Itzhak Bentov

Itzhak Bentov was born in 1923 in Humenné

Bentov was born in 1923 in Humenné, Czechoslovakia. During World War II his parents, younger brother and sister were killed in Nazi concentration camps. He escaped being sent to the camps and moved to British Palestine, where he first lived at kibbutz Shoval in the Negev.

Without a university degree, he joined the Science Corps, known as HEMED. During the War of Independence he designed Israel's first rocket. He later also served in Rafael.

In 1954 he moved to the United States and settled in Massachusetts, becoming a citizen in 1962. In 1967 he built a steerable heart catheter, and in 1969 he founded the Medi-Tech company with John Abele. Medi-Tech was later bought by Boston Scientific, and his other inventions included EKG electrodes, pacemaker leads and automobile brake shoes.

Bentov practiced meditation and studied how consciousness relates to the body. In 1977 he published the book Stalking the Wild Pendulum. He was married twice, with a daughter from his first marriage, and his second wife was the sculptor and poet Mirtala Bentov.

He was killed in 1979 in the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 after takeoff from Chicago O'Hare Airport.