Obituary of Dorothy B. Shapiro

Dorothy ( Berman) Shapiro, 96, passed away peacefully on February 8, 2013. Dorothy also was related to Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik of Boston, the acknowledged intellectual and spiritual leader of the Orthodox jewish Community in America. Dorothy Shapiro was born in 1916, a first generation American to Harry and Celia berman in Camden. She graduated from Camden High School and attended Temple University. She moved to Vineland in 1941 after marrying her husband Samuel, whom she met at South Jersey law School, which later became Rutgers Law School- Camden. Dorothy was among the first-at the time-very few female graduates od South Jersey Law School. During World War II , Dorothy was a life member of Hadassah and a member of hebrew Women's Benevolent Society, Beth Israel Congregation, Beth Israel Sisterhood and the Women's Division of the Allied Jewish Appeal. Dorothy and her husband were active in the Israel Bonf Drive for many years and in April 1957 hosted at their home Eleanor Roosevelt, guest speaker and widow of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Ms. Roosevelt later wrote of the event in her "My Day" news column that she traveled to Vineland from new York where her "hosts were charming and kind young people." Dorothy devoted herself to numerous charities, including Children's March of Dimes and the Tiny Tim Fund. She was a fund-raiser for and dedicated herself to assist in the founding of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Dorothy Shapiro was also a member of the Fourth Ward Women's Republican Club and President od the PArk and East School Mothers and Teachers Club. She was uniquely fluent in both the spoken and written Yiddish language. Above all else Dorothy Shapiro was recalled by her family as a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, a women of valor in the highest tradition of the Jewish people, a proud American and an independent womean with a brilliant mind.