In celebration of 52 years of Torah education, the Yeshiva Toras Chaim of South Shore will honor community leaders at its 52nd Annual Banquet tonight. Yeshiva of South Shore is led by its dean, Rav Binyomin Kamenetzky, and his son, the rosh hayeshiva, Rav Mordechai Kamenetzky (seen in photo), a noted speaker and author. The banquet will be held tonight at Congregation Knesseth Israel, The White Shul, in Far Rockaway.
The dinner chairman is Eli Veschleiser, Among the honorees are Eli and Marni Polatoff, Parents of the Year. Eli and Marni have devoted their lives to servicing the community through a synthesis of Torah and community values. Eli, the proprietor of The Party Source, is always busy helping someone prepare for a simcha, arranging an event for a Torah institution, or saving lives as a veteran member RL-33 of Hatzalah. Together with his wife, Marni, the educational director of Gan Eden preschool, the Polatoffs are deeply committed to YOSS. Their boys, Aharon and Avi, are talmidim of South Shore, and Eli serves as a member of the board of directors. They are also the proud parents of Tzivi and Leah, who attend TAG.
The yeshiva will also honor Morah Elana Fertig, the director of the Hollander Early Childhood Center. She joined the YOSS family six years ago. Combining creativity, compassion, and progressive educational methodologies, Morah Elana is known for her sage counsel and warm advice. Elana has a master’s of science in early childhood education and is an executive board member of both the Bnot Shulamith Board of Education and the Jewish Early Childhood Association of the BJE. She and her husband, Avi, a marketing communications consultant and a member of the yeshiva’s young leadership committee, are members of Congregation Aish Kodesh. Their son Yosef is a talmid of YOSS pre-1A, and their daughters, Tova, Zahava, and Hadassah, are students of Bnot Shulamith of Long Island.
The yeshiva will honor as Man of the Year the Honorable State Senator Dean Skelos. There is hardly a public servant who has served the communities of the Five Towns more faithfully and devotedly than Senator Skelos. For nearly three decades he has worked side-by-side with countless charitable institutions for education and social services to maintain of the health and well-being of our community. Since Mr. Skelos’s entry into political life, he has been a close friend and confidant with a pioneer of the Jewish communities of the Five Towns and founding dean of Yeshiva of South Shore, Rav Binyomin Kamenetzky.
The yeshiva will be dedicating the Father-Son Motzaei Shabbos Learning Program – one of the largest of its kind in the United States, serving more than 600 children and their fathers from all our local yeshivos – as the Leonard Goldstein Memorial Laiv Avos U’Banim program. Leonard Goldstein devoted his life to the growth of every Torah institution of his era, from the Young Israel of Woodmere to the local mikvah. With this dedication, the yeshiva is also expressing its gratitude for the ongoing support and friendship of the entire Goldstein family.
From its founding in East New York 82 years ago and for 52 years on Long Island, Yeshiva Toras Chaim of South Shore has inculcated in thousands of children and young men Torah values and the leadership skills to enable the torch of Jewish leadership to pass to future generations.
{5TJT with Elisha Ferber-Matzav.com Newscenter}
