by Julie Katz

Ezra Academy feels and acts like a family unit. At once warm and inviting, full of energy and activity, and all working toward the same goal: Ensuring that our children grow up to become educated and contributing members of society. Our values, which include deep participation, are modeled for our students by faculty and staff, of course, but also by the commitment and dedication of our lay committees. 

Ezra volunteers lend their expertise and develop new skills as they lead fundraising and outreach efforts, help ensure that our finances are sound, advise our Head of School on matters ranging from COVID safety to teacher development, and much, much more.

Leslie Zackin, who spearheaded Ezra’s fundraising and development efforts for many years, trained the next generation of Ezra’s fundraising committee: Debbie Chirnomas, Lauren Hass, Judy Kleinstein, Jeff Levick, and Joanna Romberg. Rachel Gerber and her outreach team put in countless hours reaching out to families and sharing their experiences. A giant thank you to Hadas Ben Esti, Brittany Branson, Debbie Chirnomas, Lauren Hass, Judy Kleinstein, Nicole Korda, Mira Lebowitz, Rachel Light, Marisol Moycik and Dan Prober. Our dedicated team of finance committee members- David Dobin, Ran Assaf, Jonathan Rohner - help ensure hat our books are healthy. Scott Ranani and Eli Lebowitz share their knowledge of education and child development as key members of the head of school support and evaluation committee. And Jen Ruth heroically ran the PTO for the second year in a row.

This summer we als welcome our new board chair: Cyd Oppenheimer. Under Cyd’s organized leadership, we aim to regain a bit of normalcy. This summer, we hosted our annual golf tournament at the New Haven Country Club and a series of events to introduce our board and Ezra families to our new head of school, Tani Cohen-Fraade. We’re always happy to include new volunteers - adults and young alums - to our Ezra family.