In His Prime

Professor Hillel Furstenberg has spent a lifetime describing order in a seemingly random universe.

Which is why the manner in which the award-winning mathematician was introduced to his wife was so fitting.

His roommate from Princeton University, where Furstenberg was then enrolled in the mathematics doctoral program, had seen a young woman on a subway train reading a philosophy book — not the most common sight in 1957.

Rochelle Cohen had come from her hometown of Chicago to spend the year in New York City, where she was renting a room in Boro Park. A few months later, when Simchas Torah arrived, she made her way to a local shul to watch the men dance. As it happens, Furstenberg’s roommate was celebrating Yom Tov at that same shul, and recognizing the girl on the subway and thinking of his bachelor roommate, he approached Rochelle and said: “I know just the guy for you.”