Graveside services for Dr. Hillel Unz, 82, Lawrence, were held on Sunday, Aug. 28, 2011, at B’nai Israel Cemetery, Eudora, with Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel officiating.
Dr. Unz died Saturday, August 27, 2011, at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
He was born August 15, 1929, in Darmstadt, Germany, the son of Moshe and Rivka Unz.
He moved to Haifa, Israel, with his family in 1932, and graduated from the Reali High School, Haifa, in 1947.
Dr. Unz served in the Israeli Defense Forces during the Israel war of Independence (1947-1949).
He received his B.S. (Electronics) degree in 1953, from the Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. He received his M.S. degree in 1954 and his Ph.D. degree in 1957, both from the Electrical Engineering Department, University of California-Berkeley.
He moved to Lawrence, Kansas, in 1957. Since that year, Dr. Unz has been on the staff of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Kansas, Lawrence, first as an Assistant Professor, and since 1962 as a full Professor of Electrical Engineering. He retired after forty years in 1997. In the following years, he continued his research.
He married Ruth Adam in 1960. They had three children. They divorced. He married Carolyn J. Graham in 1975. They divorced.
He was preceded in death by his daughter, Maya.
Survivors include a daughter, Tali Unz, California, a son, Danny Unz and wife Ariela, Lawrence, Kansas, and their children: Alon, Amir and Eyal.
Dear Family of Denny Unz:
My wife and I knew the Unz family when Denny was married to Ruth. When I was a graduate student at KU, my wife baby sat Maya. After Ruth and Denny divorced, we were privileged to see Ruth in Israel when I was on a sabbatical at Technion. As a member of the KU faculty in Civil Engineering, I got to know Denny because our offices were close to each other. Denny and I engaged in several conversations. I appreciated and believed the message of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he thought they were folk tales. He didn’t budge which was pretty characteristic of his thought processes. I enjoyed Denny because to me he was a man in whom there was no guile. Others found him to be different. Only G-d knows. Although we didn’t meet much after our retirement days, my wife and I count it a privilege to have known the Unz family. We knew Carolyn who we also enjoyed. Shalom, Carl and Joyce Burkhead