Shelley Kurland

L’zecher nishmas ha’ishah ha’tehorah Rochel bas Harav Chizkiyahu Yaakov z”l

My beloved sister Shelley Kurland a”h was a “special child.” In those days (1948) they referred to her as “slow” or “mentally retarded.” Anyone who had the zechus to know Shelley knew that she was indeed “special.” She was a pure ruach who infused hundreds of people with chizuk and encouragement. She complimented everyone she met with “you look so beautiful or handsome” with her vibrant smile and obvious love for all others.

Shelley was special because at a time when parents often opted not to raise “special children” at home, my parents Rav Yaakov and Miriam Kurland never considered that option and Shelley was raised like every other member of our family. In a home that exuded Torah and hachnasas orchim, Shelley absorbed the niemas haTorah and a love for all people of all stripes. To my parents credit, they were always b’simchah about their matzav, with a tremendous bitachon went on to have three other children (Shelley was the oldest), and gave longevity to what otherwise was expected to be a shortened existence (Shelley lived 72 years). But more than that they allowed her personality to develop and with great charm and an unusual memory, Shelley was mechazeik hundreds of her various constituencies in Baltimore where we grew up; in Hicksville, Long Island where my father served as a rav; in Far Rockaway, New York, and in particular to the Sh’or Yoshuv community where I have been zocheh to teach for the past 45 years; and in the Beis Ezra Women’s Home on E.18^th St. in Brooklyn that took such good care of her for the past 24 years.

She was the address for Shabbos visits and the ensuing games and fun that would follow for countless Bais Yaakov girls in Baltimore and T.A.G and B’nos Bais Yaakov girls in Far Rockaway.  Then there were the many gracious people whose homes she would visit on a constant basis. Songs were sung including the famous “Shelley is a friend of mine” and hundreds of other Jewish songs that she had an expertise in from her hours and hours of listening to records and tapes (She knew every tenuah of Carlebach’s Mimkomcha). She was rosh hamedabrim at every Shabbos seudah and simchah, always encouraging the yeshivah bochurim at our table to “learn more Torah and don’t play so much checkers” (I imagine that was her natural way to deter the “sichas yeladim” that is so consuming. She said it all with great exuberance and excitement as it came from a pure neshamah and a ruach tehorah.