Our school building is relatively small, our student body numbering fewer than two hundred students, and our facilities quite limited. Yet, Lisa Kampner Hebrew Academy educates the children of the 60,000 member Russian-Jewish community in the Bay Area. Its fervent religious ideals, values, and morals are prioritized above all else. When approaching President Bush, Rabbi Lipner joked, “I’m here from a different country… from San Francisco.” Answering back, President Bush quipped, “One person at a time.”

That has been the motto of the school for all of these years, carrying on the difficult work of educating all Jewish children regardless of their financial situations. We have other successes too, no doubt. Students consistently attend the finest universities; they become successful professionals, and raise wonderful families. Yet, these successes always seemed to be confined within the conversations of proud grandmothers or beaming faculty. For the first time in the school’s history, Rabbi Lipner was recognized on such a grand scale.

I have always supposed that Rabbi Lipner was chosen because of his individual work with the Russian community and his endless dedication to that cause: his guiding conservative principles, his strong Jewish values, and his inspiring leadership. How can an outside observer not be touched when seeing an orphan, fleeing from Chernobyl and living on her own, go on to attend Stanford University and Harvard Medical School? How can this same observer not be astounded to see a boy from public school with the traditional Russian atheistic beliefs go to Israel to study in one of the most rigorous yeshivas? Is there not a great worth in ensuring that children are educated to feel proud enough as Jews to stay within the faith at marriage?