We are enormously grateful to the Larry and Judy Tanenbaum Family Foundation for the establishment of the Henya Shwaartz Scholarship Fund. The fund honours Henya Shwaartz, the mother of Dr. Chaya Shwaartz, an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Surgery at the University Health Network and the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto. Dr. Shwaartz, who is a current TanenbaumCHAT parent, notes her appreciation to the Tanenbaum family “for honoring my mother’s name, something that is even more meaningful with her recent passing.”
The Fund supports students through the Henya Shwaartz Awards of Excellence and the Head of School Discretionary Fund. For alumni, the Henya Shwaartz Awards for Continuing Excellence provide three recipients with $3,000 each to be put towards their post-secondary education.
The alumni awards honour ongoing commitment to learning, Jewish life and volunteer contributions. It is no accident that these criteria reflect both the ethos of TanenbaumCHAT and of Henya Shwaartz who was, says Chaya, “a passionate advocate for education and community involvement.”
In the 2022/23 inaugural year, we received a staggering
106 submissions from alumni. These were reviewed anonymously by a panel of board members – and it was, by all accounts, a daunting task! Everyone involved was deeply impressed by the substantive nature of the applications and noted the challenge of having to select only three recipients. In the end, the awardees were (pictured above, left to right) Summer Hart ’16, Jamie Stein ’18 and Stefanie Stockhamer ’16.
Says Chaya: “My mother believed in the power of education to transform lives and in the importance of nurturing a strong and vibrant Jewish community.”
It is a point of pride for TanenbaumCHAT that our alumni share that vision and are carrying the values with which they were imbued at the school into the next stage of their lives.
To read more about Henya Shwaartz, and for more information about the awards, please visit: tanenbaumchat.org/Tanenbaum-Alumni-Scholarship.
