March 1, 2020

Jaime Davidson

Jaime Davidson's family roots trace to Poland. His mother was born in a small Polish town and later fled Europe from Hamburg, Germany, in 1940, barely escaping the dangers facing Jews at the time. His father had migrated earlier, arriving in Costa Rica through the connections of a family he had lived with in France, and worked in agriculture in a town near Cartago. His parents married in early 1942. Much of his father's family had emigrated to Israel in the 1920s and 1930s, while several of his mother's relatives, including her mother and three children, perished during the war. Jaime was born in San Jose on January 15, 1945, into a small, largely Polish Ashkenazi Jewish community.

Growing up in Costa Rica, Davidson attended public schools, kept a culturally Jewish home with Shabbat dinners and holidays, and belonged to a Zionist youth organization. His father was active in the community, raising money for Israeli causes, and was involved in Costa Rican politics. Wanting to become a physician but lacking a medical school at home, Davidson studied at the National University of Mexico after his mother's death in 1961. He completed an internship in Costa Rica and social service in a small town in Morelos, then trained in the United States, including an externship and internal medicine residency in Temple, Texas, and an endocrinology fellowship, eventually connecting through Indiana University.

Davidson moved to Dallas on July 4, 1974, recruited to become chief of endocrinology at Methodist Hospital, and lost his father a month later. He and his wife Anna, who is from Mexico, raised two sons and became longtime members of Congregation Tiferet Israel and active in the Jewish Community Center, where he served on the board. He chaired the Texas Diabetes Council, served as a regent at Midwestern State University, advised the CDC and NIH, and founded the nonprofit Worldwide Diabetes to improve global diabetes care. He also served as honorary consul of Costa Rica in Dallas and has taught and lectured internationally, including in Israel.

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