Dr. Eva Stahl, ‘woman of valor,’ dies at age 80
Dr. Eva B. Bamberger Stahl of Highland Park, a Holocaust survivor who launched a successful medical career and became a stalwart of the local Jewish community, was remembered for her kindness and commitment to Jewish causes. Stahl, 80, died Feb. 17.
She was “a woman of valor,” said Gerrie Bamira, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, in recalling Stahl’s commitment to the Jewish community locally and in Israel. “She was strong, compassionate, and fully committed to Jewish values and continuity. She touched many, and we will miss her very much.”
Born in Cologne, Eva Bamberger was sent with other Jewish children from Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport to England. Her parents, Curt and Alice, and younger sister Dorothea left shortly afterward and the family reunited in Belgium. Her father was then sent to an internment camp in the south of France
Curt’s release was secured through the intervention of an American chemical company; his wife took the sisters on an arduous journey through France to reunite with him. From France, the family left for the United States. Their ship was forced by the Vichy government to go instead to Casablanca. Making their way to Spain, the family boarded what was to be the second-to-last refugee ship to be granted entrance by the United States before it closed its borders.
Stahl graduated from the New Jersey College for Women, now Douglass College at Rutgers University, and Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia in 1958, marrying her husband, Dr. Theodore Stahl, during her senior year.
After moving to the New Brunswick/Highland Park area, Stahl established a dermatology practice and would also serve as chair of dermatology at both Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and St. Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick. She remained in practice for 48 years.
“She really was an amazing woman and an extraordinary physician,” said Rabbi Eliot Malomet of the Highland Park Conservative Temple-Congregation Anshe Emeth, where the Stahls were longtime members. “She was committed to so many different mitzvas, among them caring for the sick and welcoming guests. She was known for bringing people to her Shabbos table, and she did so with delight and gusto and all measure of hospitality.
“She and Ted were an amazing partnership and had a profound effect on our community and, frankly, the larger medical community,” said Malomet.
Stahl was a founding member of the temple’s Bikur Cholim society, which provided comfort to the sick and their families, and was active in Hadassah. She was a Lion of Judah, whose members are women who contribute to the local federation at a major level.
Besides her husband, she is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, James E. and Nathalie L. Hebert Stahl; her daughter, Lauren S. Stahl; her sister and brother-in-law, Dorothea and Raphael Aronson; a granddaughter; and a niece and nephew. She was predeceased in 2010 by a son, Douglas J.B. Stahl.
Interment was in Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Iselin, with arrangements by Crabiel Parkwest Funeral Chapel, New Brunswick.
Donations may be made to the Douglas J.B. Stahl Memorial Fund at the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, established by the Stahls to provide university scholarships to students at the Yemin Orde Youth Village — for orphaned or at-risk children and teens. Contributions may be made at jewishmiddlesex.org. or by check to the federation at 230 Old Bridge Turnpike, South River, NJ 08882-2000.
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