Unrelenting, probing and empathetic, Sheila Barshay Goldbloom could make you feel like you were the only person in the room. Her three children maintained their mother needed only a 15-minute conversation to get to know someone, such was her ability to get others to divulge details about their lives.
Sheila Goldbloom, a Quebec social worker and educator, was named to the Order of Canada in 1999.Courtesy of the Family
Ms. Goldbloom used that ability to practise the art of tikkun olam, a concept in Judaism that means healing the world through social action and the pursuit of justice. In her case, it meant everything from ensuring that the city of Montreal planted trees in the decidedly concrete, grey neighbourhood of Little Burgundy to helping develop the Meals on Wheels program and, in 2007, co-chairing a provincial commission on improving conditions for seniors in Quebec. At the time, she was 82 years old.
Ms. Goldbloom moved from New York to Montreal in 1948 after marrying a medical resident named Victor Goldbloom. Over their 67-year marriage, they were a power couple, he a pediatrician turned provincial politician and the official commissioner of languages and she, the equal partner who forged a career in her own right. She was what her youngest son called the “human element” behind his father.
“She made him the better person,” said Jonathan Goldbloom. “She had the emotional IQ and sensitivities – and he had the smarts to listen to her.”
Ms. Goldbloom, who was named to the Order of Canada in 1999 and a Chévalière of the Ordre Nationale du Québec in 2008, died at her home in Montreal on July 3 after a long decline, surrounded by family and asking almost to the very end what she could do for others. She was 96 years old.
“She always believed you had to meet with people, to listen, talk and see where you could find common ground,” her son said. “The most important lesson she ever taught me was that love is expandable, that you can always open yourself up to new people, experiences and ideas.”
Slight, with a cap of dark hair and a wide smile, Ms. Goldbloom understood what it was to be an outsider, arriving as a unilingual immigrant in 1948 to a world where the roles for women were limited at best, and the rules of life within communities set in stone. A graduate of Mount Holyoke, a women’s college in Massachusetts where students were encouraged to change the world for the better through work rather than look for a suitable husband, Quebec was a far cry from the world she came from. An unapologetically indifferent cook and baker, she was not interested in being a stereotypic homemaker, and as soon as her youngest was in school, she decided to go back to school herself, completing a master’s degree in social work at McGill University.
Ms. Goldbloom completed a master’s degree in social work at McGill University, which was her launchpad into a lifetime of service.Courtesy of the Family
The degree, which led to an associate professorship at McGill, would prove to be her launchpad into a lifetime of service. Among her myriad accomplishments, she was an early champion of the McGill Middle East Program for Civil Society and Peace Building, which since 1997 has brought together Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians to work toward improving the lives of people in the region. Now called the International Community Action Network, one of the people she mentored was Amal Elsana Ahl’jooj, a Bedouin from an Israeli village who is the network’s executive director.
In a note posted to the funeral home’s website, Dr. Elsana wrote, “Sheila was my guiding star whenever I felt lost in the new and challenging world. She was the one to find me and point me towards a new potential path. She was a trailblazer and a uniter who knew how to connect people and how to open doors for them to co-create a better world, a world of justice and peace, a world where women have their voices heard and followed.”
Sheila Barshay was born in New York on Nov. 30, 1925, the only child of Jack and Esther Barshay. Her parents, both immigrants from the Russian Pale of Settlement, where antisemitism was rampant, were progressive thinkers who encouraged her to read, explore and always work on behalf of others; her mother, a supporter of Planned Parenthood, believed that every child should be wanted, while her father was a lawyer who, upon graduation from law school, opened his own firm.
On July 16, 1936, when she was 10, her father suffered a massive heart attack while returning home from work. He died on the spot at age 35, leaving young Sheila clingy and fearful, reactions she would later learn were normal after such a loss.
Her mother, stalwart and determined, decided to go to law school. While there, she worked in her late husband’s law office to make ends meet, and eventually married one of his partners, Nathan Rothstein, known as “Nat.” The three of them formed a new family, with Mr. Rothstein ensuring that his wife’s daughter never doubted his love for her. When Sheila was 13, the family grew to include a baby sister.
As she grew up, Ms. Goldbloom excelled at school, and found role models in figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt, the activist First Lady of the United States whose syndicated newspaper column, “My Day,” ran six days a week, from 1935 to 1962.
“What struck me as the common thread was her emphasis on the responsibilities of citizens living in a democracy,” Ms. Goldbloom would write in her autobiography, Opening Doors, published in 2019. “She led me to feel that I could not be complacent, that I had an obligation to be trustworthy, honest, respectful, compassionate, fair, caring and engaged. I took this sense of duty that I gleaned from her words seriously and I believe it has influenced my entire life.”
Among her accolades were honorary doctorates from Mount Holyoke in 2010 and McGill University a year later. After her retirement from McGill in 1992, she did not slow down a whit, with accomplishments that included helping to transition a closed hospital in the west end of Montreal into a thriving community health centre.
At the same time, she always managed to be present for her children in ways that made each feel special. Her daughter, Susan Restler, said it felt as if she and her two younger brothers were all “only children,” encouraged to take on unique challenges such as working in Africa, or with Inuit and Indigenous communities – even as they were discouraged to keep their elbows off the dinner table.
“She would bring a ruler to the table and tap our elbows if we transgressed,” Ms. Restler recalled. “Basically, she was an equal-opportunity tapper.”
Ms. Goldbloom leaves her sister, Deanne Marein-Efron, her children, Susan Restler, Michael and Jonathan Goldbloom, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. She is predeceased by her husband, Victor.