Naomi Amir

Naomi Amir was born in 1931 in Chicago

Naomi Kassan was born in Chicago in 1931. Her father, Shalom Kassan, served as a judge in Mandatory Palestine, and the family lived there for periods in the 1930s. Her mother later took the children back to New York City for good.

She attended The Bronx High School of Science and studied at New York University. She received her medical degree from its school of medicine in 1952. In 1953 she began her residency at Hadassah in Jerusalem, and in 1957 she earned a second M.D. at the Hebrew University.

Mentored by Dr. Helena Kagan, she chose pediatric neurology, a field not yet recognized in Israel. After a fellowship at Columbia Presbyterian in New York, she opened a pediatric neurology rehabilitation day center at Bikur Holim Hospital in 1968. She expanded it into a day hospital in 1979 and moved with her team to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in 1990.

She also treated children at the Spafford Clinic in the Old City and at Mukassed Hospital, and set up clinics in Arab villages. She taught at the Hebrew University from 1974 and became a clinical associate professor in 1993. She married Shlomo Amir in 1955, had 3 children, and died of cancer in 1995.