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Professor Sidney Lionel Kark (22 October 1911 - 18 April 1998) and Dr Emily Kark (15 February 1913 - 8 January 2006) were South African doctors and pioneers of the Community Oriented Primary Health Care (COPHC) approach and Public Health leaders in South Africa, Israel and internationally.

Biography
Professor Sidney Lionel Kark and Dr. Emily Jaspan Kark were born to Jewish families who immigrated from Lithuania to South Africa in the 19th century.

Sidney began his medical studies in 1929 at the University of the Witwatersrand and had to pause his studies to support his family due to economic hardship. He returned to his medical studies and graduated in 1936. Sidney was very active amongst the university students in promoting equal rights for black and coloured peoples in South Africa, before and during the Apartheid period. During his medical studies, Sidney met his future wife and life partner, Emily Jaspan, who studied medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand in the years... In 1940 Sidney and Emily married, which led to a long lasting partnership between the duo in their journey around the world towards promoting Public Health, Social Medicine and Community Oriented Primary Health Care (COPHC).

Sowing the seeds
Pioneered and developed the vision and practice of Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC) in the 1940s, establishing the first community health centre in rural South Africa in the township of Pholela in Zululand (KwaZulu-Natal). Sidney then led the Institute of Family and Community Health in Durban. Their visionary work and international leadership in social and community medicine led to the development of hundreds of similar community oriented health centres all over the world and has changed the way primary care and public health are integrated and practiced globally.

From Pholela to Jerusalem
In the early 1950s, while visiting Israel for a year, Sidney, Emily and an outstanding team of pioneering experts from South Africa and Israel established the Hadassah Family and Community Health Centre (‘Little Hadassah’) as a functioning model for COPC. This was a natural continuation of their innovative health care vision from rural Pholela to Kiryat HaYovel in Jerusalem, a neighborhood with newly arrived immigrants from diverse countries.

After leaving apartheid-controlled South Africa in 1958, Sidney was invited to establish and direct the new Department of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, USA. In 1959, the Karks relocated to Jerusalem and joined the Department of Social Medicine. Under their leadership, it became the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine and the joint World Health Organization-Israel Project for the development of teaching, research and practice in social medicine. The Department of Social Medicine headed by Sidney developed extensive teaching programs and large-scale community health research based on rigorous epidemiological data and analysis of health needs and their determinants at the family and community level, becoming world leaders in the field and beyond.

International MPH pioneers
In 1961, the Karks established Israel’s first Master of Public Health (MPH) program at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, followed by the International MPH (IMPH) in 1971. These programs have  since trained 1500 Israeli students and 900 international students from 100 countries, who have returned to their countries as public health leaders, creating significant change regionally and globally. With much enthusiasm, dedication and never-ending commitment, Sidney, Emily and their son Jeremy (see panel on right) mentored, taught and trained throughout their careers generations of Israeli and international medical, master and doctoral students. Sidney and Jeremy also both served as Directors of the International MPH program.

Family
Emily and Sidney Kark were married for over sixty years, and had three children, Carol Dawn Kark (born 1941), Jeremy David Kark (born 1943) and William (Bill) Kark (born 1946), as well as seven grandchildren, and seventeen great-grandchildren.