Obituary: Nahum Amiran

Longtime Aspen resident Nahum Amiran died Saturday, April 6, 2013 in Bellingham, WA, of complications from diabetes. He was born in Haifa, Palestine (under British mandate), September 10, 1932, the son of Sarah Erman and Yosef Erman, a businessman. After his service in the Israeli military, where he became an officer, Nahum studied geology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 1956 he married MindaRae Sensibar, of Chicago, and the couple moved to Jerusalem. Nahum earned the MBA from the University of Chicago and returned to Israel with his family in 1961, where he directed the program in a business institute and later worked as a manager in petrochemicals. He managed the construction of a housing project in Jamaica in 1967-8 for Construction Aggregates Corp, a private civil engineering company, and later worked for the Israeli Society for the Protection of Nature and for the Geophysical Institute of Israel. He served in the Sinai war in 1956, the 1967 (“Six Day”) war, and in the 1973 (“Yom Kippur”) war. An avid outdoorsman, traveller, and map reader, Nahum knew every wadi and hilltop in Israel, and enjoyed sharing his enthusiasm for the country, its archaeology, plants, and history. He retired and moved with his family to Aspen in 1976, where he loved hiking and cross-country skiing and came to know the back country well. Energetically uncompromising and subject to depression, he was alienated from some of his friends and family and was separated from his wife in 1992. Nahum read widely in fiction and history, enjoyed classical music, and attended the Aspen Music Festival every summer. He moved to Bellingham in 2008 due to declining health. He is survived by MindaRae and two children, Edoh and Eyal. Friends may contact the family at eyal.amiran@gmail.com or edohamiran@yahoo.com.