Rochelle Shoretz, Founder of Sharsheret and Cancer Advocate, Dies at 42
Rochelle Shoretz Image by Courtesy of Sharsheret
Rochelle Shoretz, whose own breast cancer diagnosis at age 28 led her to found the national cancer organization Sharsheret, died Sunday at her home in Teaneck, New Jersey. She was 42. The cause of death was complications from breast cancer.
Shoretz founded Sharsheret in 2001, while undergoing chemotherapy. The organization provides health information and support services for Jewish women living with breast cancer or ovarian cancer, or who are at increased risk for those diseases.
Jewish women of Ashkenazi descent are at heightened risk for certain genetic mutations that can lead to cancer.
A graduate of Columbia Law School, Shoretz went on to clerk for United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She is thought to be the first Orthodox Jewish woman to clerk for a Supreme Court justice.
“When I was diagnosed [in July 2001], there were a lot of offers to help with meals and transport my kids, but I really wanted to speak to another young mom who was going to have to explain to her kids that she was going to lose her hair to chemo,” Shoretz told JTA in 2003, of her decision to start Sharsheret.
The organization’s name is Hebrew for chain.
Shoretz beat her initial bout with the disease. But in 2009, the cancer returned, and it had spread. No longer curable, it was treatable — and friends say her energy and resolve were boundless until the end.
Shoretz is survived by two teenage sons, Shlomo and Dovid Mirsky; her mother, Sherry Tenenbaum; her father, Morris Shoretz; five sisters, and two brothers. She was a stepdaughter of Jeffrey Tenenbaum and Carol Ann Finkelstein.
A funeral and interment will be held Monday in New Jersey.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
