General Info

About NIJH NIJH was established in 1985 to help alleviate suffering in serious and terminal illness. It's 52, 000 members comprise business and professional leaders, and a consortium of endowing foundations. It communicates with hospices, family service, medical organizations, and all health-care agencies alerting them to the plight of the Jewish terminally ill. A 24 hour toll-free number counsels families, patients and care givers, and provides locations of hospices, hospitals, health professionals and clergy of all faiths. NIJH provides booklets, books, and cassettes and monographs confronting such issues as truth telling and euthanasia ; and provides insights into the art of hoping, the techniques of caring, and the understanding of pain. The NIJH JEWISH LIVING WILL AND DURABLE POWER OF ATTORNEY document is available to anyone at minimal cost. NIJH recently embarked on an accreditation program providing on site training to any hospice, geriatric center or hospital in the U.S.. NIJH's board of governors, headed by Rabbi Dr. Maurice Lamm, President and Founder, and Shirley Lamm, Executive Director, includes nationally known leaders in business, academia, government and religion who have given their name to support the cause of the Jewish terminally ill. Since NIJH launched the idea of "Jewish Hospice, " the web browsers today site 26, 000 references to "Jewish" hospice. Visibly recognizable names are Dean Dominick Purpura, Albert Einstein College of Medicine ; the Honorable Henry Waxman, U.S. Congress ; Professor William Cutter, Hebrew Union College ; Rabbi Elliot Dorff and Dr. Samuel Klagsbrun, Jewish Theological Seminary ; Rabbi Harold Schulweis ; Dr. Avery Weisman, Harvard Medical School ; Dr. Laurens White, University of California, S.F. ; Dr. Herman Feifel, the father of thanatology and the late Dr. Norman Cousins. NIJH is also pleased to have movie and media stars as friends. Among them: Alan Alda, Neil Simon, Judge Joseph Wapner, Abigail Van Buren, Jack Klugman, Herman Wouk, the late Shari Lewis and Jessica Tandy.