Dr. Michael B. Harris

Hackensack - Michael B. Harris, M.D., a physician who tended to the youngest and most grievously ill among us, passed away March 18, 2025. He battled for them, with them, determined to claim life over certain death for these cherished children, who would become Tomorrows' Children. He gave them all he had. He was 81.

Dr. Harris ministered to children with cancer for over 50 years, after receiving his medical degree from Albert Einstein in 1969. He began the division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in 1977, where he remained until 1987 when he moved his department to Hackensack Hospital and spent the rest of his remarkable career. Dr. Harris left the big city because even after offering to raise the funds himself, Sinai refused to build the center he knew he needed. So, bringing along his partner Dr. Michael Weiner and his hardworking, loyal team of nurses, as well as his hundreds of small brave patients, he set off for Hackensack, a then-small, community hospital. Though his wife Freida pleaded with him not to make the move, he insisted it was best for those in his care. When asked by the then-CEO and board of Hackensack what he envisioned for his patients and for the hospital, he said: a pediatric oncology center, a children's hospital, a research center and a medical school. No one believed any of this possible. But he did it all. He directed the first large donation he received to build a bone-marrow transplant unit, which he then shared with the at-the-time tiny adult oncology division. And then the rest of the hospital, now a sprawling campus part of the state's largest health network, grew around the house he dared to dream and to build.

Over the next 38 years, he worked tirelessly as head of the Hematology Oncology department, and finally acting as Director Emeritus of the Hackensack Meridian Children's Health Children's Cancer Institute.

The Children's Cancer Institute provides cutting-edge therapy to children with blood disorders and cancer. It is the brainchild of Dr. Harris, established on the innovative and unprecedented notion of care and cure by treating the whole patient- and their families- at a time of acute need. Dr. Harris imagined, and put together, a full service form of treatment, a novel concept at the time of his move: physicians and nurses to be sure, but also a tactical team of social workers, child life specialists, psychologists and educational liaisons. He disregarded nothing when it came to caring for a sick child and their family, utilizing the unique skills and talents of a range of professionals which he used to treat not only the illness, which he did with aggressive and innovatively tailored regimens, but also the individual, which he did, always, with kindness and dignity. Today, the Children's Cancer Institute remains dedicated to careful clinical and translational research, bringing discoveries found in laboratories and research facilities directly to the bedside.

Dr. Harris was also founder of the pediatric cancer program at Hackensack Meridian Children's Health at Joseph M. Sanzari Children's Hospital. Deftly recognizing that treatment does not end with remission, he co-developed the Cure and Beyond Survivorship Program at the Institute, which has provided patients with continued care as they begin and continue to live their lives post cancer diagnosis and cure. To date, the program has treated thousands of patients- most of whom have gone on to have long, fruitful lives. Thousands of children, their children, and even their children's children are alive today because of the efforts of Dr. Harris and his carefully crafted team.

"Michael was this amazing person who had this vision that led to the children's hospital in Hackensack," said Jeffrey Boscamp, M.D., dean of the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, and a close colleague and friend. "It had incredible ripple effects that made Hackensack University Medical Center, and Hackensack Meridian Health, into what they are today."

A prevailing optimism seemed to drive his work. Speaking to The Jewish Standard in 2013, he recalled that when starting his residency at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia in 1970, the survival rate for the sick children was only 30 percent. But he pursued his specialty because he felt the children and parents he was seeing were "the most courageous people anywhere on earth." By dint of research and constant improvements across the health-care landscape, that survival rate more than doubled to over 80% survival in large part to Dr. Harris' consistent, constant, and conscientiousness over the course of his career.

"Going from a 30 percent to an 80 percent cure rate, I'd say we are getting there," said Dr. Harris, who, modest almost to a fault, was ranked as one of the nation's top 1% of physicians by U.S. News & World Report. In that same interview, Harris spoke of the inspiration of several pediatric patients whose memories lived on in his ongoing work.

In that same 2013 conversation, Dr. Harris also said he had vivid memories of coming home from the hospital on Friday nights, to find the traditional Shabbat candles already lit, with his wife and their four children watching at the window for his return.

Dr. Michael Harris has been called hero, helper, angel, messenger, maestro, magician. He retired in 2022 after delivering life-saving care to thousands of patients over the course of his career. Shortly thereafter, a professorship was created at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine to honor his legacy. An anonymous donor gave 1.25 million dollars to create the endowed position in his name, awarded to the physician who serves in the role of chief of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant/Cellular Therapy at the Children's Hospital and faculty at the School of Medicine.

Dr. Harris was not only a giant in the medical world. After moving to Englewood, NJ, in 1979, he was a member of Congregation Ahavath Torah where he helped grow that community. He served on the board for many years, including three years as its president-starting, of course, as the chair of the children's committee of the synagogue. He directed the medical advisory committee of the Israeli Children's Cancer Foundation, and served as a board secretary for the Halachic Organ Donor Society, or HODS. This last cause was close to his heart, as he himself was the recipient of a liver from an anonymous donor in 2005, after a close to 20 year battle with Hepatitis C, which he contracted from a needle stick at Mt. Sinai in 1986. And when he wasn't focused on medicine, or plumbing the depths of the mysteries of the world and the Torah and the Talmud with his buddies, he was watching sports. All sports, any sports-the Yankees, the Giants, the Rangers, the Knicks, and also golf, figure skating, spelling-bees, billiards...he enjoyed it all. The competitive rebel spirit in him rang true, and perhaps this is why and how and where he found the power and vigor to crusade for all his causes, barely any of them too desperate to attempt to battle, to breach, to best.

There is no way to calculate the loss of such a legend. It is also impossible to calculate the many lives brought back from the dust. He was loving, kind, humble, brilliant, endless in energy to fight for and with those who could not start to fight without him as their leader, and forever by their side. His motto was to do the best for whomever he encountered, no matter the circumstance, no matter the cost. He was a man of science, of G-d, given by G-d, to the people, for the people, a gift, a treasure, a savior, somewhat of a saint.

Dr. Harris is survived by wife Freida (nee Guttman); and children Miera (Alan) Rechtschaffen, Aimee (Robert) McCormick, Jonathan (Amber) Harris, and Aaron (Jenna) Harris, and 12 grandchildren. May he be forever remembered as he will be forever missed.