Diana Ganger, Program Director for the Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative in Glen Ellyn, IL and New York, is one of three exceptional educators from across the spectrum of Jewish life who will receive a 2008 Covenant Award at a celebration of Jewish life and education Oct. 28 in New York.
Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, Dean of Yeshiva Darchei Noam in Monsey, NY; and Susan Werk, Educational Director at Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell, NJ are also 2008 awardees.
“The Covenant Award was created to recognize the people who do extraordinary work on the ground, in classrooms and synagogues, across all denominations and in all settings,” said Harlene Winnick Appelman, Executive Director of The Covenant Foundation and 1991 Covenant Award recipient. “We highlight people with special souls, whose work directly touches Jews of all ages seeking inclusion and fulfillment in Jewish life.”
To mark the Foundation’s 18th year, most of the 54 educators who have received the Covenant Award will attend the Oct. 28 event, which will feature a film about the recipients by acclaimed filmmaker Pearl Gluck.
Ganger, of Glen Ellyn, IL, is a native of Argentina, born to a German-Jewish family that fled the Holocaust. With a degree in Social Work from Washington University in Missouri, she began a career in Jewish early childhood education in 1985 as Director of the Moriah Childcare Center in Deerfield, IL. There, she created a model of a family-centered school that gained recognition throughout the country.
Appointed in 2004 as Program Director of the Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative (JECEI), she has spearheaded efforts to redefine how families and institutions can become co-visionaries of Jewish life. Her citation marks only the second time that an early childhood educator has been honored with the Covenant Award, and Foundation leaders said it is important to recognize outstanding achievement in this critical but under-funded area.
“She began to push the borders of understanding of what makes an early childhood center Jewish,” says Cantor Mark Horowitz, Executive Director of JECEI, who nominated her for the Covenant Award. “She knew instinctively that the needs of the family must be at the center of creating Jewish life in a school community. She explored home visits, created sacred communities in which families felt supported through life's challenges and celebrations, and opened the doors of her school to meaningful parent engagement.”
Each of the awardees will receive $36,000, and each of their institutions will receive $5,000.
“We’re using the occasion of The Covenant Foundation’s 18th year to celebrate Jewish educators and Jewish education in a special way,” Appelman said. “We were blessed to hear about scores of worthy educators in this year’s awards process, and to be able to highlight three people who really personify what Jewish education is all about and what a Covenant Award recipient is supposed to be. Not only someone with energy and intelligence and vision, though all of those are crucial, but also someone whose deep love for the Jewish people, whose generosity, and whose passion for teaching enriches the lives of everyone around them. Susan, Yakov, and Diana honor us by the work they do, and we are proud to celebrate them.”
The Covenant Foundation is a program of the Crown Family Foundation and the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA).
Nominations for the 2009 Awards will be accepted on or before Dec. 1, 2008. For more information, including full guidelines and a list of past recipients, visit www.covenantfn.org.
