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Judi Cohen-Roberts grew up in Allentown and, each year, returns from Manhattan to participate in the Levy Hillel Leadership Award brunch for outstanding Jewish student leaders. The students, typically one from each of the four Lehigh Valley college Hillel organizations, receive awards recognizing their leadership, along with cash subsidies and conference subsidies. These are made possible by a designated fund that Judi's parents, Morton and Myra Levy, established more than 20 years ago.
Morton and Myra first met at the University of Pennsylvania's Louis Marshall Society, a forerunner of the Hillels. They both held leadership roles and this sparked their desire to reward student leaders of such organizations. Later on in their lives, they established the Levy Hillel Leadership Award Fund. Judi says that, for them, the designated fund was a way to show their love for one another. For her, it honors her parents.
A certified learning specialist who runs a private practice and teaches at the graduate level, Judi carries on her parents' legacy of supporting Jewish student leaders. This support is at least as important today as in her parents' time. And tomorrow, the award recipients will embark on careers that build on their college experiences.
Since the passing of her parents, Judi has begun bringing with her an additional gift all her own. A recent one was the movie, "Paper Clips," about a Tennessee school that set out to understand the number six million, for the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Fittingly, the project was led by students.