Nili Isenberg, a middle school Judaic studies teacher at Pressman Academy, a Conservative Jewish private school in Los Angeles, appreciated winning an award for her teaching on Thursday but considers it an added bonus.
“I obviously don’t do it for the money or the award,” she told JNS. “I do it because it’s the most fulfilling thing I could possibly be doing with my life.”
Isenberg was one of four Los Angeles-area Jewish educators to receive an award at a Milken Family Foundation and Builders of Jewish Education lunch, which drew almost 250 people, in the city.
The other awardees, each of whom received $18,000, were Jared Stein, instrumental music director at de Toledo High School; Hadassah Weiner, principal of the all-girls elementary school Yeshiva Rav Isacsohn Toras Emes Academy; and Rabbi Reuven Youkhehpaz, a fifth-grade Jewish studies teacher at the all-boys school Yeshiva Aharon Yaakov/Ohr Eliyahu.
Stein told JNS that he appreciates that the event gathered “all the tzitzit—all the fringes, the whole community in L.A., of education, and brings it all together in one event.”
He said at the event that a former awardee, Benny Ferdman, an art teacher, told him that educators must find a “back door” into the hearts and minds of students to reach them rather than just providing information.
“Music is my back door,” Stein said. “It’s my front door, too. It’s the windows. It’s the roof. It’s one of the dearest paths that we all have into the minds and souls of our young Jews.”
“It carries within it the essence of connection that we strive for as a people, especially when we sing together as one,” he added. (Mike Stein, the awardee’s father and a cantor, sang the U.S. and Israeli anthems to open the program.)
Richard Sandler, executive vice president of the Milken Foundation, told JNS it was a privilege to be involved in the program and in Jewish day school education broadly.
“These awards have sent an important message to educators that we know how important their work is as they change their students’ lives and educate the next generation of leaders,” Sandler said. “The awards inspire the educator and his or her colleagues, since it says to them the community recognizes and appreciates the incredible responsibility that they have undertaken.”
It is particularly important to recognize such educators today, “as we naturally become more assimilated into the majority culture and less knowledgeable about Torah and the importance of our tradition,” he told JNS. “It is the graduates of our Jewish day schools who will carry forth our over-3,000-year tradition that has had such a positive effect on mankind.”
“It will allow those graduates to lead more meaningful lives and improve the lives of those around them,” he added. “And it will ensure a Jewish future and strengthen our connection to Israel.”
Weiner, the awardee and principal, said at the event that it was a special honor to represent the all-girls school, which she attended as a child and “where my foundation was laid, where I was taught, the place where I continue to learn and grow.”
She noted that Chanukah is around the corner. “In just a few days, my students and their families will gather to light their menorahs proudly in their homes,” she said. “All of us here today have a piece in that continuity.”
The fifth-grade rabbi Youkhehpaz told attendees that he had wanted to become a teacher like his grandmother was in Iran. He added that his wife, a nurse, has told him that she is “the happiest” because he is a teacher.
He told attendees that just as the Israelites each brought something unique to the construction of the Tabernacle, students can add their own contributions today.
“Every child brings something new,” he said. “Every family, every teacher, every moment of effort, big or small, adds another piece, something greater than ourselves.”
