Shirley Gralla

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Shirley Gralla will be remembered for her good heart and kind, generous nature. She loved helping people. Countless friends, family, and strangers were the beneficiaries of her love and support.

Born in Brooklyn NY on Oct. 21, 1929 to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Mom maintained a lifelong commitment to strengthening and perpetuating Jewish life. “I didn’t think I needed Jewish experiences when growing up, but in retrospect it would have been nice if I could have had them, ” she told her children.

One of her favorite causes was Birthright, an organization that sends Jewish college students on trips to Israel to appreciate the Jewish homeland.

The Genesis Program for Jewish Youth at Brandeis University was underwritten primarily by Shirley Gralla and Steven Spielberg.

Shirley and her husband Milton (who predeceased her in 2012) supported Boys Town Jerusalem, Brandeis University and ORT Braude Institute in Israel. In New Jersey they funded the Shirley and Milton Gralla YM/YWHA building in Washington Township and the Gralla Youth Wing in the Solomon Schechter Day School in New Milford. The Be’er Hagolah Institutes dedicated the Shirley Gralla Elementary School in Brooklyn in her honor in 2003.

In 2004 she subsidized a UJA Mission from Bergen County with the singular purpose of promoting tourism to Israel.

In 2005 the Shirley Gralla Rehabilitation Center was dedicated at the Jewish Home at Rockleigh.

For several decades she was in the forefront of the movement to assist Jews to emigrate from the former Soviet Union and to revitalize Jewish life for those who remained.

In 1985 with her husband initiated a “Celebration of Religious Freedom” enabling Soviet Jewish couples who immigrated to the US to be remarried in traditional Jewish ceremonies denied them under the Communist regime. In 1991 they sponsored a “Freedom Flight” of Soviet Jews from Bucharest to Israel, and personally accompanied them on the plane. In 1990, through the Chamah organization, they funded one of the first Jewish schools in Moscow.

They bought the land where Hillel built its home on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, VA.

Mrs. Gralla and her husband endowed the Gralla Family Research Center for Brain Disorders at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and endowed a scholarship fund at Yeshiva University for immigrants from Eastern Europe.

She was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters at Yeshiva University in 1998 .

But Shirley will be most remembered for her commitment to family and her warm, generous nature.

She will be sorely missed.

She is survived by: her children Edward (Randye), Karen (Todd), Dennis (Susan); grandchildren: Tobey, Eli (Yarrow), Daniel (Amy), Matthew (Jamie), Laura (Andre), and Rebecca, and great grandchildren Quinn and Maya; sisters Mary (Phil), Rose (Dave) and many loving nieces and nephews and friends.

The Service was held this morning Thursday, November 17th followed by interment at Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus NJ.

SHIVA will be held at the home of Karen and Todd Galinko, 18 Merrill Drive, Mahwah, NJ 07430

Thursday Nov. 17 between 2 and 5 p.m., and again between 7 and 9 p.m. with minyan at 7:30 p.m.

Friday, Nov. 18 between 9 a.m. and 12 noon,

Saturday, Nov. 19 from 6- 9 p.m. with minyan at 7:30 p.m

Donations in her memory can be made to: Birthright Israel Foundation, 33 East 33rd Street Seventh Floor, New York NY 10016;

or Beer Hagolah Institutes, 671 Louisiana Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11239, Attn: Pearl Kaufman;

or The Jewish Home of Rockleigh, 10 Link Drive, Rockleigh NJ 07647;

or Hillel at Virginia Tech,710 Toms Creek Road, Blacksburg, VA 24060