Rooted in the traditions of Chabad, Brashevitzky has spent her career helping children, families, and educators in Tidewater discover Judaism as a living, relevant, and personal tradition. 

 Brashevitzky’s story begins with her upbringing at Chabad of Tidewater, where Jewish education was a way of life. From an early age, she was taught the importance of sharing Jewish learning with others, a value that became foundational to her approach as an educator and leader. 

 Even as a child, she stepped naturally into leadership, running youth Shabbat groups and engaging other children in Jewish life. By 19, she was teaching full-time. Her early involvement evolved into a lifelong calling. 

 Brashevitzky’s current role as Judaic Studies director at Strelitz International Academy came after she began raising her family with her husband, Rabbi Levi Brashevitzky. When her third and youngest child was in kindergarten, Brashevitzky says she embraced a leadership opportunity, describing it as the beginning of a new chapter in her professional and communal life. 

 Emphasizing that Jewish tradition is not static, but alive, Brashevitzky’s view, which is shaped by Chassidic tradition, is that the Torah speaks across generations, offering wisdom for experiences and challenges that remain part of the human experience. 

 In today’s world, Brashevitzky sees Jewish education as both grounding and essential. As young Jews encounter a wide range of identities and influences, she believes Jewish learning provides continuity and connection. She also acknowledges that Jewish community feels especially meaningful during a time of increased antisemitism. 

“When the world is scary,” she says, “Jewish education feels like coming home.” 

 Outside the classroom, Brashevitzky’s work at Chabad of Tidewater reflects that same philosophy. Together with her family, she welcomes Shabbat guests from across the community and around the world, designs engaging holiday programs, and leads a women’s personal growth group rooted in Jewish wisdom. 

 Brashevitzky’s commitment to building community among parents, staff, and families shaped her decision to pursue a Master of Social Work, which she sees as a natural extension of her work. At Chabad of Tidewater, she assists with everything from pastoral counseling and grief support to addressing food insecurity and connecting individuals with needed resources. 

 Her perspective reflects a broader philosophy that Jewish values and social-emotional health are inseparable. Caring for others, sharing what one has, and taking responsibility for one another are central expressions of Jewish teaching, while emotional and spiritual wellbeing must be considered together. 

 When reflecting on the people who shaped her path, Brashevitzky points to her parents, Rabbi Aron and Rychel Margolin, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe as central influences. 

 “The Rebbe was a big part of my universe as a child, but something I’ve chosen as an adult,” she says. 

 Being recognized as an Outstanding Jewish American in Tidewater, she says, is both humbling and meaningful. 

 “It is pretty cool. I am really touched and honored that someone would think of me. It is nice to know that when you work really hard, the impact is seen. I pride myself on being inclusive, and I am so happy that was recognized.” 

  Through classrooms, family engagement, and community life in Tidewater, Brashevitzky continues to advance a vision of Jewish education that is accessible, connected, and alive—one rooted not only in teaching tradition, but in helping people see themselves within it. 

Interested in nominating someone to be recognized as an Outstanding Jewish American in Tidewater? Visit JewishVA.org/TidewaterHeroes or contact Sierra Lautman at SLautman@UJFT.org. 

 The celebration began on May 4 with an exploration of Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a complex figure in American Jewish art history. An intimate group gathered at the Sandler Family Campus for a screening of Moses Ezekiel: Portrait of a Lost Artist, which prompted conversation about the tension between Ezekiel’s artistic achievements and his support of the Confederacy. Alex Pincus and other members of the Pincus family, who are descendants of Ezekiel, spoke briefly about the family connection and what they knew about the complicated man.

 That dialogue extended to two guided tours at the Norfolk Botanical Garden the following week where participants encountered Ezekiel’s work in the Moses Ezekiel Statuary Vista Garden. Standing among the Carrara marble sculptures he created in Rome, attendees engaged with his legacy, deepening reflection on how his art and local history intersect.

 The exploration of Jewish artistic legacy continued with docent-led tours of Architects of Being: Louise Nevelson and Esphyr Slobodkina at the Chrysler Museum of Art. Led in large part by Harry Graber, longtime community leader and former UJFT CEO, the tours highlighted the innovation of these groundbreaking Jewish artists. Participants engaged with themes of immigration, identity, resilience, and creativity, gaining a deeper appreciation for the lasting influence Jewish American artists have had on the nation’s cultural fabric. “[The exhibit] was an epiphany,” says Lorna Orleans. “Very able docent Harry Graber led the visit with great knowledge and humor. After visiting this exhibit, one was left with the impression that these two women were literally and figuratively truly architects of their own being.”

