When Dr. Avram Hershko, 74, a biochemist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and a winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was recently asked to name the most important fact of his life, he answered: “That I love my three grandchildren. For two, three days every week, I take them to dance class, sport and school. I am completely in their lives.” Among top scientists, responses to such a question might well focus on prizes they’ve won or the import of their research. For Dr. Hershko, whose family was separated and sent to forced labor in...