Honorees
As a unique team in our community, Beena and Steve Levy have worked tirelessly over the past 30 years to make day school education attainable and sustainable in our community and other Jewish communities nationwide. This amazing couple serve as examples that the Gottesman RTW Academy is proud to honor at this incredibly important moment in time, the 50th anniversary of the school. They represent the best of our school’s first five decades and serve as models for how future leaders should act for the next five decades.
Beena and Steve have each served many years on the GRTWA board of trustees including the position of president. More recently they co-chaired the extremely successful Our Future Together capital and endowment campaign for the school to build a new state-of-the-art school. They will both tell you that perhaps their greatest contribution to our community has been their three children; Rachel ’97, currently a teacher at the Gottesman RTW Academy, Jaime ’02 and Jacob. The fact that their three grandchildren (Neomi, Eyal and Matan) are also enrolled at the school is further proof of their longstanding belief in the value of a Gottesman RTW Academy education in helping to mold young Jewish children into future leaders.
Looking out further into our community, Beena and Steve were among the first founding members of the Greater MetroWest (GMW) Day School community fund and Day School Council. This organization continues to coordinate and fund joint efforts at improving the academic excellence and affordability of all four of GMW’s day schools. Beena has served on multiple committees within our local Jewish Federation sharing her compassion for members of our community that are less advantaged. Since retiring from a successful career on Wall Street in 2005, Steve has volunteered his strategic and financial acumen to all sorts of projects and he currently serves on the executive boards of both the Federation and the Jewish Community Foundation.
Beena and Steve are longtime members of the Mount Freedom Jewish Center and have led many important roles at the synagogue. On a national level, Steve played a key role in the Avi Chai supported, and PEJE implemented, program that has changed the way that endowment fundraising is being carried out by Jewish Day Schools in most major cities. Working with professionals and other volunteer leaders from our community in GMW and across the country, Steve’s efforts have helped to change the culture of giving and thus the sustainability of these day schools.
Team Levy also has a great love for Israel that is an inspiration to all. Beena’s past service as the president of the Morristown chapter of Hadassah and Steve’s more recent work as an investor and director of Israeli technology companies demonstrates that support.
We are proud to honor Beena and Steve Levy at our gala this year honoring their service to the community and celebrating our 50th year as a school. This marks a significant milestone in the history of the school and the lives of those who were and are privileged to be a part of this remarkable and very special community.