Together with his family, author and theoretical physicist Alan Lightman (who visits February 2nd) has created a charitable foundation to improve the lives of women and children in the third world.From the Associated Press, May 2008: "American Jewish family builds mosque in Cambodian village"
When residents of this poor Cambodian village need something built, they call on the Lightmans.
The Jewish-American family's latest gift: A mosque.
"We never had such a beautiful mosque in our village," said 81-year-old Leb Sen, a toothless, village elder with a wrinkled face. "The young people said to me that I am very lucky to live long enough to see one now."
Flashing a broad grin, Leb Sen brought his palms together and bowed repeatedly in gratitude toward his American donors - Alan Lightman, his wife, Jean Greenblatt Lightman and their daughter, Elyse.
Alan Lightman, a 59-year-old humanities professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said building the mosque was not part of his family's original plan to improve education in the village, about 70 kilometres northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh.
"It's too much to comprehend. We never imagined that we would build a mosque in a remote village in Cambodia," said Lightman, author of the bestselling novel "Einstein's Dreams." More.
