Two Israelis killed in Ramsgate road accident

Tributes have been paid to an Israeli woman scientist, Noga Sella, and her retired mathematician father, Yoram Hirshfeld, who were killed last week when the driver of a car veered into a crowd of pedestrians at a bus stop in Ramsgate.

Mrs Sella’s husband, Omer, and the couple’s eight-year-old son suffered minor injuries in the crash, while their six-year-old daughter  received more severe injuries and is being treated in a London hospital.

Reports suggest that the family were on holiday in Ramsgate and had taken Mr Hirshfeld, 78, visiting them from Rosh Pina, in northern  Israel, on their trip. Nitesh Bissandary, 30, who also received hospital treatment after the crash, has been charged with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving, two counts of causing injury by dangerous driving, and one count of assault and causing actual bodily harm.

Noga Sella, 40, was a consultant physicist who worked at the Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP), a post she had held since June 2021. The family came to Cambridge from Israel in 2018 and settled in the Cambridgeshire village of Milton.

Mrs Sella, despite being dyslexic, had achieved a BSc in physics from Tel Aviv University and an MSc in high energy astrophysics from the Hebrew University. Her mathematician husband, Omer, who also attended Hebrew University, is now studying for a PhD in computing at Cambridge University.

Israeli Uri Baruch, a colleague of Mrs Sella’s at CDP, and who headhunted her to work with the company, told Jewish News that she had been “very creative, highly intelligent. Perhaps because of her dyslexia she looked at things in different ways. She was fun to be around, fun to work with, always smiling, enthusiastic and energetic. We don’t solve easy problems, we solve the hard problems, and Noga was in the thick of it, always working with a passion. It was a joy to work with her.”

Mr Baruch was on holiday when Noga and her father were killed, and heard about the tragedy from his wife, as part of a close-knit Israeli community in Cambridge. He had last seen Noga just before he was due to go on holiday, and the two were making plans to meet on his return and organise a meal and a barbecue between the Baruch and Sella families. He said that her death had “left a hole in our lives. Resources can be replaced, people can’t.”

Richard Leyland, CDP’s chief marketing officer, said that the company was now considering an appropriate way to mark Noga Sella’s memory.

Mrs Sella threw herself into local Cambridgeshire society, becoming an active Girl Guide leader and a keen member of a cycling club. Writing on Twitter, Gabriel Bienzobas, the leader of Milton Cycling Campaign and Camcycle trustee, said: “Noga was funny and full of energy, she also always wanted to help, she cycled everywhere in Cambridge, and we had a few conversations about many topics in the short time I knew her. There is no fairness in life.”

Local Girl Guides leaders also praised her on social media, for her work with Guides and Rangers.

She had been a volunteer in Israel since she was young, holding weekly meetings with children from the Migdal Haemek primary school and helping them with homework and social interaction to boost confidence and strengths inside and outside school. She also tutored children on a one-to-one basis, particularly in preparation for the mathematics “bagrut” or matriculation tests.

Both Mrs Sella and her father were widely admired. One of Yoram Hirshfeld’s former students at Tel Aviv University, Amnon Eden, told the Press Association: “His teaching was legendary. He knew how to explain complex maths at the highest order in a way that even I, not a mathematician, and dyslexic to boot, could understand.”

Now the principal scientist at think tank sapience.org, Mr Eden first met Mr Hirshfeld around 25 years ago. Professor Hirshfeld became Mr Eden’s master’s and PhD co-supervisor.

Tel Aviv University Trust chief executive Cara Case said: “We were very sad to hear of the tragic death of former Tel Aviv University mathematics Professor Yoram Hirshfeld. He had been a well respected member of the TAU faculty. We send our sincerest condolences to the family”.