‘Show Me Mirowitz’ gala set for May 1

jennifer Goldenberg
The Stiffman-Maayan family

For the first time in three years, Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School will return to an in-person annual gala, which will be held May 1 at the World’s Fair Pavilion in Forest Park.

The “Show Me Mirowitz” event will honor Randee and Dr. Myron Jacobs, recipients of the school’s Meyer and Marcelle Kranzberg Visionary Award, and the Stiffman/Maayan family (Dr. Arlene and Rabbi Jeffrey Stiffman, Cheryl, Jon, Gabe and Ari Maayan), recipients of the school’s Community Service Award.

“Each of these honorees, individually and collectively, has set an example of communal responsibility and leadership,” said Mirowitz Board President Dr. Diane Rosen in a statement. “We are grateful to each of them for the role they have played in shaping and sustaining our school.”

Myron and Randee Jacobs have worked to remove barriers to academic success and to ensure that Mirowitz does not have to turn away students with mild to moderate learning needs. They established the Randee Brown Jacobs and Betty and Jordan Brown Fund for Learning, and helped launch a campaign to endow a learning support team for Mirowitz that includes academic support, speech pathology, occupational therapy and counseling.

“The school is turning out wonderful people,” Myron Jacobs said in a statement. “Its alumni are Jewishly knowledgeable and socially conscious. Every child should have that foundation, and we feel proud that we are helping to make that possible at Mirowitz.”

Each generation of the Stiffman/ Maayan family has played a role in the success of Mirowitz. Among them are Mirowitz parents, grandparents and students, a board president, a head of school and two distinguished alumni.

“Caring about Jewish education and its impact on the future is in our DNA,” said Mirowitz Head of School Cheryl Maayan. Her mother, Dr. Arlene Stiffman, was board president of Mirowitz legacy school Reform Jewish Academy (RJA). Her father, Rabbi Jeffrey Stiffman, worked to encourage Reform rabbis and prospective families to envision and embrace the school.

Their involvement and the promise of the new school enticed Cheryl and her husband Jon to move home to St. Louis, and Cheryl taught at RJA for seven years before being recruited out of the classroom and into the head of school’s office in 2008. For 14 years, she has led the school through times of great change — most significantly the merger of RJA and Solomon Schechter and the challenges of running a school during a pandemic.

She says her leadership would not have been possible without the support and steady counsel of her husband Jon, and the patience of her sons Gabe and Ari, who are using the lessons they learned during their Mirowitz years to impact the world. Gabe is a software engineer at MITRE, and will begin a Ph.D. program in computer science/data science at Boston University next year. Ari graduates from Purdue in May with a degree in Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, and will begin his role of Water Resource Engineer at Wood in August.

The gala also will honor teachers and staff who are celebrating 5, 10 and 15 years at Mirowitz including 5-year-employees Fran Milsk and Lee’at Koertel; 10-year-employee AJ Moll; and 15-year employee Betti Blumoff.

The gala, which is chaired by Patty Croughan and Rachel Pepe, starts at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 1, and will include cocktails and a seated dinner.  Tickets are: $150 per person; tickets also come with sponsorship levels of $1,800 and up. Visit www.mirowitz.org/gala or call Marianne Chervitz at 314-576-6177 for more information or to purchase tickets.

“Show Me Mirowitz” is being underwritten with support from sponsors including Ellen and Jack Deutsch, Randee and Myron Jacobs, the Staenberg Family Foundation, Darien and Steve Arnstein, Nancy and Randy Green – the Gladys K. Crown Foundation, Marilyn and Marty Levison, Barbara Mirowitz, Noemi and Michael (z”l) Neidorff, Fran and Harvey Cantor, Diane and Paul Gallant, Sabina and Doug Holtzman, Marshall Myers, RubinBrown, Gloria and Sanford Spitzer, Wealth Management Advisors, Inc – Sherri F. Weintrop, Deborah Zorensky and Phyllis Cherrick, among others.