continued from page 59

OBITUARIES
OF BLESSED MEMORY

60 | APRIL 7 • 2022 

Bodzy; great-grandchildren, 
Alexander and Haley Bodzy, 
and Ellie Firsht; sisters, Ceil 
Cicurel and June Rubenstein; 
brother and sister-in-law, 
Bryan Levy and Diana Trivax; 
brother-in-law and sister-in-
law, Norman and Carolyn Shy. 
Mrs. Shy was the beloved 
wife for 54 years of the late 
Leon Shy; the dear sister-in-
law of the late Sol Cicurel and 

the late Seymour Rubenstein. 
Interment was at Hebrew 
Memorial Park. Contributions 
may be made to Forgotten 
Harvest, 21800 Greenfield 
Road, Oak Park, MI 48237; 
St. Jude Children’s Research 
Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, 
Memphis, TN 38105; or to 
a charity of one’s choice. 
Arrangements by Ira Kaufman 
Chapel.

OBITUARY CHARGES

The processing fee for obituaries is: $125 for up to 100 words; 
$1 per word thereafter. A photo counts as 15 words. There is no 
charge for a Holocaust survivor icon.
The JN reserves the right to edit wording to conform to its style 
considerations. For information, have your funeral director call the 
JN or you may call Sy Manello, editorial assistant, at (248) 351-
5147 or email him at smanello@thejewishnews.com.

Sephardic Leader 
Stephen Shalom

JTA

Stephen Shalom, a leader of the 
U.S. Sephardic Jewish community 
who promoted Middle East peace 
and religious tolerance, died at 93, 
March 24, 2022.
The heir to a handkerchief man-
ufacture fortune, I. Shalom, now 
known as New York Accessory 
Group, Shalom was at different 
times in his life a leader of major 
Jewish and pro-Israel philanthropies. 
They included the United Jewish 
Appeal of Greater New York (now 
the UJA Federation of New York), 
the World Sephardi Federation 
and Israel Bonds. He was also 
involved with the American Jewish 
Committee; HIAS, the Jewish immi-
gration advocacy group; the Jewish 
Agency, and the Joint Distribution 
Committee.
Shalom said the accomplish-
ment of which he was most proud 

was working with Rep. Stephen 
Solarz, D-N.Y., with the blessing of 
President Jimmy Carter, to bring 
400 Jewish women who wanted 
to marry within their faith to the 
United States from Syria in 1977.
Born in Brooklyn to parents who 
had immigrated from Aleppo, he 
regretted and resented the stereo-
type that had attached to Jews of 
Middle Eastern and Sephardic ori-
gin as being militant and intolerant 
of Arabs.
As Israeli governments turned 
to peace-making, he encouraged 
Sephardic leaders in Israel to join 
the efforts, in order to increase their 
influence in a country that once was 
dominated by Ashkenazi Jews, but 
also to roll back perceptions that 
Sephardim and Mizrahi Jews were 
anti-peace.