Teaneck—The 25th anniversary gala dinner of Nishmat, the Israeli learning center for women, will be held on Sunday, May 17, at the New York Academy of Medicine. Nishmat was founded in 1990 by Rabbanit Chana Henkin, to open the gates of higher Torah learning to women. Nishmat has since become a world center for women’s scholarship, leadership, and social responsibility. Ten years after its founding, Nishmat created a religious role of Yoatzot Halacha, women halachic advisors, seeking to pave the way for women to serve as leaders for other women when posing halachic questions related to family purity.
Joining the gala is a veritable dream team of influencers and academics, including many of Nishmat’s most visible supporters on the world stage.
Rachelle Sprecher Fraenkel became a household name last summer as the poetic and inspiring mother of Naftali Fraenkel hy”d, who was killed by Hamas operatives along with Eyal Yifrach hy”d and Gilad Shaer hy”d, murders that led to the declaration of Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. A long-time Yoetzet Halacha and Nishmat faculty member, Fraenkel will be spending Shabbos in Teaneck on May 15 and 16, and will also give a shiur before Sunday’s gala.
In Teaneck, Fraenkel will speak at Congregation Rinat Yisrael after mussaf, on “Jerusalem: The City That Unites All of Israel,” and at Congregation Keter Torah at 6:40 p.m., on “Emerging United From Summer 5774: An Open Discussion.”
Fraenkel, who spoke at the United Nations Human Rights Council last year, became an inspiring and impressive public hero during the shocking events of last summer, even as she publicly lost her son. She was placed into a role of comforting the nation of Israel who collaboratively mourned her son’s as well as Eyal and Gilad’s deaths. She also became a default or accidental religious hero as well, as when she recited Kaddish at the televised funeral over the death of her son, the Chief Rabbi of Israel and many others, automatically and authoritatively answered “Amen.”
The Flatow family, including Rosalyn and Stephen Flatow, Gail and Binyamin Rieder, Francine and Adam Mermelstein, Ilana and Dani Berkowitz, and Shaina and Etan Flatow, are being honored for their work with Nishmat, in commemoration of the 20th yahrtzeit of Alisa Flatow hy”d. The Flatow family has made it their mission over the last 20 years to ensure that Alisa’s memory is not forgotten. They have done that by endowing educational programming for young women, at Nishmat and other institutions, and also by become anti-terrorism financing activists and holding foreign governments, in particular Iran, responsible for the terrorism that killed their daughter and sister.
“Nishmat holds a special place in our family’s life as Alisa was a student there at the time of her murder in 1995,” said Stephen Flatow. “Alisa was thriving Jewishly and socially when she was murdered and much of her growth in the last months of her life is attributable to being a student at Nishmat,” he said.
“Being the father of four girls, I’ve long believed that girls and women are entitled to receive a demanding Jewish education. Nothing in Tanach nor Talmud should be off limits to them. Nishmat has been a leader in providing Jewish women with a rigorous curriculum. When you educate a boy, you educate a man. But when you educate a girl, you educate a family,” he said.
In addition to the Flatow family, guests of honor at the dinner include Jeanie and Jay Schottenstein, who are being given the Visionary Award, and Layaliza and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik.
Learn more about Nishmat and attend the Nishmat dinner by visiting www.afnishmat.org or by calling Genene Kaye, Director of Institutional Advancement at 201-525-5100.
By Elizabeth Kratz
