YWN regrets to inform you of the Petira of Mrs. Miriam Lubling, who has been helping sick people find doctors for more than 40 years, and was the founder of Rivkah Laufer Bikur Cholim. Mrs. Lubling arranged the first Bikur Cholim room in any hospital in New York, and literally set the standard for every Bikur Cholim which was started.
Her Levaya will be held at Shomrei HaDas Chapels in Boro Park, at 38th Street and 14th Avenue at 1:00PM.
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. All died at the hands of the Nazis YM”S.
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 Israel. 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 is widely known as now. 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 from Shul who died that year. Her organization has several hundred volunteers, and arranges medical care, assists them with chores, delivers meals to them, and visits them in the hospital.
Though she ran a kindergarten for many years in addition to her patient advocacy work, she 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, but she worked with Maimonides, Mount Sinai, and dozens of other institutions.
Boruch Dayan HaEmmes…
(Source: NY Sun)
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7 Responses
A very special lady whose work I experienced some 20 years ago. She should be a moletzes yosher for all the sick people.
what a loss to klal yisroel – her work day and night will be missed by anyone who could have used her connections, expertise and know how. what a special lady – always went above and beyond the call to help klal yisroel, and never expected anything in return. may she be a meilitz for her family and all of klal yisroel.
I cannot begin to express the kindness my family experienced when the Rivka Laufer BC sent an ambulette with a driver to take my mother to a medical appointment. The driver treated my mother as he might have treated his own, literally lifting her wheelchair in his arms and driving so as to provide the smoothest ride for his frail patient. We felt we were in the hands of caring family, and this after experiencing lack of sensitivity from so many others who were supposedly in caring professions. Multiply this by thousands and you’ll have an inkling of the legions of Mal’achim who will no doubt escort this wonderful woman to her eternal reward.
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.
Chaval Al Deavdin Vela Mishtakechin,,,,,,,A great lady.
BDH’E – I have no NO WORDS!!
May she continue to be a “gutte beiter” when she’s escorted by all the malachim before the throne borei olam.
There exists no one today who could veritably fill her shoes.
Yehi Zichro Boruch
Boruch dayan emes.