The Rashi School Honors Needham Resident Eva Weintraub

Amidst a festive dinner and heartfelt speeches, over 400 people came together to honor Eva Weintraub, a Needham resident, at the school’s annual fundraising and community event at the Seaport Hotel.

Accepting the award on her behalf, Stephanie Rotsky, Director of Social Justice at The Rashi School, read Weintraub’s inspiring remarks. “Rashi is the first place in my life I can remember learning about social justice, starting in kindergarten with the Tamchui program. I am proud to say that my mother was one of the original three Tamchui mamas,” wrote Eva. “I can still remember the organizations that I learned about when I went through the program, and I am so honored to imagine having this same lasting impact on future Rashi students with my work.”

As a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner at the Chiricahua Community Health Center (CCHCI) on the US-Mexico border, Eva focuses on pediatric primary care, specifically in terms of education, prevention, and integrated community health efforts. CCHCI is a Federally Qualified Health Center which provides health care to the population of Cochise County regardless of insurance, ability to pay, or citizenship status. The clinic’s mission is to deliver integrated and comprehensive primary care --- including preventative, dental and mental health – through regional clinics and outreach in the community.

Although Eva works with patients from birth through 21 years of age, she has a specialty interest in diabetes and developmental-behavioral pediatrics. Eva has collaborated with specialists at the Tucson Medical Center and Banner University Health to bring resources and programming into her rural county to help support community members with chronic health conditions and specialty needs. This has also included community outreach activities, such as support groups for community members with Type I Diabetes. She has also worked on expanding the clinic's utilization of Community Health Workers, collaborating closely with the outreach team at her clinic to improve issues of accessibility in her rural community.

Eva joined CCHCI in October 2020, after graduating from Yale School of Nursing where she specialized in Pediatrics and Diabetes Care. She has always been committed to working in an underserved and rural community and was thrilled to join the team at CCHCI after graduation, given her longtime interest in health care provision and policy. As a student at YSN, she collaborated with the Yale School of Public Health to create a proposal for the development of a city-wide Community Health Worker Coordinator in New Haven, CT. She graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in Science in Society and Biology. Eva wrote her senior thesis on the Development of Federal Vaccine Recommendations as well as collaborated with researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Policy Lab.

Inspired by several of the organizations Eva learned about at Rashi, Eva became interested in those that supported children’s health, particularly the summer camps and organizations that combined healthcare with fun. To that end, Eva has integrated this philosophy into her daily work – encouraging her patients to both laugh and play as a way to care for themselves.

During the course of the 2023-2024 school year, Weintraub will spend an entire day at Rashi, sharing her experiences with students and discussing the ways in which Rashi social justice initiatives and Jewish studies curriculum can shape their own directions and pursuits. Eva’s speech ended on a note of gratitude. “Thank you to The Rashi School for instilling in me the power of education in me at an early age and for continuing to fight for social justice as a foundational part of their curriculum.”

The Tikkun Alum Award was created in 2012 to celebrate Rashi alumni who demonstrate a strong commitment to social justice and tikkun olam (repairing the world) in their lives beyond Rashi. Through personal and professional efforts, Tikkun Alums embody the values of social justice that were instilled in them as Rashi students.

About The Rashi School

Located on a 162-acre, multigenerational campus in Dedham, Mass., The Rashi School is the Boston area’s Reform Jewish Pre-K-8 independent school. Rashi is distinguished by exceptional academics, a strong sense of community and a deep commitment to Jewish learning and social justice. In our classrooms, children, adolescents, and adults form a community of learners, learning with and from each other and cultivating critical minds and compassionate hearts.

Rashi’s diverse community welcomes all kinds of families including interfaith and Jewish+, two-mom/two-dad families, single parents by choice, Jews of Color, and multiethnic families. Our students represent 25 towns across eastern Massachusetts.