Arno David Gurewitsch

Arno David Gurewitsch (1902–1974) was a medical doctor and medical expert whose career spread across Germany, Israel, and the United States.

Education He completed his medical degree at the University of Basel and went to work at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. He moved to the United States on a fellowship. Subsequently, Gurewitsch taught and practiced medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, where he specialized on polio. Later, Gurewitsch became an advisor to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the first medical director at the United Nations.

After the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Gurewitsch became a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, serving as the former First Lady's personal doctor. Gurewitsch and Roosevelt traveled together to India, Hong Kong, Thailand, Israel, France, the Soviet Union, and other countries, sometimes photographing her with international leaders. Roosevelt helped to purchase Gurewitsch's townhouse home at East 60th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Roosevelt also lived.

Gurewitsch and his family were strongly influenced by Eleanor Roosevelt. Gurewitsch published his recollections of Roosevelt in Eleanor Roosevelt: Her Day, a Personal Album (Quadrangle Press, 1974). His wife, Edna Gurewitsch, also published an account in Kindred Souls: The Devoted Friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Dr. David Gurewitsch (St. Martin Press, 2002).