Our Teachers
Learn more about our Religious School
Religious School Administrator:
Miriam Eskenasy
Teachers:
Grades 6-7: Miriam Eskenasy
Grades 4-5: Michael Lerner
Grades 1-3: Courtney Smith
Cantor Miriam Eskenasy brings her considerable gifts and knowledge as a Cantor, musician and teacher to the Jewish community. Born in Bucharest, Romania, to Zionist parents, Miriam immigrated to Israel when she was ten years old. It was there that she discovered her talent for languages, becoming fluent in Hebrew, French and English, in addition to her native Romanian.
At sixteen, Miriam and her family came to the United States. Miriam completed high school in Columbus, Ohio, and resumed her French and music studies at Ohio State University. She graduated from Queens College of the City University of New York with a B.A. in Romance Languages, specializing in French literature and minoring in music. For the next twenty years, Miriam lived, worked, married and raised a family successfully in New York City.
During this time, Miriam continued singing and performing opera. She eventually joined the Rottenberg Chorale, a Jewish choir in New York. During her ten-year involvement with the chorale, Miriam realized that singing Jewish music strengthened her own identity and passion, leading her to choose it as her life's work. In 1998 she was accepted at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in New York where she studied not only Jewish music in-depth, but also Jewish history, philosophy, liturgy, Torah, biblical grammar and more. In 2002 Miriam was ordained as a Cantor.
After serving congregations on the East Coast, Cantor Miriam came to Chicago to become the Cantor of KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in 2008. From July 2014 to June 2016, Miriam worked as the Spiritual Leader of Temple Israel, Miller, IN. Currently she tutors b'nai mitzvah students and teaches privately. She has distinguished herself as a teacher of both children and adults, inspiring her congregants and students to deepen their understanding of God, Torah and Jewish music.
In her spare time, Miriam enjoys the good company of friends and her wonderful daughters and grandson, Carin, Erica and Elias. She enjoys opera, walking, museums, weaving, gardening and her latest passion, baking bread.
Michael Lerner's teaching background includes Religious Schools -- Beit Haverim; Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ; Kehillat Lev Shalem (Woodstock Jewish Congregation), Woodstock, NY; Temple Emanuel, Kingston, NY; nursing schools and hospitals, NY; and Food Service Industry, Data Processing, and Medical Device Manufacturers. Michael completed the UAHC Rabbinic Aide Program in August 1993.
Courtney Smith grew up in a Conservadox environment. She grew up and lived in Reno, NV, and went to Temple Emanu-El. There she was in Hebrew school and religious school, had her Bat Mitzvah, sat on the Board of Kadima and then the United Synagogue Youth local Sierra Nevada Chapter. In the summers she went to a Jewish sleep-away camp for three weeks. She attended the community college and took Hebrew classes in high school, which strongly improved her fluency. She tutored young, pre-B'nai Mitzvah students as they prepared for their big days. She also worked at the religious/Hebrew school as a teacher. Courtney has traveled to Israel a couple of times and enjoyed Birthright.
In late 2018 Courtney moved to Oregon and finished her college degree in Business Marketing and Communications. Her current job has her running a non-profit c-3 under the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association and Oregon Hospitality Foundation. She loves being an inspiration to youth just like her Hebrew and religious school teachers were to her.