Two local women who have fostered traditional Jewish values in their homes and communities while achieving success in demanding careers will be honored at Chabad of Western Monmouth County’s 23rd annual Jewish Women’s Day Program on March 7.
The event will begin at 11 a.m. at the Morganville Fire House, Tennent Road, Morganville section of Marlboro, and will include a brunch and auction featuring themed gift baskets.
Sandra Cohen, of Manalapan, and Roberta Langman, of Freehold, will be honored with the Aishes Chayil (Woman of Valor) Award during the event that will take place one week after the festival of Purim.
The women will be recognized as modern day Queen Esthers, in recognition of the heroine of the holiday, who saved the Jews of ancient Persia.
Both recipients, who use their talents to help people in the community and assist in Chabad programs, are looking forward to sharing the stories of how their families have been enriched by Chabad, according to a press release.
Cohen lived in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan until her family moved to Teaneck when she was 10. A yeshiva student through high school, she graduated from Douglass College of Rutgers University with a B.A. in Economics and Judaic Studies.
She worked as a junior accountant in New York and went on to Seton Hall Law School. In 2005, Cohen joined the firm of Epstein, Cohen and Gilberti in Red Bank, where she specializes in corporate and real estate law.
Cohen and her husband of 28 years, Steve, have four children. Daughter Barrie is a senior biology major at Stern College of Yeshiva University; son Andrew is a freshman in the Honors Engineering program at Rutgers University; son Marc is an eighth-grader at Manalapan Englishtown Middle School; and son Benjamin is a sixth-grader at the Pine Brook School.
Cohen was introduced to Chabad as a teenager when she worked at a summer camp with Chabad counselors, so it was only natural that she and her husband would send their children to Chabad’s Camp Gan Israel when they moved to Manalapan in 1998. They began to participate in a variety of Chabad programs and have been attending synagogue regularly for about five years.
Langman was raised on a chicken farm in Jackson after her parents moved the family to Ocean County from New York. She and her husband of 38 years, Sam, have three children and a granddaughter.
Daughter Yael, who works in the fashion industry in New York, lives in the city; son Yaron, who is a doctor, and his wife, Talia, a dentist and student, also live in Manhattan.
Daughter Aliza and her husband, Will, live in Providence, R.I., where Aliza is working on her doctorate degree in clinical psychology and Will is an associate professor at the University of Rhode Island. They are the parents of 8-month-old Ella.
Currently an art teacher at the Holman School in Jackson, where she has worked for 23 years, Langman has a master’s degree in education from Georgian Court College (now university).
Speaking of her participation with Chabad, Langman said, “In addition to becoming more observant, we have learned a great deal from Rabbi Avraham and Zisi Bernstein. For one thing, I learned that being observant did not mean you can’t enjoy a good joke! The Bernsteins teach by example and I have learned a lot by watching them.”
Chabad is not only the core of her family’s religious life, but the center of their social life, and Roberta finds that going to synagogue on the Sabbath is a time for warm friendships as well as praying.
In keeping with the theme “Raising the Curtain for the Next Act,” the guest speaker on March 7 will be Darlene Wendy Frank, a former Radio City Music Hall Rockette, who has performed for presidents, appeared on television, and danced in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Super Bowl halftime Show.
Frank is currently an exercise and fitness trainer in Forest Hills, N.Y. She is also a popular inspirational speaker who regales audiences with tales of her glamorous life and journey toward spiritual fulfillment through her return to her Jewish roots.
Tickets for the brunch are $36 with a prepaid reservation. Admission at the door will be $40. Contributions can be made in the following categories: Donor ($54), Sponsor ($72), Patron ($100), and Golden Patron ($126). For more information, call 732-972-3687.