Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to Deliver Principal Address at YU’s Annual Hanukkah Dinner and Convocation

Nov 1, 2005 — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will deliver the principal convocation address and receive an honorary degree at Yeshiva University’s 81st Annual Hanukkah Dinner and Convocation on Sunday, Dec. 11, at The Waldorf=Astoria.

YU President Richard M. Joel will confer honorary degrees on Senator Clinton and five other leaders –– Linda Altman, Jay Feinberg, Kathryn O. Greenberg, Jack M. Nagel, and Rose Yavarkovsky –– at the convocation, which begins at 5:30 pm.

For more on the dinner and the week of related special events click here.

Senator Clinton is the only former First Lady ever elected to the United States Senate. Since she was elected in 2000, Senator Clinton has proven to be a strong advocate for New York, reaching across the aisle to pass legislation, secure millions of dollars in appropriations, and draw attention to issues that matter to people throughout New York State.

Senator Clinton serves on the Senate Committees for Environment and Public Works; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. She is also the first New York senator to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

After the terrorist attacks in 2001, Senator Clinton worked to secure $21.4 billion in funding to assist cleanup and recovery, to provide health tracking for first responders and volunteers at Ground Zero, and to create grants for redevelopment. This past year she has issued two comprehensive studies that examined the disbursement of federal homeland security funds to local communities and first responders.

Jay Feinberg was a 22-year-old foreign-exchange analyst for the Federal Reserve in New York in 1991 when his life took a dramatic turn. He was diagnosed with leukemia and told that a bone marrow transplant was his only hope. After close relatives were tested and none was found to be a match, Mr. Feinberg and his family and friends widened their search among Ashkenazi Jews. A donor was found, and Mr. Feinberg has since recovered. His experience led him to devote his life to educating and encouraging people to be tested for bone marrow registries around the world.

The Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation, the Florida-based organization of which he is founder and executive director, seeks to increase the number of registered Jews, many of whom lack extended family because of the Holocaust.

Linda Altman is a member of the Board of Overseers and president of the National Women’s Division of YU’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. As a member of the division’s Westchester-Fairfield Chapter, Ms. Altman rose quickly in the organization and served as chapter president from 1988 through 1990. She also served in leadership roles on the division’s National Board before assuming the presidency. She and her husband are Benefactors and members of the Society of Founders at Einstein.

Kathryn O. Greenberg has been chair of the Board of Directors of Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law since March 2004. Ms. Greenberg is the first chair of Cardozo to come from the ranks of its alumni. After graduating cum laude, she joined the law firm of Shea & Gould and served as a supervising attorney at Cardozo’s Bet Tzedek Legal Services Clinic. In 1990, Ms. Greenberg founded the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) to provide free civil legal services for low-income New Yorkers who would otherwise be unable to afford legal help. She and her husband, Alan, are Benefactors of YU.

Jack M. Nagel, a Holocaust survivor, is chairman of the West Coast Friends of Bar-Ilan University and a member of Bar-Ilan’s Global Board of Trustees. He is also a Benefactor of Yeshiva University and dedicated a floor of the 215 Lexington Ave. building at the university’s Israel Henry Beren Campus in Midtown Manhattan. He and his wife, Gitta, are founders of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. His companies, Decron Properties Corporation, Decron Management Corp., and Nagel Construction Co., manage and develop commercial and residential properties.

Rose Yavarkovsky is a member of the Executive Council and a founding board member of the Atlantic Beach Chapter of the Yeshiva University Women’s Organization. Through YUWO, she established the Rose Yavarkovsky Scholarship at YU’s Stern College for Women. Mrs. Yavarkovsky and her son, Ira, are Benefactors of YU and founders of YU’s Sy Syms School of Business. They also established four scholarships at Wurzweiler School of Social Work and are Fellows of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.