Sunni Herman, a Teaneck resident and the Executive Vice President of the Jewish Home at Rockleigh, is set to be the guest of honor at the upcoming annual Shulamith of Brooklyn dinner on Sunday, April 22 at the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center.
Sunni is a proud and committed Shulamith alum and “just a girl from Brooklyn,” as she likes to say. She is being honored for her many contributions to the greater Jewish and nonprofit communities and as an exemplary individual who prides herself on teaching self-awareness, compassion and the value of teamwork to everyone she meets.
But there is more to Herman, who was known to her Shulamith friends as Sara Pollack, and she is not your regular dinner honoree.
Growing up with five siblings first in Boro Park and later Belle Harbor, she attended Shulamith from 1st grade until she graduated from high school in 1991. Shulamith was a family affair for her as her sister Devorah went there, and her grandmother, Chana Pollack taught there. Her mother, Shelley, also taught there for many years while her father, Dr. Abraham Pollack, a renowned diagnostic radiologist in Brooklyn and Manhattan, was attending medical school, residency, and building up his career.
While studying at Shulamith, she learned the important value of looking out for her fellow community members, and these ideals would later shape her career and personal decisions in life once she earned her Masters. She chose to study public administration, and after spending some time working as an assistant at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, she moved on to hold senior administrative roles at the Jewish Home in Manhattan, St. Johnland Nursing Center and Gurwin Jewish on Long Island. In late 2010, Sunni uprooted her family, her husband, Jonathan, and her three children, from W. Hempstead to Teaneck, to assume her current position at the Jewish Home in Rockleigh.
Elaborating on her time at Shulamith, Herman says one of the greatest things she gained was a sense of empowerment. An invaluable asset, she sees it as an integral component of the person she is today and led her to become involved in policy and advocacy work.
“I remember going to the rallies for Russian Jewry and Natan Sharansky and being an advocate on a local level and saying: what can we do to make a difference? When I met the students here, today, and I see them running the school marketing efforts and being empowered to come up to me and say, how do we fundraise for different programs that we want to do here? It touches me,” she said. “It says this tradition of girl empowerment is continuing today in Brooklyn. When I grew up in Brooklyn it was Brooklyn and the rest of the world.”
Herman has also served as an advocate for public policy issues regarding Medicare, even doing so in the White House and on Capital Hill. Additionally, she has collaborated with Jewish community agencies, such as NCSY, Yavneh Academy, Sharsheret, and HANC.
Returning recently to meet with current Shulamith students in anticipation of the honor, she explained how doing so has been somewhat of a full circle journey for her. “I have a huge amount of hakarat hatov to this school,” Herman says of her experiences. “I truly believe that it gave me the foundation to be who I am… I’ve been very privileged over the last twenty years to have incredible professional experiences. I’ve been able to travel the country, create innovative programs, work with incredible people on a local, state, and federal level… It touched my heart to come back here, to see the girls as I once was.”
Herman has thrown herself into the role of dinner honoree with an infectious energy and enthusiasm and is proud to have tracked down and contacted almost her entire class to invite them to join her at the dinner and support the school. With input from the students and administration, she quickly put together a team that developed a new dinner website and school site, with more to come in future months. Her connection to Shulamith is only growing stronger, she feels, and she wants her fellow alumnae and everyone she knows to understand the depth of her passion and commitment to the school.
Working together in teams, according to Herman, anything truly is possible. “It’s been very important to me to build teams, to inspire teams,” Herman explained. “I learned how to do that here, at Shulamith. I worked with my classmates, and we inspired each other… We worked hard, and we really supported each other. And I learned from that the importance of working all together, as a team.”
Speaking about her honor, she says that she’s grateful for the platform provided by the dinner to spread her message of the merits and rewards that hard work can pay out with.
“My hope is to inspire others to say, whatever is your goal do it,” Herman went on to say. “Work hard, envision that finish line, and figure out what it takes to be there. Believe in yourself. Believe in who you are.”
Other honorees for the upcoming Shulamith of Brooklyn dinner include Gail (Gitty) Forkosh, longtime and beloved math teacher Mrs. Diane Kesten, and Shulamith parents Mark & Olivia Nagel. To RSVP or donate, visit: www.shulamithofbrooklyn.org/dinner�or call: 718-338-4000 Ext. 200 or email Michelle Choina at: [email protected]
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By Moshe Kinderlehrer, Co-Publisher
