Rabbi Yisroel Stein, Kirk Levy, and Kevin and Amy Lefcoe.
Toras Chaim held its annual dinner at B’nai Israel Congregation on Monday, June 3, honoring Amy and Kevin Lefcoe with the Gesher award for building bridges in community and education.
The Lefcoes have been involved with the Jewish community on so many different levels and in so many different ways. Whatever they do, and wherever they are, they excel at bringing together Jews from all backgrounds.
Amy Lefcoe and Betty Ann Levin.
Toras Chaim also honored two long-time volunteers for the school, Michele Aronoff and Ruth Cohen. These women have run the school bingo game twice a week for the last 17 years. The school bingo game is a very important source of funding for Toras Chaim and it wouldn’t be possible to have these games if not for these two dedicated women. They have given a tremendous amount of time for the benefit of Toras Chaim and its students, and deserved the school’s recognition.
The dinner program for the more than 140 people who attended, began with a performance from the Toras Chaim boys’ choir.
Nathan Drory, Kevin Lefcoe, and David Cohen.
Kirk Levy served as dinner chairman and master of ceremonies. “Having a cheder in our relatively small community presents its challenges, but the support from everyone for the Toras Chaim Annual Dinner was overwhelming. Many readily supported the school, but honoring Kevin and Amy Lefcoe certainly helped bring in additional donors. It was a privilege and an honor to have chaired the event,” says Levy.
Speakers during the evening included Rabbi Gershon Litt, Rabbi Sender Haber, Rabbi Mordechai Loiterman, and Betty Ann Levin, United Jewish Federation of Tidewater executive vice president. When Levin began to speak, she joked, “I don’t know the last time or next time my speech will follow three rabbis.”
Toras Chaim boys’ choir.
The evening closed with an exciting music video with hundreds of pictures from an entire year at Toras Chaim. The video gave Toras Chaim parents, volunteers, and donors an opportunity to see how all their hard work and money pays off in tremendous ways.
Rabbi Yisroel Stein