Jacob Vinocour was born in 1945 in Haifa, Israel, to emigrants from Russia and Lithuania who escaped the Holocaust. After his army service, he came to the United States to attend college and earned a Master’s Degree in engineering from the University of Michigan.

There he accidentally also met the love of his life, and wife of forty-eight years, Susan Nordin Vinocour. Together they lived all across the Rust Belt – Ann Arbor, Detroit, Illinois, Philadelphia, and Rochester, where for thirty years they have been blessed by a wonderful circle of friends while raising their sons Joshua, Jonathan, and younger brother Benjamin. Those sons in turn have three wives and six children between them, ranging from a year to ten years old.

All of them, and his family in Israel, will miss him tremendously. He believed in good falafel, the power of a well-designed car, the moral impetus of kindness, the promise of America, and picking up the phone. He had an almost audible wink in his voice when he would call, invariably beginning “Hello, Motek.”

He died peacefully on June 8, 2022, surrounded by friends and family. May his memory be a blessing.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Macular Degeneration Society [LINK], the American Cancer Society [LINK], or the Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund of Temple Emanu-El [LINK].