Last April Family First ran a roundtable on the Jewish view of achieving perfection. One of the participants rushed in a few minutes late: a small sprightly woman in her 70s with a radiant smile looking absolutely delighted to find herself in the company of fellow mechanchos.  

Wearing a short blonde wig tastefully attired and made up there was a grace in the deliberate way the newcomer unwrapped the scarf from around her neck. My first impression was of a terrific Jewish bubby — not the kind that wears an apron and rarely leaves the kitchen but the kind that shows up stylishly dressed to whisk the grandchildren off to some fantastic museum and lunch at a restaurant. As the roundtable commenced it quickly became clear this petite figure contained a personality of gargantuan proportions.

Nobody in that room had any idea that Chaya Newman a”h was already battling the illness that would claim her life. She was thin but she seemed much too vibrant too happy to be sick. Her petirah this past September 20 came as a shock to almost everyone.

Mrs. Newman had been a major force in chinuch for almost 60 years — including 37 years as the principal of Bruriah High School in New Jersey and for the last five years of her career as a national director for Torah Umesorah. A woman with boundless energy she earned a master’s degree in counseling while at Bruriah working with Counterforce and the Yitty Leibel Help Line. She also opened a private practice counseling both singles and couples with referrals coming in from such revered figures as Rav Gifter Rav Elya Svei and the Novominsker Rebbe.

Although her death came unexpectedly and at a busy time of year some 2400 people turned out for her levayah on Erev Shabbos Shuvah in Brooklyn. Hundreds more — including busloads of seminary girls — attended her levayah in Eretz Yisrael the following Sunday. “The directors of practically every girls’ seminary were at the levayah ” reports Elisheva Kaminetsky a former talmidah who was later recruited by Mrs. Newman to be a Bruriah teacher. The mark she left on chinuch was so deep that as one woman remarked at the levayah “When Chaya Newman gets to Shamayim Sarah Schenirer is going to accompany her to the Kisei HaKavod.”

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