Shulamit Newman – in Hebrew, Ne’eman (“faithful”) – was a Jerusalem icon, a fixture synonymous with the City of Gold.
My mother’s cousin, who lived into her 90s, seemed to be everywhere. She popped up at the President’s Residence on Sukkot. She was “old friends” with notable dignitaries. She would dress in blue and white on Independence Day, and in red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July.
She first came to Israel after she graduated high school, and she knew that someday she would come back to live here. In the 1970s she became a proud olah, arriving on the ship SS Queen Anna Maria with her husband and five children, aged three to 13. Her mother, father, and aunt came as well.
Along with her husband, Yehoshua, they became fixtures at the Israel Center, establishing tours to places throughout the country, and ending each expedition with “something sweet” – homemade chocolates, made lovingly by Shulamit.
The two were so committed and so full of love for the Land of Israel, for God, for their family, for every Jewish soul, and for each other.
Coming to Jerusalem just doesn’t feel right without Shulamit there. The city, once called Shalem (“whole”), doesn’t feel whole without her beautiful soul. Ironically, her name, Shulamit, as pointed out by Rav Zev Leff at her shloshim, denotes shleimut, which means “completion” or “wholeness.” There is a hole in Jerusalem without her.
No one made a blessing like Shulamit. The smallest piece of cake – with her first sip of coffee in the morning – and her blessing rang out, thanking the creator of the universe for each tiny taste of His sustenance.
Shulamit was my cheerleader, always buying The Jerusalem Post, sometimes multiple copies, to carefully read every article I wrote, commenting insightfully on every observation and quote included. She devoured every word, even my technical articles about drone warfare. There was nothing that didn’t pique her interest, and there was nothing that didn’t evoke a creative and analytical response.
Passionate about learning Torah
Her entire life, she remained sharp and focused. She could speak about style, trained in fashion design by her mother, and she expressed herself with her own clothing choices. She absorbed Torah like a sponge, actively participating in lectures and dragging her caregivers to programs in venues throughout Jerusalem, at all hours of the day and night. She went to rock concerts produced by her daughter-in-law. She could argue politics and win every time. She was simply everywhere.
Someone who rarely slept, she would call my mom in the US to schmooze in the wee hours of Israel time, and visit her whenever she made the long trip back to New York.
Her love for her family was replenished constantly, her phone ringing with each of her loving children, grandchildren, and extended relatives, especially prior to each Shabbat and holiday – and she always had something special and unique to say to each one of them. If they didn’t check in, she called them.
Appropriately, her shloshim ceremony turned out to be on Remembrance Day. Conspicuously missing from the observance, which began with the two-minute siren, was Shulamit herself. Attended by Jews from all different walks of life, it was an event she wouldn’t have wanted to miss. The gravity of Remembrance Day, the sadness, was palpable as everyone stood respectfully, remembering the fallen soldiers, their souls ascending as the siren wailed.
Those soldiers were revered by Shulamit, and her friends and family remembered them along with the special and holy woman who was achingly no longer with us.
I look forward to the day of resurrection – and believe it with all my heart – as I know Shulamit did. Soon Jerusalem will be complete – with our Sanctuary and with Shulamit and Yehoshua, their offerings of lollipops and chocolates, their golden spirits ushering in the new shleimut.
Until then, Jerusalem misses its Golden Girl.