Judy Sirota Rosenthal Photo
A much loved member of the Westville and Yale Jewish communities was eulogized Wednesday as the very definition of the traditional Jewish “woman of valor.”
More than 300 people including many young families filled the sanctuary of Congregation Beth El Keser Israel, where Aaland’s simple casket, closed as is called for in Jewish practice, was covered by a dark blue cloth on top of which was a Jewish star.
The mother of three young children, Aaland died on Monday after a long fight against breast cancer.
Aaland was an actor by training and also served for ten years as the executive director of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale; the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen honored her for her volunteer efforts. Before coming to New Haven she taught acting at the University of Minnesota and worked at Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theatre.
Wednesday’s service was conducted by Aaland’s longtime friend Rabbi Sharon Cohen-Anisfeld, She called attention to the roots of the Hebrew words for the poem “woman of valor,” eshet chayil, the latter word related to the Hebrew word for soldier.
Cohen-Anisfeld said that poem is frequently invoked in the death of Jewish women but the appropriateness in the case of Amy Aaland was remarkable and never more apt.
Quoting a description of Aaland by her sister Lauren that Amy was “ever the nurturer with a warrior inside,” Cohen-Anisfeld said, “If there were ever a perfect translation of eshet chayil, that is it.”
Just a week before she died, Aaland sent this text to her friends on Facebook:
“Well it seems that this is the moment to reach out to all my friends and ask for whatever blessings, prayers, good wishes etc that you can spare be sent my way as this monster beast of breast cancer thinks it has won but I’ve not given in. Life is too beautiful and good. I want more.”
In Hebrew poetry that opened the service, Cohen-Anisfeld read:
God remembers we’re dust
Our days are but grass
We flourish as a flower in the field
The wind passes over us and we’re gone …
After the service, mourners moved slowly into their vehicles and formed a line following the casket to the Yale Jewish Community Cemetery in Meriden for the burial.
Aaland is survived her husband, Jonathan Freiman; and her children, Gabriel, Elijah and Caleb