She was a good teacher, and our lives have been enormously enriched by having known her.
In 2008 she was able to stay with us in Edinburgh, and we in turn stayed with her in Jerusalem. Sadly, such visits are now things of the past. I am not quite sure what her final greeting would be to us – but it would be entirely in keeping with the sort of friendship we had were she to be asking if we had any money for one of her Arab friends. Assuming that third-generation atheists get to heaven, I would not be surprised to learn that she is busy organising folk there, encouraging them to log-on to www.kibbush.co.il.

Victoria was my neighbor in the Institute of Chemistry: her office was next to mine. At times she would brew coffee; we would free up a chair by pushing aside piles of papers and talk – some science but mostly politics. Her sharp, incisive analyses were delivered with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. She taught me so much about life in the Institute, in Israel, and in the Middle East. Whatever the topic, Victoria dispensed her wisdom with a mixture of humor, true caring, and integrity. For all of these she will be dearly remembered and sorely missed.

Victoria was a generous, dedicated and caring individual - I was very sad to hear about her illness, then shocked by her death. We first met in Jerusalem in 2004, having been in email communication for some time – she always made herself available via email and in person.
Her contribution to informing the world about Israel/Palestine by founding Occupation Magazine was invaluable. She will be sorely missed.
My condolences to her family, friends and colleagues.

To Victoria,
I was very sad and dismayed to learn of Victoria’s passing away.
Our research activities were far apart but I had outstanding opportunities of acquaintance with her during my tenure as head of school in the nineties. She then took upon herself one of the most difficult undergraduate courses on The Chemical Bond, which was often too difficult an obstacle for many of the students. She expected others to rise to her level. She ran the course with great dedication, enthusiasm and uncompromising approach as befitted her personality while I found myself a proponent of a different didactic approach proposed at the time as an alternative, even if that would get the students only halfway - though safely, through the subject.
Our tasks were different. We had great fights and she did not spare me, but I respected her deeply, -even envied her, for her spirit and idealistic principles. I do not think it was mutual. In our research and particularly in our teaching assignment we may strive for the maximum and sadly, often settle for the possible. But it is pathfinders like her that we really need.
She will be badly missed
Michael Michman

I sent this message via Adam Keller on 24 June as soon as we heard from him of Victoria's death:
I'm stunned to learn of Victoria's death. We so admired the energy she put into her work and the Occupation Magazine website. Please pass on my personal condolences, and those of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, to her family and friends and to all who work on the Kibush project.
With best wishes
Richard
Richard Kuper
Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Information and Policy Officer

Victoria the skier

Viki was a great and dedicated scientist and I should probably recall here one of the many inspiring occasions when we were doing serious science together. But I cannnot resist the temptation to tell a less serious story. During the years we have known each other we have done quite a bit of “after school“ activities including going to mountains which we both enjoyed a lot. When Viki spent part of her last sabbatical with me in Prague in winter 2007 she joint us for a week of skiing in the Orlicke mountains in north Bohemia. We are a family of skiing addicts, so my idea was that I will serve as Viki’s personal coach, passing part of the white powder addiction to her. Well, we got the skies, got to the slope, I started my “training program” ... and it was a disaster. I did not quite realize that last time Viki skied was before she left Poland in 1968 and the progress was thus slower than I expected. Be a professional, I said to myself and with infinite patience and buckets of good spirit (Yes, we can!) I continued the skiing lesson. Until Viki looked at me with the piercing look she gave me several times before when I was running on her nerves and said: “Go f... yourself, Pavel, I can do this myself.” And that’s what we both did and by the end of the week Viki taught herself to turn elegantly and stop decently. I mean, she was not ready to go for international competitions but she was going down (mostly) without falling and was enjoying herself. Viki, I will miss your lessons on stubborness in the best sense of the word. And most of all, I will miss your piercing look.