 On May 6, JAHM was marked at Harbor Park, where families and friends from the Jewish communities on both sides of the water gathered for the Norfolk Tides’ inaugural Jewish American Heritage Night. UJFT and the United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula had approached the Tides to organize the night last year, but inclement weather on two separate dates led to postponing it until 2026. Highlights of the evening included Tidewater native and award winning Jewish country artist Troy Breslow’s performance of the National Anthem, and local Cox High School pitcher MJ Lemke – recently signed to play Division I baseball at the University of Richmond – making the ceremonial first pitch.

 The month closed with a residency of author, educator, and musician Jason Schachter McKinney, whose programming invited participants of all ages and backgrounds to reflect on identity and belonging. Through school visits, performances, synagogue engagements, and interfaith dialogue, McKinney used music and storytelling to explore what it means to hold multiple identities while building community.

 At Butts Road Intermediate School, McKinney read his new book, Jason Belongs to 120 third grade students, sparking enthusiastic questions about language, heritage, and growing up in a multicultural family. The visit concluded the school’s JAHM programming and SOL testing season.

 McKinney also participated in UJFT’s Annual Celebration of Lifelong Learning, this year held at the Jewish Museum and Cultural Center, where he offered an intimate concert, singing traditional Jewish songs and spirituals in his signature operatic baritone voice. “The Jewish Museum provided a beautiful setting,” says Nancy Bangel. 

“Jason filled the room with his larger-than-life powerful voice that filled me with emotion.” Normon Soroko, president of JMCC, adds, “The event was wonderful. Chazan McKinney gave one of the best performances I have seen in a while.”

 McKinney also visited area synagogues, beginning at Ohef Sholom Temple where he served as a guest speaker and led the congregation in a rendition of Oseh Shalom that he composed. He also participated in services at Kehillat Beit Hamidrash alongside congregants and clergy from Temple Israel and Temple Emmanuel, where his music and storytelling added a meaningful dimension to prayer and communal connection. 

 McKinney’s residency concluded with an interfaith service at Second Presbyterian Church with Pastor Craig Wansink, music director Bob Shoup, and Rabbi Michael Panitz, helping to bridge communities through an exploration of faith through music. Wansink says that having McKinney as a guest “made for a meaningful and memorable experience,” expressing gratefulness on behalf of his congregation.

 Together, these programs created a multifaceted portrait of Jewish American Heritage Month, inviting the community to engage with the complexity of Jewish American experience, as well as with the ongoing work of building belonging across difference.

“For Minette, I believe the temple choir was an intersection of two very meaningful elements in her life – music and faith,” says Chuck Woodward, Ohef Sholom Temple’s music director. “For its members, the choir became a community. Minette sang with the choir for nearly 40 years, helping nurture a space where relationships formed alongside the music.”

Cooper’s belief in building community extended far beyond Jewish life. She saw the arts as another way people could gather, connect, and understand one another. Her most enduring impact came through Arts for Learning Virginia (formerly Young Audiences), where she served as a donor, program leader, and board president, and as a member of the organization’s national board of directors. Under her influence, the organization grew to more than 600 performances annually, bringing arts education directly to more than 38,000 students in schools across the state.

She also worked closely with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra (serving as president the same time she was president of Ohef Sholom) as well as numerous regional arts and educational institutions – receiving multiple awards for her effectiveness and contributions as a board member and leader.
Her influence expanded from local organizations to statewide advocacy efforts, including the creation of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Hampton Roads and as a board member of Virginians for the Arts, where she helped demonstrate the civic and economic importance of the arts.

Leadership aside, Cooper never stopped being a participant. She continued to attend board meetings, serve on committees, sing in the Virginia Symphony Chorus, and subscribe to an array of arts performances across Hampton Roads, regularly bringing family and friends along.

“She saw Judaism as family,” says her son, Erik. “Her goal was always to make sure everyone felt heard.” The mother of three – Brooke, Erik, and Jeff – she was known for hosting family seders and break the fasts that included extended family and friends.

“She took pleasure in seeing her kids and grandchildren build their own Jewish lives,” says Erik.

Through her involvement with the Elizabeth River Project, she participated in oyster-raising efforts from her pier and later delivered them for environmental monitoring. Her grandchildren joined her in this work, and several continued it in their own B’nai Mitzvah and civic projects.
She was, Jeff says, the “rock” of the family, quietly managing logistics, gatherings, and connections.

“I relied on her to do a lot of stuff without realizing all the stuff I relied on her to do. She just did it,” says Erik.

