Rose Shapiro Levine

Rose Shapiro Levine died on December 28, 2004, at Village Shalom. Funeral services will be held at Congregation Beth Shalom, 9400 Wornall Rd., Kansas City, MO, at 1 p.m., Thursday, December 30. The family requests no flowers and suggest contributions to the Rose Shapiro Levine Religious Schools Cultural Arts Fund at Beth Shalom Synagogue, 9400 Wornall Rd., Kansas City, MO 64114, the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, 5801 W. 115th St., Overland Park, KS 66211, or to a charity of one's choice. Rose was born in Brockton, MA, on May 20, 1911, to Fanny and Robert Shapiro. She came to Kansas City in 1918, where she attended Scarritt Elementary School and Northeast High School, graduating at the age of sixteen. Music was Rose's lifelong career. Her early piano teacher in Kansas City was Lily Loeffler and her voice teacher was Marjorie Rose Ryan. She attended the New England Conservatory of Music, in Boston, for one year, where she met her future husband, Edwin; and completed her college education at the Horner Institute (now the Conservatory of Music of the University of MissouriKansas City), graduating in 1931 with degrees in Music Education and Piano. At the Conservatory, she studied piano and piano pedagogy with John Thompson and orchestra conducting with Sir Carl Busch. Sixty years later, she took graduate classes in Choral Conducting and Choral Literature under Dr. Eph Ehly at UMKC. During her school years, she taught piano privately and also sang in the Grand Avenue Methodist Church choir. She played for ballet classes at the YMHA and taught Yiddish songs at the Yiddish Folk School. Rose assisted both Temple B'nai Jehudah and congregation Keneseth Israel Beth Shalom - now Beth Shalom - with their respective choirs. She also assisted Mrs. Samuel Mayerberg with the children's choir at B'nai Jehudah. She was the first person hired by Rabbi Gershon Hadas when he came to Beth Shalom in 1929, and she served as director of the Congregation's adult choir for the next 71 years. Rose began her teaching career in the North Kansas City, MO public school system at the McElroy-Dagg school in 1933, but was asked to resign after one year when she married Edwin, since female teachers at the time could not continue to teach if they were married. She, Ed, and her brother Abe, ran their own grocery store, Purity Food Market, at 34th and Broadway from 1933 to 1959. They made many lifelong friends who continued to keep in touch even after the store closed. During that time, Rose continued to teach piano privately, to conduct the adult choir at Beth Shalom, to sing and play for hundreds of weddings over the years, and to accompany all the visiting cantors and performers who came to Kansas City, including Moishe Oysher, Maurice Pinchik, Maurice Schwartz, and Molly Picon. She was head of the Beth Shalom Music Department in the Sunday School for forty years and director of the Junior Choir with Cantors Rothblatt, Feller and Sky. She taught in the Beth Shalom nursery school for thirty-one years and was lovingly known as "Miss Rose" to three generations of preschool children. She was president of Hadassah, Group III. Hadassah and the Beth Shalom Sunday School planted 1000 trees in Israel in her honor, called the Rose Levine Grove. She was a member of the Beth Shalom Sisterhood, the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy Auxiliary, the UMKC Conservatory Alumni Society Board of Governors, the Brandeis Women's Committee, B'nai B'rith Women, ORT, Shalom Plaza, Shalom Geriatric Center, the Kansas City Musical Club, Friends of the Symphony, the Music Teachers National Association, and several other organizations. She was a member of the Interfaith Harmony Celebration Committee from it's inception and conducted the Harmony mass choir for many years. Rose received the Kovod award from the Beth Shalom Men's Club in 1954, for her devoted service to the synagogue. In 1981, she received the UMKC Conservatory of Music Award in recognition of the honor and esteem she brought to the school in the halfcentury since her graduation; and in 1997 , she won UMKC's Alumni Service Award for her loyalty and commitment to the University and her outstanding service to the community at large. Herzl Hadassah honored her with it's Woman of Valor award in 1984. In 1980, Beth Shalom had a wonderful anniversary tribute to Rose in honor of her 50th year with the congregation, and in 2000, she again was honored at an elegant musical evening on the occasion of her 70th anniversary as choir director at Beth Shalom. Rose was preceded in death by her husband of forty-eight years, Edwin; and by her brother and sister-in-law, Abe and May Shapiro. She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law Carla and Tiberius Klausner; son and daughter-in-law Morris and Faye Levine; and by granddaughters Danielle Klausner, Serena Klausner, and Mirra Klausner and her husband Todd Clauer, Jennie Levine and her husband Andy Hayleck, Lori Levine and her husband Nat Forgotson, and Robyn Levine; and three greatgranddaughters, Haidee, Anna May, and Aviva Rose Clauer. Rose's gift of friendship was ageless. She was loved by young and old alike. She was a very special person who greeted everyone with a smile and made a real difference in the lives of those who knew her. She had an enormous capacity to listen and to empathize, and she brought joy through her music and through the example she set of good-heartedness, kindness, compassion, humility and love. Her memory will always be for a blessing. (Arr.: The Louis Memorial Chapel (816) 361-5211)