NCFJE Celebrates at 78th Dinner

By COLlive reporter
Photos: Mendel Grossbaum, Itzik Roytman

Hundreds of donors, friends and dignitaries were present at the Edison Ballroom in Manhattan to celebrate with the NCFJE organization at the 78th Annual Awards Dinner.

The evening at the Edison Ballroom in New York City on Sunday began with a solemn invocation and candle lighting commemorating those murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Rabbi Dr. Hank and Dr. Debbie Sheinkopf were the event’s Guests of Honor, presented by Toys for Hospitalized Children Director, Rabbi J.J. Hecht.

Mica and Yossi Soffer were presented with the Lamplighter Award by real estate mogul Mr. Yossi Popack, who praised the couple’s accomplishments in business, as well as the influential place that COLlive.com has earned in the Jewish world.

NCFJE President and real estate developer Sholom Jacobs presented Ari and Batsheva Daskal with the Kesser Shem Tov Award.

Assistant Director of the FBI, Agent William Sweeney was presented with the Distinguished Public Safety Award by Rabbi Shimon Hecht, Member of the Executive Committee NCFJE.

Agent Sweeney emphasized the importance of organizations like the NCFJE in promoting social order and a just society; and that the eyes of law enforcement are constantly looking out for the Jewish community.

NCFJE was founded in 1941 by the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, of sainted memory, to teach Torah to public school students through the Jewish Released Time Program. Over the past 78 years, the organization launched many social welfare and Jewish education initiatives, including Camp Emunah, Hadar Hatorah, Operation Survival, among others.