Nadene Goldfoot
Marilyn Robinson
Jews lived in Greece in Biblical times, and for sure by the 2nd century BCE. Salonica attracted many settlers from the Spanish Inquisition of 1492. Many Jewish communities were living in seaports. Salonika (Thessaloniki) was captured in 1912 which gave Greece one of the largest Jewish communities of the Mediterranean. On November 9, 1912, Greek forces led by Prince Constantine, the heir to the Greek throne, captured the ancient city of Salonika without firing a shot after the outnumbered Turkish garrison surrendered. Then what happened was an interchange of population between Greece and Turkey which reduced the proportionate Jewish population of Greece.
Over 80 years ago by 1939 , 60,000 Jews lived peacefully in Thessaloniki, Greece. It was a valued and vibrant community. Most of these Jews worked at the port. So many worked there that the port was closed on Saturday, their Shabbat. Great emeritus rabbis also lived and studied there. Everyone rubbed shoulders and appreciated each other.
On September 2, 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, it was to this great community that the Nazi terror would suddenly rise.
On April 6, 1941, Hitler invaded Greece in order to secure its southern front before launching the famous Operation Barbarossa and its great offensive against Russia.
Of the 60,000 Jews in Thessaloniki, around 50,000 would be exterminated at the Birkenau Concentration Camp, in record time! The massacre of the Jews of Greece was brief but intense. Very few would have the chance to make it. Auschwitz Birkenau (1940-1945) was the largest in the Third Reich. According to historical investigations, 1.5 million people, among them a great number of Jews, were systematically starved, tortured and murdered in this camp, the symbol of humanity's cruelty to its fellow human beings in the 20th century.
But among the survivors there was a family known as Bouria, and after the war, in 1961, a son was born into this miraculous family in the camps. His parents called him Israel Abraham Bouria.
Israel grew up and studied veterinary medicine in Greece. A brilliant student, Abraham received his doctorate in reproductive biotechnology at the veterinary school of Aristotle University in Salonika.
At the age of 34, he decided to move to the United States. He changed his first name, Abraham, to Albert and was integrated into the medical industry. He progressed quickly and joined a pharmaceutical company where he became "Head Manager." Abraham AKA (Albert) rose through the ranks and got his appointment as CEO of this company in 2019.
" Albert Bouria was born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece. His parents, who were Sephardi Jews, were among the 2,000 of 50,000 Jews in Thessaloniki to survive the Holocaust; his mother was minutes away from execution by firing squad when she was spared via a ransom paid to a Nazi Party official by her non-Jewish brother-in-law, while his father happened to be out of the Jewish ghetto when the residents were taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp and went into hiding, never to see his parents again.
Bourla earned a doctorate in the biotechnology of reproduction at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki's Veterinary School in 1985. He left Greece with his wife when he was 34 after a promotion within Pfizer and since then he has lived in seven different cities, in four different countries. "
Throughout the year, Albert decided to direct the efforts of the company to try to find a vaccine against a new virus (COVID), which has just struck the world. He expended great financial and technological efforts to achieve his goal. A year later, the WHO (World Health Organization) validated his company to produce the long-awaited vaccine.
His vaccine will be distributed in several countries including Germany, which counts thousands of dead from the pandemic.
That is why Israel became the first country to receive the vaccine. it is in memory of his grandparents and his parents who gave birth to Israel-Abraham Bouria, known today as Albert Bouria: CEO of Pfizer.
In 2020, Bourla pushed Pfizer employees for the fast development of a COVID-19 vaccine in partnership with German company BioNTech, while making sure it is safe and effective. He told his team that "financial returns should not drive any decisions" with regards to the vaccine. He took the risk of producing the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine before approval from the Food and Drug Administration so that it would be ready to ship immediately upon approval.
In 2020, he was ranked as America’s top CEO in the pharmaceutical industry by Institutional Investor.
Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bourla (their error, surname is Bouria-not Bourla). It comes up as Bourla.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/24/pfizer-edge-in-the-race-for-a-covid-19-vaccine-could-be-a-scientist-with-two-best-sellers-to-her-credit/
https://forward.com/culture/464340/pfizer-ceo-albert-bourla-covid-vaccine-thessaloniki-jewish-holocaust/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzzHtvRHkMk
https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/exclusive-interview-with-pfizer-ceo-albert-bourla-101605957789
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xawG02DenNc
https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/12/14/albert-bourla-pfizer-ceo-vaccine-rollout-covid-newday-vpx.cnn
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