More than 400 graduates will participate in this year's 79th Commencement Exercises on June 6. The ceremony will honor ten students receiving a Master of Arts in Jewish Education—including the first two graduates from Hebrew College South—and two students receiving a Master of Arts in Jewish Studies. Five certificates will be awarded in Early Childhood Jewish Education and one each in Jewish Communal and Clinical Social Work, Jewish Family Education and, for the first time, Jewish Special Education. Nearly 300 Me'ah students will graduate, as will 126 Prozdor students.

Dr. Lawrence S. Bacow, Tufts University President, will deliver the Commencement address. An expert on environmental policy and urban development, Bacow began his career at MIT, where he directed the Center for Real Estate, was a professor of law and environmental policy, served as chairman of the faculty and was the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies before becoming chancellor. A Hebrew College trustee since 1999, Bacow is one of four distinguished Jewish communal leaders to be awarded an honorary degree.

The other three honorees are James Carroll, prolific novelist, essayist and one of the foremost voices in contemporary interfaith relations; Ralph I. Goldman HC'34, honorary executive vice president and former world director of the American Joint Distribution Committee; and Lee Meyerhoff Hendler, memoirist, dedicated philanthropist and communal leader.

This year's Dr. Benjamin J. Shevach Memorial Award, the College's highest honor for meritorious achievement in Jewish educational leadership, will be presented to Dr. David Starr, dean of Me'ah and assistant professor of Jewish history. Shoshana Zonderman BJEd'68, Cert'95, MJEd'96, founding director of Sulamot Family Education Initiative of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, will receive the Louis Hillson Memorial Award. Sheryl Levitt Schwartz P'74, BJEd'78, teacher and former nursery school director at the Congregation Mishkan Tefila Religious School, will accept the Sidney Hillson Memorial Award; her mother, Mildred Levitt, received the award in 1995.

Photo by Bethany Versoy

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