She maintained a meticulously organized system for the family’s annual holiday card, the Cooper Gazette, which reached upwards of 2,500 people each year. Long before digital networks, she built her own, an expansive web of connection sustained through the relationships she carefully tended. In every corner of her life across more than half a century in the Jewish community, the arts, and civic institutions across Tidewater, Cooper practiced her most defining qualities: a relentless curiosity about people and a determination that no one should ever feel forgotten.

“Her small family growing up shaped everything,” Jeff says. “It’s why she built so much community around her.”

Perhaps most powerfully, Cooper lives on in her family by the habits she demonstrated: showing up, staying connected, and believing that community is something you actively create every day.

As her granddaughter Hannah reflects, she was “a once-in-a-generation person.”

Cooper’s impact cannot be contained in a single organization, title, or decade. It lives in the institutions she strengthened, the cultural life she expanded, the Jewish history she preserved, and the thousands of people who received a handwritten note, a remembered detail, or an invitation that made them feel included.

Minette Cooper spent her life making sure people felt remembered. In the process, she created communities that will remember her for generations.

Interested in nominating someone to be recognized as an Outstanding Jewish American in Tidewater? Visit JewishVA.org/TidewaterHeroes or contact Sierra Lautman at SLautman@UJFT.org.

 In honor of America at 250, Salomonsky is being recognized by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater as an Outstanding Jewish American in Tidewater.

 In the mid-1990s, while Salomonsky was working part-time for the Jewish Community Center, Jewish Family Service of Tidewater received a grant for a part-time “bill payer” position to assist older adults who needed help managing finances. Salomonsky took the job. From that position, she began encountering people who required guardianship services, but there was no local model for how to assist them.

 “We had Jewish community members who needed guardianships, and nobody really knew how to do it,” Salomonsky recalls.

 Working alongside Harry Graber (then JFS CEO), and local attorneys, Salomonsky helped create a structure that would eventually shape public guardianship across Virginia. The model, in which an agency serves as guardian with oversight from an advisory committee, became the foundation for the state’s public guardian law.

 Today, JFS’s guardianship program serves more than 1,200 clients and employs approximately 75 staff across local and remote teams.

 “We knew from the beginning there was a need,” Salomonsky says. “In the late 90s, we had 10 clients. Then in 2005, we had 60. Now we keep a steady number over 1,000 clients year after year.”

 For Salomonsky, however, success is not measured in numbers. The heart of the work is dignity.

 “By the time someone comes into the guardianship program, they’ve already gone beyond their worst day,” she says. “The point is for them to still feel human. They need to feel seen.”

 That philosophy shapes the program’s approach to care. The guardian representative acts not just as a case manager, but as a friend.

 One story from the late 1990s remains with Salomonsky.

 A former Navy nurse with dementia had recently moved into a facility. When she turned 100, JFS staff attended a large celebration for her at the facility, complete with decorations, food, and entertainment. But throughout the party, the woman sat quietly, staring at her hands.

 Then, her guardian representative brought her an assortment of Hershey chocolate bars, and suddenly the woman lit up, spending the rest of the afternoon happily arranging and admiring them.

 “It taught me that the big party didn’t matter,” Salomonsky says. “What mattered was that someone knew her well enough to know she loved Hershey bars.”

 That same commitment to individualized care extends to clients living on the margins. Salomonsky describes one man who chooses to remain homeless, despite the program’s efforts to help him find housing.

 “But when he’s sick, or there’s a storm, he calls us,” she says. “He knows someone will be there for him.”

 Salomonsky’s sense of communal responsibility stretches back generations. Both her family and her husband’s family have deep roots in Tidewater – since the early 1900s. In fact, her grandfather was among the founders of Brith Sholom Lodge. 

Her great-grandfather, Abraham Silverman, owned a fish market in Norfolk and on Friday nights, he would often bring newly arrived Jewish immigrants home from the port to share Shabbat dinner with the family.

 “My great-grandmother would make huge trays of gefilte fish from the market,” Salomonsky says. “I grew up hearing those stories from my mother, and they taught me that you show up for your community. You welcome people in.”

That’s a way of way of life Salomonsky has lived with her husband, Edwin, and modeled for her four children and seven grandchildren. 

 Though she never initially planned to become a Jewish communal professional, Salomonsky says helping others through the Jewish community always felt natural.

 Now, decades after helping build a program that changed lives across the Commonwealth, Salomonsky remains focused on the same simple lesson she learned from her family and from the clients she has served: meaningful care starts with truly seeing another person.