Victoria Buch
By Dor Ben-Amotz

Dear Benny,
I just learned today that Victoria Buch passed away in June. What sad and terrible news. I spent a week with Victoria last summer in Telluride. I had heard that she was ill, but her trademark vitality and wit were present in full force, and she never let on. I will miss her deeply. She was a proud member of the Fritz Haber Center and a wonderful diplomat for chemistry. There are so few like her.
I also learned today from an internet search about her activities on the part of Occupation Magazine. I did not know about this side of her; she was even more remarkable than I knew.
I hope that all is well with you, and I look forward to seeing you sometime in the future.

I met Victoria in the early 1980's at the Fritz Haber Institute, when I was a Master's degree student and Victoria was finishing her PhD with Bennie Gerber as her dissertation advisor. Victoria was one of the most exceptional persons I knew. She was a truly passionate person, with an open heart and broad-minded intellectual spirit. While her chief commitment and passion was science, she was also deeply read and interested in literature, philosophy, music, politics, art, and more. One could see her delving into Paul Dirac's Principles of Quantum Mechanics, her favorite textbook, but she was also reading and discussing Descartes' Principles of Philosophy. Victoria read and loved Dostoyevsky, Camus and myriad other writers. While Victoria's mind was attuned to the fundamental and the abstract, she also was interested in and understood the-down-to-earth and the practical. Perhaps this was one reason she was such an excellent teacher: she knew and loved the theories and foundations, but at the same time she understood the mundane frame of mind and limitations of her students. I was not in contact with Victoria in later years, when her career as a theoretical chemist flourished, and at the time she was also devoting much of her time and energy acting for peace and justice in the Middle East and helping the disadvantaged and helpless. I only learned about this chapter in her life during a recent visit to Israel, after her passing. But I was not really surprised to learn of her activities during the past several years. Victoria was a very courageous person who fought for her convictions and she was a very generous and in many ways a selfless person. She certainly was a very exceptional individual. I will miss her.

To the Department of Physical Chemistry:

Victoria Buch was a scientist in the deepest sense. She cared about truth, and about understanding, and about other scientists. She understood how demanding science could be, and was willing to play the game at the very highest level. She understood that our tools are necessarily blunt instruments, and that we can only quarry real insight with them by trying to improve their sharpness, and by working with them all the time, very hard, before anything significant happens. But she also understood that the game, though hard, is wonderful – that understanding the world, and predicting its behavior, is an opportunity that has only been afforded to us very recently in the history of man, and even more recently in the history of the Jewish people.

When I first came to Jerusalem, invited by Rafi as part of the Advanced Study Institute, I met this remarkable woman from Poland, who was a gusher of enthusiasm for science, for scientists, and for theory. I remember staying up very late trying to understand why our self-consistent vibrational equations didn’t converge. I remember haggling with Vicky over pitas at an outdoor grill, trying to express the error terms that arose in the vibrational analogs to the Hartree-Fock equations in a way that looked a lot like MP2 theory. And I remember scheming with Victoria about different semi-classical approaches, different ways to improve the solutions.

Since that time, Victoria and I went in very different directions with our science. But whenever I saw her at a meeting, the same intensity, the same creativity, the same unique Vickyness were always there. She got interested in water, and ice, and Car-Parrinello calculations, and the mysteries that occur at the interface of ices. But she still had that remarkable flair, the openness, the curiosity, the delight when things happened right.

I firmly believe that the graduate students in Jerusalem are the best that I have ever encountered. Victoria was the first of them whom I really knew well, and she set an extraordinarily high standard for this, as for almost everything else that she did.

Her loss leaves a huge hole. There’s a hole in the faculty of the Hebrew University, there’s a hole in the community of theoretical chemistry, and there is a hole in my appreciation of the science that we all do. I have learned a lot from many people at the Hebrew University, and working with the theoretical chemists there has been one of the great joys of my career. But Victoria was perhaps the most free-spirited of all of us, because her enjoyment of science seemed to be entirely dissociated from some of the shabbier considerations, like getting funded, and the size of an office, and credit.

It was a privilege to work with Victoria, from her time as a graduate student through her time as a Full Professor. If there were more people like Victoria, theoretical chemistry would be a better place. We were all privileged to know her, and to work with her, and to learn from her.

May her memory be for a blessing.

Mark Ratner