Kalman Samuels

Kalman was raised in a nonobservant Jewish home in Vancouver, Canada where he attended Sir Winston Churchill High School. Upon his graduation in 1969 he was awarded academic and basketball scholarships to the University of British Columbia. After his first year studying philosophy he travelled Europe with plans to undergo coursework in France with a goal of becoming a Professor of Western Civilization. However his mother requested that enroute he stop to visit Israel for two weeks. Enamored with Jewish culture and heritage, he cancelled the trip to France and enrolled in Jewish studies programs and in 1977 he received his rabbinical ordination.

In 1973 Samuels married Malki Klein and the couple took up residence in Jerusalem. In 1977, their second son, Yossi Samuels, at the time 11 months old, was injured by a faulty DPT vaccination and was rendered blind, deaf and acutely hyperactive. After 7 years with no communication, Yossi’s special education teacher, Shoshana Weinstock achieved a break through to communicaiton by relaying sign language into the palm of his hand, teaching Yossi his first word, ‘Shulchan’ (Hebrew, שֻׁולְחָן), meaning table. Yossi learned the alaphbet followed by language via sign in his palm and later speech.

With a sense of gratitude and payback for others, Malki and Kalman established a unique afternoon program for children with disabilities which they named Shalva,meaning 'peace of mind' in Hebrew. Over time, the program expanded to meet the needs of a broader spectrum of special needs, from birth through adulthood and Shalva developed into one of the largest and leading organizations in the world for persons with disabilities with around the clock programs including therapy, education and recreation in addition to family support, respite and advocacy initiatives. In recognition of Shalva’s accomplishments and an ongoing need to expand the availability of such services, the Jerusalem Municipality provided Samuels a seven acre plot at the new Route 16 tunnel entrance to Jerusalem upon which was built the magnificent 220,000 square foot Shalva National Center. The center enables Shalva to provide a far broader range of services to an expanded population of beneficiaries. With its Shalva Institute, Shalva has gone global, helping countries to improve their services and to build newer centers of their own.

Kalman’s fascinating memoir, Dreams Never Dreamed, was released in Hebrew in September 2019 and in English in May 2020 and is currently available also in Arabic, Japanese, Spanish and Portugese.