(Courtesy of BCHSJS) The Bergen County High School of Jewish Studies (BCHSJS), Bergen County’s only weekly Hebrew high school, will hold its annual gala dinner and largest fundraiser on Wednesday, June 5, at Congregation Beth Sholom in Teaneck.
At the gala, BCHSJS will honor Susan Tuchman, Esq., director of the Zionist Organization of America’s Center for Law and Justice, with its L’Dor V’Dor Award, which recognizes individuals who further Jewish continuity by supporting programs for Jewish teens. The school also will award the Walter Ramsfelder Exemplary Service Award to The Jewish Link of New Jersey, and recognize parent honorees Drs. Lia Tsveniashvili and David Pichkadze and Educator of the Year and longtime BCHSJS teacher, Dr. Daniel Rynhold.
Tuchman was named by The Forward newspaper as one of the “50 most influential members of the Jewish community” based on her legal work on behalf of Jewish students. Under her leadership, the ZOA filed a groundbreaking civil rights complaint challenging anti-Semitism at the University of California at Irvine, and led a battle that included rallying other national Jewish organizations and bipartisan support from Congress that resulted in Jewish students now being protected from anti-Semitic harassment and intimidation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. She has spoken to BCHSJS students and parents several times about anti-Semitism on college campuses and empowered the students with strategies and tools to help them address the problem. A resident of Tenafly, Tuchman is a member of the Jewish Federation for Northern New Jersey’s Jewish Community Relations Committee. She and her family are members of Congregation Beth Sholom.
The Jewish Link of New Jersey (JLNJ) was founded in March of 2013 by Moshe Kinderlehrer and Mark (Mendy) Schwartz of Teaneck and was first called The Jewish Link of Bergen County. It was an immediate success and became a weekly paper on its one-year anniversary in March 2014 and renamed The Jewish Link of New Jersey shortly after. Today, The Jewish Link is a leading hyperlocal Jewish community publication serving Bergen, Passaic, Essex, Union and Middlesex counties, with affiliate publications throughout the greater tri-state region and beyond, even as far south as the Washington, DC, area, and a Philadelphia Jewish Link about to launch in May.
The JLNJ is the leader and flagship publication of The Jewish Link family today and prints 13,000 copies weekly and delivers 7,000 copies via free home delivery to Jewish households in Northern New Jersey. Each and every edition—in print and online—is filled with original local features, community news items, timely opinion and op-ed pieces, engaging divrei Torah, enticing food and wine articles, informative home and living content and a plethora of pictures and articles showcasing the burgeoning and dynamic local Jewish communities, schools and shuls located in New Jersey today.
Lia Tsveniashvili and David Pichkadze of Fort Lee were both born in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, in a tight-knit Jewish community, “We are humbled and honored to be receiving this award. We greatly appreciate the wonderful academic and social environment of BCHSJS and are very grateful to be a part of this dynamic community of students and parents.” Lia is a physician advisor at Saint Barnabas Medical Center; David is an internal medicine physician practicing in Brooklyn. They and their two sons, Jacob and Sam (a junior at BCHSJS), are members of the Fort Lee JCC—Congregation Gesher Shalom.
BCHSJS teacher and Educator of the Year Daniel Rynhold, is professor of Jewish philosophy at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Yeshiva University. Educated at the Universities of Cambridge and London, Daniel previously held posts in the department of theology and religious studies at King’s College and lectured at the London School of Jewish Studies. He has taught across Europe, the U.S. and Israel, and authored three books and several essays on Jewish philosophy and ethics. He moved to the U.S. with his wife Sharon and four children in August 2007 and now resides in Teaneck. Reflecting on his 11-year tenure at BCHSJS, he shared, “I’ve always done my best to make my BCHSJS classroom a fun, lively, informative and interesting place and I’ve had some truly wonderful students.”
For more information on the dinner or to place an ad in the annual gala journal, visit www.bchsjsdinner.org.
