Shelley Tiber was the luckiest and the unluckiest of women. Luckiest because of the great love she showered upon her family and with which she was showered in return. Because of her unflinching honesty. Because of her regal beauty. Because of her steel character. Because of her ultimate enjoyment of the good things life offered. Unluckiest because of the decades of mortal combat she was forced to wage against the most implacable of enemies. From age 48 Shelley began her battle with cancers. She prevailed the first time, and then five years later the second, but this year she was felled with the most extreme virulence, a virulence even Shelley could not overcome.

Shelley went through each day with an endless energy, yet like everything about her it was understated and the opposite of aggressive. Shelley was equally at ease whizzing on a bicycle in an electric blue sports outfit almost as blue as her eyes as in a slinky black silk pants suit that turned her into a late blooming modeling star. She was just as comfortable in the capitals of the world as trekking through a jungle, she could whip up two cakes and a complete roast beef dinner without breaking a sweat, and she habitually played her round of golf upon the heels of two sets of tennis.

Shelley was the rock who took care of all; above the traditional roles of  loving wife and devoted mother to Matti, Dana and Johnny was her mentoring of her younger special needs sister Eileen from early childhood and straight through the next six decades. Shelly steered both her mother Sandra and sister Eileen through aliyah, and was one of the founding and continuing supporters of Kfar Idud, a residential halfway house for challenged adults. Her wry humor, her modesty, and her wit stood her in good stead in fulfilling what she perceived as absolute moral responsibilities.

Shelley was the all - American girl who made the most successful aliyah with her Israeli husband Abe. From the time she arrived in Israel in 1977 she integrated with a passion, yet she never abandoned her passion for perfection and the high standards she brought with her. Shelley abhorred shoddy compromise, and she battled tirelessly to bring the world up to par.

As her beloved daughter Dana eulogized her:

My mother was always special and different from the other mothers:

She was the most beautiful of all the mothers,

The tallest of all the mothers,

The most American of all the mothers,

The most energetic of all the mothers;

And because my mother was this special it transformed me too

into someone special. 

Whoever hears of the loss is shocked that Shelley's vibrancy can be gone. Shelley Tiber has made the world more special for having hosted it.

 

Editor’s Note: Sandra Raphaelson, Shelley’s mother, and her sister Eileen, were very active and devoted ESRA volunteers, and we miss them both. M.G.                                            

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Comments

Marvyn Raphaelson
2011-01-01
Shelley Raphaelson was my faverate nice before she moved to Isreal. I never heard from her till last year after her mother passed away as she was not allowed to speak to the family. I E-Mailed her few times since I heard from her. March 2008. Please advise where I can send a donation in her memory
jerry ann fisher
2011-09-22
I am so sad to hear that Shelly has passed. I have thought about her for years. She was one of my best friends in elementaty school. I remember a birthday party in sixth grade at her parents beautiful home on Silverside rd Wilmington De. Her mother was a beautiful and gracious women. Shelly was a loving sister to Eileen even back then. She went to a different high school than I did and through the years we lost touch. I had heard she was living in Isreal, but I never found a way to get in touch. I am saddened to know I will never have the chance to reconnect with a beautiful person who was once an important part of my life.

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About the author

Helen Schary Motro

Helen Schary Motro is author of Maneuvering between the Headlines: An American Lives through the Intifada (Other Press, New York 2005). An American lawyer living in Israel for 20 years with her fam...
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