Mrs. Sylvia Stern, 92, OBM

By COLlive reporter

Mrs. Sylvia Stern, mother of Mrs. Rechyl Paltiel of Crown Heights and matriarch of a large family, passed away on Shabbos morning, Adar 11, 5776.

She was 92.

Mrs. Stern was an American born girl who never learned one single day in any Jewish school, but who came from a rock-solid Jewish home with parents who were determined to raise Jewish children in the desert of pre-war America.

Her father R’ Menachem Mendel Sofer’s home in the Rockaways was the place for all the gedolei yisroel to stay, when they visited what was then considered a resort area to raise funds for fellow Jews and institutions overseas.

She gave her bed and bedroom to many an honored guest, including the known Lubavitcher Chossid Itche der Masmid, who used her room for several weeks on the occasion that he spent in the Rockaways. According to her, he used her room but never once lay his head on her bed and pillow.

In 1941 she met and married American born Rabbi Shaul Yechezkel Stern, who merited to have a yechidus with the Frierdiker Rebbe as a young student in Yeshiva Torah Vodaas. The Frierdiker Rebbe gave him a blessing for a shidduch, and he soon after met and married Sylvia.

Together they built a real Jewish home with children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and now great-great-grandchildren who are all going in the ways of Torah.

During her long life she radiated an enormous amount of a good, being an incredible support to her husband, providing the energy and love that allowed her husband and children to become who they would eventually become.

She was involved in starting several of the schools for boys and for girls in the Rockaways in the fifties. One actually started in her living room, and she acted as the first President of these schools until others would join forces and take interest. Among the first students in these schools were her own children. She also did volunteer work for the NCFJE.

Years later she put herself through school and became the first female licensed nursing home administrator. During her career which spans more than 50 years she did an enormous amount of good. She combined extraordinary professionalism with superhuman humanity. She was a walking Kiddush Hashem whose innumerable acts of kindness are felt and lived by thousands of people all over the city of New York.

Both the clients she cared for, as well as the employees she oversaw, as well as anybody else she encountered in her professional and private life, loved and respected her.

They saw in her a dear friend, a loving mother, and wise counselor. Every person she met in her life was changed by her. Her very existence was the best classroom; as she taught so many so much by the way she lived her life.

She was an energetic, upbeat, positive person with incredible focus. She made everybody around her better and by her example and by her positive encouragement which never seemed to be exhausted.

She had that incredible skill of always saying the right thing to the right person in the right way. Her words always encouraged, uplifted and pushed forward.

She was a woman of great Emunah in Hashem, never questioning and remaining strong in her faith through challenges, even when she lost two children in recent years.

She is survived by her two children Mrs. Rechie Paltiel of Crown Heights Brooklyn, and Rabbi Moshe Stern of Kew Garden Hills Queens. She is additionally survived by numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great- great grandchildren.

The levaya will take place tomorrow, Sunday at Sinai Chapels, 162-05 Horace Harding Blvd., Flushing, NY 11365.

Mrs. Rechyl Paltiel will be sitting shiva from Monday-Wednesday at the Stern residence, 144-41 72nd Rd., Flushing, NY 11367.

And on Thursday and Friday morning at 679 Crown St, Between Troy and Schenectady.

Baruch Dayan Haemes.