Donor from Denmark Can’t Imagine a World Without Books

There’s a backstory to why Ellen Jabbur, who is in her late-80s, made a six-figure planned gift to the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany as part of her estate plan. She is philanthropic to arts and cultural organizations in the Capital Region but had only a passing association with UAlbany, where she took language courses in Spanish and Arabic after she retired in 1986.

Growing up in the tiny seaside village of Aggersund in northern Denmark, books were scarce in the one-room schoolhouse that Jabbur attended. Her father was a ship captain. Her mother was a registered nurse. The village was occupied by German soldiers during World War II, and life was grim during the occupation when she was a child.

Formal schooling in the village ended at the age of 13. The nearest high school was too far to walk. Ellen and an older sister got three months of English instruction, watched American movies, and read books published in the U.S. “You just picked up English. There was no other choice,” she said.

Jabbur and her older sister followed in their mother’s footsteps, entered a Danish nursing program, and became registered nurses. She immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s and worked in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, as a nurse anesthetist.

She later met Dr. Munir Jabbur, a native of Syria who earned a medical degree at American University of Beirut. He completed a residency at Albany Med and became a prominent orthopedic surgeon in Albany. They married in 1976. Dr. Jabbur died in 2012 at the age of 86. “My husband always said he made his money in Albany, and he wanted it to go back to Albany,” Jabbur said.

Ellen Jabbur, Michael Boots, and Paul Grondahl

She chose the Writers Institute because she knew its director, Paul Grondahl, and because books hold a central place in her life. After the barbarity of World War II, art became her refuge. “There has to be beauty in the world, and the arts provide that beauty,” she said. “I want to make sure the literary arts survive and thrive.”

Jabbur, who lives in Albany, is a member of a book club and regularly attends Writers Institute events, where she meets visiting authors and adds to her collection of signed books.

Jabbur encourages others to make planned gifts to ensure that the Writers Institute continues its acclaimed programming for generations to come. “I can’t envision a world without books,” Jabbur said. “I’m so impressed with what the Writers Institute does. I hope others follow my lead.”