 Her advice to future Jewish leaders is equally straightforward: “Get involved. And don’t be afraid to try something new.”

Interested in nominating someone to be recognized as an Outstanding Jewish American in Tidewater? Visit JewishVA.org/TidewaterHeroes or contact Sierra Lautman at SLautman@UJFT.org.

“Thank you very much for the generous gift of books!” Porter-Smith wrote. “Our students are already checking them out! One student in particular who is very proud of his Jewish faith and heritage was over the moon when I showed him the new titles.”

The books were sent as part of The Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) Book Project, which brings Jewish stories to thousands of local students each year, many encountering this history and culture for the first time.

Carefully curated by a diverse volunteer committee of educators and community members, this year’s selections highlight the breadth of Jewish life while exploring universal themes such as identity, empathy, courage, and belonging. 

 Spanning elementary through high school, the books invite students to engage with meaningful questions, connect personal experiences to larger historical narratives, and develop a deeper understanding of both Jewish and American identity. The project is provided by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Konikoff Center for Learning, with generous support from the family of Rita Frank, in memory of Abraham E. Frank, and powered by local volunteers who help prepare and distribute the books. Through this collaborative effort, the initiative continues to foster curiosity, compassion, and meaningful conversation across classrooms throughout the region.

 The 2026 JAHM book list was carefully curated by a volunteer selection committee of educators and community members. This year’s titles invite students to explore Jewish life in all its diversity.

2026 JAHM selections

High School 

High school students will explore complex questions of identity and moral responsibility through a range of contemporary and historical narratives. Dear Mr. Dickens by Nancy Churin tells the true story of Eliza Davis, a Jewish woman who challenged Charles Dickens over antisemitic portray- als in Oliver Twist, offering students a powerful example of speaking truth to power. In The Summer of Lost Letters by Hannah Reynolds, a teen uncovers her grandmother’s Holocaust-era love letters, revealing long-buried family secrets and reshaping her understanding of identity and memory. Playing with Matches by Suri Rosen follows an Orthodox Jewish teen navigating school, family expectations, and a secret life as a matchmaker, balancing tradition with self-discovery.

Middle School 

Middle school selections blend humor, heart, and reflection. Finn and Ezra’s Time Loop by Joshua S. Levy is a funny, magical story about two boys reliving their bar mitzvah weekend, learning important lessons about friendship and growth along the way. In Turtle Boy by M. Evan Wolkenstein, a shy boy approaching his bar mitzvah discovers courage through an unexpected friendship. Red and Green and Blue and White by Lee Wind and Paul O. Zelinsky tells the true story of a Montana community that stood up to antisemitism, demonstrating how courage and unity can create change.

Elementary School 

For younger readers, the selections introduce Jewish values through accessible, engaging stories. Ping Pong Shabbat by Ann D. Koffsky follows a young ping-pong champion who must choose between a tournament and honoring Shabbat. The People’s Painter by Cynthia Levinson and Evan Turk is a picture book biography of Ben Shahn, a Jewish immigrant artist who used his art to fight injustice. Lola Levine Is Not Mean! by Monica Brown and Angela Dominguez introduces a spirited second grader learning about kindness, mistakes, and friendship in a multicultural world. Jason Belongs by Audrey Ades and Jason Schachter McKinney centers on McKinney’s story as a Black Jewish child searching for belonging and learning to embrace his whole identity. McKinney will be in Tidewater this May to celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month.

“These books were chosen not just because they tell Jewish stories, but because they spark conversation,” says Lorna Orleans, a JAHM selection committee member. “Our committee reviewed books for elementary, middle, and high school students, and because we were a diverse group of reviewers, we were able to select a wide range of titles that reflect American Jewish life in all its many forms. Subjects ranged from helping young children understand practices like sitting shiva to stories of teens navigating identity, courage, and belonging.”

 The JAHM Book Project holds special meaning for the Tidewater Jewish community. The program is generously supported in memory of Abraham E. Frank, the beloved son of committee member Dr. Rita Frank, whose legacy continues to inspire learning, compassion, and connection.

 “Abraham loved books from his earliest years” says Frank. “I know he would be delighted to share that love with other children throughout Tidewater.”

 While the books are provided through the Konikoff Center for Learning of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, the project is a community effort. Volunteers are needed throughout February to help pack the books and prepare them for delivery to schools.

If interested in volunteering or supporting the JAHM Book Project, contact Sierra Lautman, UJFT senior director of Jewish Innovation, at SLautman@ujft.org or 757-965-6107.