This is the gravestone of Joe Shapiro, a UAlbany alumnus who died before his time, buried on Fuller Road in the shadow of his alma mater. Joe was adopted and then orphaned at a young age, with no known blood relatives and almost no family but with an incredibly loving close circle of Albany-area friends.
His Jewish burial and stone is thanks to the dedicated involvement of fellow UAlbany alumni, especially Steve L. who got us at Shabbos House involved because of a mutual friend, and in turn we reached out to Jeff T. who got his Sigma Lambda Sigma UAlbany fraternity on board to fundraise the difference in cost between cremation or non-Jewish cemetery (along with support from Yossi’s TAB yeshiva friends) to a proper Jewish burial.
Joe graduated before we (Mendel and Raizy) came to Shabbos House, but in the 48 hours between his passing and his funeral, we learned so much about him through local friends and connections we discovered and researched dating back to his years at TAB and Ohel in Brooklyn. It’s one of those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction “Book of Life” stories that we can’t always (yet) share fully online.
Below is Mendel’s speech at the unveiling of this stone on November 6th, 2016 with Shabbos House students helping to make the Minyan for Kaddish for Joe Yossi Shapiro of blessed memory:
The verse says: “VhChai Yiten El Libo” – the living should take to heart. We are here at his burial site to establish a lasting, living memorial for Joe Shapiro.
We didn’t know him personally, but got to know many aspects and stages of his life in the 48 hours after his passing, through research into his background and through the lens of his friends who knew him and loved him in the various stages of his life.
From what we learned his short life had 3 stages: (1) his elementary school and HS years in Brooklyn, at Ohel and at TAB; (2) his college years at UAlbany with the fraternity Sigma Lambda Sigma, (3) and his post-UAlbany years with his local circle of friends.
In just 48 hours we learned what a challenging youth he had, his adoptive parents both dying in his middle school years, living in a group foster home during HS. yet there’s one pervasive theme that all who knew him throughout his three stages, was his positive upbeat spirit, his love and passion for life, he was robust, he was dynamic, he didn’t let things get him down.
This positivity, this passion for life, this love of friendships and people, – is a great tribute to Joe, especially considering his life story and background and his personal challenges, and it’s a great tribute to the circles of people he surrounded himself with. It is a great living legacy and lesson for all of us.
In preparing this monument we had to ascertain the proper Hebrew date of his passing, so it can be properly written on the stone, and remembered each year for the yartzeit. I was speaking back and forth with Doug, and also with expert Rabbis, because Joe died during the twilight hour between sunset and nightfall, and so it had to be determined which Hebrew date that falls under.
I mention this because Joe fits that twilight zone, it was appropriate for him. He danced between two worlds. You guys referred to him as “Poker Joe, Kosher Joe”. Reb Shmuel at the Kosher counter at Price Chopper didn’t know his name, but used to refer to him as Morpheus, based on the character in the Matrix. I looked it up, he looked just like him. One of the last ways he was remembered was lighting the Chanukah candles, which symbolizes the light in the darkness.
I know it meant the world to his local friends that he be buried here, so that his gravesite be visited, and that he be remembered. I don’t know what kind of friend he was, but I know what kind of friends you are – and that gives me some sense of what this close friendship must have been like. And you guys and his fraternity brothers and UAlbany alumni and his friends from TAB went the extra mile that he be buried according to Jewish tradition, because you knew that’s what he would have wanted. When you went into his home there was a prayerbook on the table, and he was buried with his Tefillin.
May his memory be a blessing.