Dinner Honorees
Amir & Stacey Goldman
Parents of the year
Amir and Yoetzet Stacey Goldman
are the recipients of the Parents of the Year Award. Their oldest son, Matan, completed the five year hesder program at Gush before starting Bar Ilan. His wife Margalit is receiving her bachelor’s degree from Herzog. Their son Shai did three years at Gush and is now attending Columbia College. His wife Esther (Stern) attended Migdal Oz. And their son Elan is currently in shana bet at Gush.
Stacey teaches Tanach at Kohelet Yeshiva High School in Philadelphia. She also gives adult education classes all over the greater Philadelphia area including Aish Chaim, Lower Merion Synagogue, and Hillel at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of Barnard College and the U.S. Yoetzet Halacha Program of Nishmat’s Miriam Glaubach Center and currently serves as Yoetzet Halacha for the greater Philadelphia community and the Young Israel/Aish in Las Vegas. She has published reflective essays and articles on chabad.org and has audio classes on YUTorah.org.
Amir is the founder and a managing director at Susquehanna Growth Equity, a private equity firm focused on software and information services businesses based in the US, Israel and Europe. Amir currently co-chairs the Orthodox Union’s Teach Coalition in Pennsylvania and serves on its national board, chairs the endowment of Jewish Federation of Philadelphia, and is a past president of the board of Caskey Torah Academy of Greater Philadelphia. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and holds an MBA from Harvard.
Stacey and Amir are the parents of five sons and reside in Merion Station, Pennsylvania. They deeply believe in the mission and values of Yeshivat Har Etzion and have always been impressed by the many alumni of the institution who serve important roles in government, business and education throughout the world and serve as important role models for modern orthodox communities everywhere.
Rabbi Chaim & Malca Jachter
Rabbinic and Communal Leadership AWARD
Rabbi Chaim Jachter ’81, with the loving support of Rabbanit Malca, serves the Jewish community in a wide variety of venues. Rabbi Jachter attended Yeshivat Har Etzion from 1981 to 1983. He has been a Rebbe at Torah Academy of Bergen County for the past twenty-seven years (and many of his students have gone on to learn at Yeshivat Har Etzion), the rabbi of Congregation Shaarei Orah (the Sephardic Congregation of Teaneck), a Dayan on the Beth Din of Elizabeth since 1993 (where his work is recognized by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate), and the author of no less than thirteen Sefarim and hundreds of articles (in which he often quotes Rav Yehuda Amital z”l and Rav Aharon Lichtenstein z”l).
Rabbi Jachter has been motivated by Rav Amital’s and Rav Lichtenstein’s impassionate call to contribute to the Jewish People. Rav Lichtenstein’s stirring words at his speech of Purim 1983 “Hayavim Litrom L’Am Yisrael” still continue to resound loudly in his ear.
Rabbanit Jachter supports Rabbi Jachter in all his endeavors which include advising more than sixty communities throughout North America about their Eruvin and responding to dozens of Halachic inquiries each week from all over the world. Rabbi Jachter once told Rav Amital that he never truly left Yeshivat Har Etzion; he is just on its “external program.”
Rabbi Noam & Shiffy Friedman
Alumni of the Year
Rabbi Noam ’07 and Yoetzet Shiffy MO ’06 Friedman are honored to receive this year’s Alumni of the Year award. Since 2014, the Friedmans have been directing the Heshe and Harriet Seif Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (OU-JLIC) at Columbia University/Barnard College. In that capacity, they serve as the rabbinic couple for a community of several hundred students; work closely with student leadership to strengthen Jewish life and Jewish infrastructure on campus; and teach, provide pastoral guidance, and build personal relationships with students and alumni.
Noam spent two years in Israel studying first at Yeshivat Torat Shraga and then Yeshivat Har Etzion (‘07-’08), following in the family tradition started by his father and brother (and later continued by his sister at Migdal Oz). He then studied at Yeshiva University for a BA in psychology and an MA in medieval Jewish history and received his semicha from RIETS.
Shiffy (nee Staiman) spent a year studying at Migdal Oz (‘06 – ‘07), and then received her BA from Stern College in Jewish Studies. She then earned a dual MA in Education and Jewish Studies from NYU and has been in the field of Jewish education for over a decade, currently teaching Judaic studies at her alma mater, Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School. She is a certified Yoetzet Halacha through Nishmat’s Miriam Glaubach Center and serves the Manhattan and Westchester communities in that capacity.
The Friedmans currently live with their children, Avital, Adir and Shachar, in Manhattan and plan to make aliyah this summer. Together they feel grateful for the role Yeshivat Har Etzion and Migdal Oz continue to play in their personal lives and their professional work.