Help us honor
Diane Townsend
recipient of the
L'dor Vador Award:
Passing Torah onto the Next Generation
Tributes place after March 3rd will be included in a Keepsake Book for Diane but will not be printed in the Or Ami One Program Book.
Congregation Or Ami will honor Diane Townsend with our inaugural annual L’dor Vador Award: Passing Torah onto the Next Generation at our Or Ami One event on March 25, 2017.
Diane Townsend, B’nai Mitzvah teacher at Congregation Or Ami, has taught hundreds upon hundreds of students – children and adults – throughout the entire Greater Los Angeles Jewish community – the mitzvah of chanting Torah. Once called the embodiment of Talmud Torah (Jewish learning) by a grateful parent, Diane helps parents pass down Torah l’dor vador (from generation to generation) by harnessing her warm smile, pedagogical creativity, persistence and patience to mentor children toward mastery of our Torah chanting tradition.
Walking into Diane’s tutoring room, students are offered a piece of candy, and these awesome moments of study are already feeling a bit sweeter. Embracing Henaynu (being there for each other), she asks students about their day, their family, their life, and before they know it… they are chanting from Judaism’s most sacred scroll.
Simultaneously, they have accomplished so much more. Rabbi Kipnes writes, “While teaching them how to chant, Diane teaches her students study skills and how to master the seemingly impossible. She helps teens, who are struggling to find their place in the world, to believe in themselves. She leads parents, relatives, and teachers to witness miracles, as their beloved children blossom on the bimah. Just when it seems that a grandparent couldn’t smile any more broadly, we see a smile spread across their faces, as they beam with pride that the child they once held in their arms has now fully embraced cherished Jewish tradition.”
Bar/Bat Mitzvah Teacher Diane Townsend brings a love for learning, a deep commitment to Or Ami, and a uniquely creative toolbox of tricks to every meeting with every student, teen and adult alike. She has raised the level of competence and comfort in every student who ascends the bimah to chant from Torah and lead the service. Every two years, she also prepares another group of adults who, having missed the opportunity as youth, relish the chance to become B’nai Mitzvah later in life.
Talmud teaches that a person who teaches Torah to another is especially cherished. Diane, mother to Joshua and Daniel, is spiritual parent to the hundreds of hundreds of people who have received Torah from her loving arms.