Yisroel (Richard) Pensack
68 years old, of San Francisco, California formerly of Livingston, NJ passed away on Wednesday, January 13, 2016 after years of struggling with a genetic form of heart disease. He was diagnosed, as a teenager, with the same disease that his mother, Shirley (Gottlieb), succumbed to at age 31 when Yisroel was 7 years old. He went on to fight a life-long battle which took him through immense physical suffering. His struggle included living through three separate organ transplants. He lived 26 years with a heart transplant. Sixteen of those 26 years he lived with a liver and kidney transplant as well. His historic life-long survival was truly a miracle of modern medicine. Despite the hurdles he had to overcome, Yisroel was a National Merit Scholar, who also achieved the highest SAT scores possible. He was accepted to Johns Hopkins 6 year medical program and Penn State's 5 year medical program. However, after starting at Penn State, he was determined to return home and marry his high school sweetheart, Linda (Kelly). Yisroel and Linda have two beautiful sons, Benjamin and Adam. His will to live, despite the magnitude of his suffering with a disease that was so very incapacitating, has been an inspiration to all who knew him. Until the day he passed away, his remarkable sense of humor and laugh put smiles on the faces of family and friends. It is with much love, sadness and full hearts that he will be missed by his family. Besides his sons, he leaves his dad, Harvey Pensack of Sarasota, Florida and Steamboat Springs, Colorado; His brother, Dr. Robert Pensack (and wife Abbe) of Denver, Colorado; his niece, Miriam Pensack of Brooklyn, New York and his nephew, Max Pensack of New York City.
Funeral services will be held on Sunday, January 17, 2016 at the King Solomon Cemetary Chapel, 550 Dwasline Road, Clifton, NJ. At 11:30 a.m. Arrangements by Jewish Memorial Chapel, Clifton, NJ.