A Chesed Legend: Mrs. Miriam Lubling a”h

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candle-small6It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Mrs. Miriam Lubling a”h, renowned founder of the Rivkah Laufer Bikur Cholim.

Mrs Lubling was a chesed legend in her own time, devoting her heart and soul to the needs of others for decades.

Rivkah Laufer Bikur Cholim is an organization that helps patients when they are hospitalized or ill.

Her personal story was marked by unimaginable hardship, yet she turned herself into a foundation of support, inspiration, and action for her community.

Mrs. Lubling escaped Poland in 1939 at the beginning of the Holocaust. Her family arranged for her and one of her sisters to flee to Tel Aviv, but her parents and other siblings were not able to get out. They died at the hands of the Nazis.

A little less than a decade after the war, her husband, whom she met in Tel Aviv, fell in the shower and hit his head. For the next two years he was in and out of hospitals in Eretz Yisroel. In 1955, the couple, along with their three children, moved to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, so that he could get medical care in America.

That is when Mrs. Lubling first emerged as the patient advocate she was widely known as. With her husband in need of care, she tirelessly sought out doctors and researched the best medical treatments. It was then that she realized patients did not have much help.

It was a natural role. In 1965 she founded the Rivkah Laufer chapter of Bikur Cholim, which she named for a friend of hers who passed away that year. Her chapter has several hundred volunteers. It arranges medical care, assists them with chores, delivers meals to them, and visits them in the hospital.

Her advocacy work did not stop with Bikur Cholim. She was also the director of services for Holocaust victims at the Boro Park Jewish Community Council and was involved with Ohel Children’s Home and Services.

Though she ran a kindergarten for many years in addition to her patient advocacy work, she later devoted herself almost exclusively to making appointments, finding doctors, and helping resolve medical problems for those in need of assistance. Many of her days were spent at New York University Medical Center, where she was an associate trustee, but she worked with Maimonides, Mount Sinai, Lenox Hill, and dozens of other institutions. At NYU she got a daily lists of Jewish patients that guide her to each new patient.

If the organization came across a non-Jewish patient who needs help, she made sure they get assistance, too.

Her cell phone and beeper were rarely silent.

Mrs. Lubling, who would only admit to being over 80, had the energy of a young woman.

Council Member Simcha Felder, who represents her neighborhood, nominated Mrs. Lubling for the Brooke Russell Astor Award, which she won, in 2002. The award is given annually by the New York Public Library to individuals who devote themselves to community service.

The passing of this chesed giant leaves a gaping void in the frum community.

The levaya will take place today, at 1 p.m., at Shomrei Hadas Chapel, located at 39th Street & 14th Avenue in Boro Park.

{Matzav.com Newscenter/The NY Sun contributed to this story}


11 COMMENTS

  1. this woman has encyclopedia with the amount of Chessed that she did,my family experienced it first hand she saved my mother life.

  2. No one can fill the deep void left by Mrs. Lubling’s petira. She raised a wonderful family and devoted her life to the klal. There are very few people who are unaffected by the foundation of chessed that she laid; way before it became the “in thing”. She single handedly performed the wonderful deeds that are today performed by a whole host of organizations.
    Yehi Zichra Boruch.

  3. These are the people that should be our personal heros!

    This is who we need to learn from! Its people like her that can change a world for the better !

    AB

  4. She once rushed to an airport to grab a medical super-specialist to perform an emergency operation. The doctor told her that he was on leave, and abouit to board an airplane for a foreign vacation. She thurndered that he could vacation another time, but the child would never ever have a vacation if he did not perform the operation immeidately. The child today is a mother and a grandmother. That was just one of many, many things she did that day.

  5. Just got back from the levaya of this great tzadeykas. She was the Queen of Bikur Cholim and Chesed. When it came to helping a sick child or for that matter any sick yid she would not take no for an answer from any doctor or secretary who would tell her no appointments were available for months. She would take a taxi and personally go down to the office and get an appointment. At the lavaya her son in law R’ Aron Drillick told over one story that summed up how she advocated for a fellow jew. She had flown in a child with a brain tumor from Israel. When she called the doctors office she was told that the doctor was on his way to the airport for a vacation. She jumped into a cab and raced to the airport and got the doctor to cancel his vacation and operate and save that child. later I found out that the doctor was non other then the late Dr. Fred Epstein the world famous brain surgeon. His stature and kovod meant nothing to her when it came to saving a life. She will be sorely missed by all of Klal Yisroel. may she be a meilitz yoisher for all of us.

  6. I had the privilege to know Mrs. Lubling and witness her tireless work for ALL people. She is an inspiration to all. Her work and her compassion will never be forgotten. My thoughts are with her family. Thank G-d for sharing such a lovely woman with us.

  7. I had the privilege to know Mrs. Lubling and witness her tireless work for ALL people. She is an inspiration to all. Her work and her compassion will never be forgotten. My thoughts are with her family. Thank G-d for sharing such a lovely woman with us.

  8. There are few people we will meet in our lives who have the passion and persistence that Mrs Lubling showed to us. Her passing leaves a tremendous void but she is not easily forgotten. With fondest memories.

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