Raouf and Suzette Doss

This a continuation of my previous post .

As I said before, the Doss's were apolitical. I tried consoling them after the Six Day War, in June of 1967, but got nowhere. Years later, after they became American citizens, I found out why: Raouf said that, being Egyptian citizens, they felt humiliated by what had happened (even though they obviously had nothing to do with the events, far from it), but now that they had become American citizens, that blot had been removed from their record. I believe that Suzette, during her citizenship quiz (in those days you had to pass a quiz), had trouble remembering the name of the Chief Justice of the United States (Warren Burger ) She was prompted with the hint: "Think of something to eat."

My last academic year at Stony Brook was 1969-70. I was up for renewal, and Raouf was my biggest backer among the faculty who had a say in such things. Unfortunately, he was in the minority. (I could have stayed for one more year, but I chose not to.) There were a number of Jewish mathematicians in the department, including the chairman, several heavy hitters, and of course me. In early Spring, after I had been informed of my non-renewal, I said to Raouf that I wished we could have "Passover-in-Reverse" in the department that year. He asked what I meant by that , and I said, "Do away with the Jews and spare the Egyptians." Raouf was not at all amused by my joke.

I joined the faculty of Wayne State University in Detroit in the Fall of 1971, and a year or so later, Doss was invited to give a colloquium talk. I planned a party at my apartment in his honor, and I told him I had invited an Egyptian woman who was a neighbor of one of my colleagues. I also mentioned that she was very good looking, to which Raouf responded, "That's impossible." He didn't seem very keen about my having invited her, and later I found out why. He thought that her (presumably Egyptian) husband would also come, and that then he would have to talk politics. I can't remember whether or not her husband came, but in any case he was American, not Egyptian. As for my pronouncement about her looks, Raouf agreed and said something to the effect of "I will have to tell Suzette."

Raouf was a number of years older than Suzette, and one day we were discussing the fact that a husband is usually older than his wife. Ever the mathematician, Raouf said that he had a formula for what the optimal age difference should be. I don't remember the details of the formula, except that when he applied it to his and Suzette's ages, it didn't fit. That gave us a laugh.

(to be continued)