Randi Moss, a teacher at Brawerman East Elementary School, a Jewish day school in Los Angeles, felt a “tremendous amount of pride and love for this community” when she was surprised on Wednesday with a 2026 Jewish Educator Award from the Milken Family Foundation, which comes with an $18,000 cash prize.
It was special to be recognized for her teaching on the third anniversary of Oct. 7, she told JNS.
“The focus of this day should be on resilience and hope,’ she said. “I’m just happy that I was rewarded on this day, because it shows that there’s a lot of hope in the Jewish community.”
The foundation gives four such awards each year, surprising teachers with them. Moss’s award was announced during the school’s tefillah, or prayer, service celebrating the new year at Wilshire Boulevard Temple, a Reform congregation where the school is located.
Moss told JNS that she has wanted to be a teacher since she was young and “fell in love” with the elementary school, at whose east and west campuses she has worked since 2005.
“I’m really proud to be Jewish, and I wanted to be part of a Jewish community and help young people also be proud of being Jewish,” she said.
She advises students to “keep being who they are and keep coming to school every day, being happy and taking risks and working hard, because it pays off.”
Earlier in the day, Becca Furer, a teacher at another Los Angeles Jewish day school, Sinai Akiba Academy, was surprised with the award during an assembly.
Furer told JNS that she was “shocked” and “really honored” to be recognized “in the same breath” as other awardees.
Receiving the award on Oct. 7, a day “when the attempt was to extinguish light,” she told JNS, “we’re recognizing educators that bring light and that help other students shine brightly.”
“That, to me, is a way to honor the lights that went out that day,” Furer said.
Two other teachers are scheduled to be surprised with awards this month, and they will receive the awards at a December luncheon.
Richard Sandler, executive vice president of the Milken Family Foundation, announced Moss and Furer as awardees at their respective schools.
He told JNS that the foundation believes that “teachers make the biggest difference in all of our lives, and they are not recognized enough.”
Nearly 36 years ago, the foundation decided that “if we’re honoring educators, we have got to really focus on Jewish day schools in our own community.”
The foundation has partnered with Builders of Jewish Education, a nonprofit, to identify and recognize the most outstanding Jewish teachers.
“We find them based upon, ‘Do they make a difference in the kids’ lives? Do they make a difference in the communities, and do they make a difference in their colleagues?’” he told JNS.
“When I say excellence in education, it’s excellence across the board,” he said. “They are changing lives, not only in the students but others, and they are devoted to that.”
It was meaningful to Sandler to announce the new awardees on Oct. 7.
Jews have survived so many tragedies over the centuries, because “we are one people based upon values, and values that we give to the rest of the world,” he told JNS.
“The only way to perpetuate those values is to teach them to the next generation,” he said. “So even on a day like today, it’s important to recognize those people who devote their lives to passing on those values, because we will continue to survive.”
