Albert Shansky

Albert Shansky
March 29, 2024
Dr. Albert Shansky died on March 29, 2024, at Norwalk Hospital, Norwalk, Connecticut. He had just celebrated his 99th birthday on March 26. A funeral service will be held at Collins Funeral Home, 92 East Avenue, Norwalk, on April 1, 2024, at 1:00 p.m., with burial at Temple Shalom Cemetery, 135 Richards Avenue, Norwalk. A private Shiva will be held.
Dr. Shansky was born in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish working-class family. He had two older brothers and a younger sister. He never knew his father who died when he was four years old. They were a poor family, but his mother, Irene Price, used to say, "It's no disgrace to be poor; it's just very inconvenient."
He grew up during the Great Depression, quickly learning the value of work, the ways of survival and the usefulness of self-reliance and independence. A growing consciousness of social inequity developed during his adolescence. After graduating from Boys High School, he was drafted into U.S. Army as a medic during World War II, where he earned two battle stars in the European Theater of operations. Upon his return, he earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry from Brooklyn College and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. In 1947, he married Pearl Brody to whom he was deeply devoted for 76 years, until she passed away on October 6, 2023.
He worked as a chemist for more than fifty years, thirty of which he was an independent consultant. He served as Vice President of Research for several large cosmetic companies such as Helene Curtis, Clairol, Bonat, Del Laboratories, and Turner Hall Corporation, producing more than sixty scientific papers and eighteen patents. At the age of 53, he pursued his lifelong love of scholarship by joining the International Institute for Field-Being at Fairfield University, eventually becoming ordained as a lay Buddhist monk at the Hosshinji Monastery in Obama, Japan, and the Eiheiji Monastery in Fukui, Japan. He wrote a dozen books on Buddhism and Japanese culture and taught philosophy, world religions, Buddhism, and Islam at Norwalk Community College for five years.
He is survived by four children, Sybil Strum, Susan Shansky, Dr. Richard Shansky, and Dr. Carol Shansky; seven grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Donations, in lieu of flowers, may be sent in memory of Albert Shansky to Gotham Philosophical Society, www.philosophy.nyc .