Lifetime Achievement Award Presented to Shirley Lamm, NIJH President

At the 39th Annual NIJH Accreditation Conference, Shirley Lamm, President of NIJH was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Forty years ago Rabbi Maurice Lamm, a prominent rabbi in Beverly Hills, California, realized that there was a great need for hospice professionals to become culturally sensitive to their Jewish patients culture and religion. Together with his wife Shirley, they created the National Institute for Jewish Hospice, to make this reality.

As Shirley recounted in her speech, at their very first training session there was a grand total of one person! Now, forty years later, NIJH has accredited hundreds of hospices and trained thousands of hospice professionals.

The award reads; “Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to Shirley Lamm, NIJH President, For her 40 years of leadership and devotion that made Jewish Hospice a nationwide reality.”

Shirley Lamm, NIJH President, receives distinguished service award

At the Neshama Association of Jewish Chaplain’s annual awards dinner in Orlando Florida, Rabbi Maurice z”1 and Shirley Lamm, NIJH President, were awarded the Anita and Dr. Barry Kinzbrunner Distinguished Service Award in recognition of their trail blazing work in Jewish hospice. When Rabbi Maurice Lamm and Shirley Lamm became involved in Jewish Hospice 35 years ago, the idea of hospice was not known in the United States. Recognizing the needs of the Jewish terminally ill, a disadvantaged minority, they began speaking, writing and forming hospice commissions in many cities teaching the values of Jewish hospice. The idea was enormously received. They started NIJH at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles in 1985 teaching families, patients and the medical community what’s Jewish about Jewish Hospice. Through its publications, conferences and hospice accreditations, NIJH has made Jewish hospice a mainstream idea and brought hope and solace to thousands of people. NIJH has made Jewish hospice a mainstream idea and brought hope and solace to thousands of people and has accredited hundreds of hospices in the United States.

Dr. Barry and Anita Kinzbrunner, Shirley Lamm