Kansas City’s Brenda and Howard Rosenthal will be presented with the Enid and Harold Boxer Memorial Award by NCSY, the international youth movement of the Orthodox Union, at its Ben Zakkai Honor Society Annual Scholarship Reception Sunday, Jan. 30, in New York.
The award is named after Enid and Howard Boxer, who created NCSY as a continent-wide youth movement.
BZHS is an alumni “Hall of Fame” whose new members are nominated by, and voted on, by its current members based on the nominees’ service to NCSY and the Jewish community. The society’s main function is to raise funds for scholarships for high school NCSYers for summer programs in North America and Israel and for teens to continue their Jewish education after high school. The society has helped pay tribute for more than 40 years to esteemed NCSY alumni and community leaders who have demonstrated their dedication to Torah and their service to the Jewish people.
Over the years, NCSY has played an important role in the lives of both Brenda and Howard.
“NCSY has been an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember. It has been a guiding force which has grounded me and now our children on a path of leadership, kindness and Jewish values. I can’t imagine who I would be were it not for NCSY,” Brenda said.
Howard said he is proud to see “how our children have become role models due to their involvement in NCSY.”
“The leadership in this organization is incredible. The values imparted to our children through NCSY have instilled a love for their community, Judaism and Israel,” he said.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of married couples met in NCSY. That actually wasn’t the case with Brenda Fogelson and Howard Rosenthal, however. They met in sixth grade at the Phoenix Hebrew Academy, before there was an NCSY in their community.
By the time they reached the eighth grade, they had established the Ohr HaMidbar NCSY chapter and were both awarded the “Torah im Derech Eretz” award at regional convention. They participated in every convention, conclave and program West Coast NCSY had to offer. Not only did they grow Jewishly, but they influenced their families to do the same!
Howard finished high school early, won Regional NCSYer of the year honors and went off to study at Bar-Ilan University in Israel completing his studies at Yeshiva University. Brenda was named National “NCSYer of the year” and Regional “NCSYer of the Decade,” continuing her studies at both Touro and Stern College in New York.
After graduation, the Rosenthals moved back to Arizona and studied medicine at the University of Arizona. After completing orthopedic residency at the University of Kansas and a Fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the couple joined the staff at the University of Kansas, Howard as an orthopedic oncologist and Brenda as a heart transplant coordinator. They decided to establish Kansas City as their home and played a giant role in rebuilding a once proud Orthodox community that had fallen on hard times.
The Rosenthals play pivotal roles in their synagogue: Beth Israel, Abraham & Voliner, the only Orthodox congregation between St. Louis and Denver, The Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy and numerous communal agencies. As medical director of the Mid-America Sarcoma Institute, Howard is the only Orthodox orthopedic oncologist in the country. Past president of his synagogue, the kollel and head of the rabbinic search committee, he continues to serve as the ba’al koreh and ba’al tefilla. A national vice president of the Orthodox Union, chairman of the Menorah Medical Center and a board member of the Jewish Heritage Foundation of Kansas City, he is also professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Medicine and Biosciences at Kansas City and associate professor of surgery at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and is widely published in medical literature.
Brenda has served as president of BIAV, on the board of HBHA and is a driving force behind the Kansas City Chevrah Kadisha. The Rosenthal home is packed with teenagers every Shabbat. It has been said that hundreds of Jewish adults can say that they spent one-seventh of their teenage years at the vibrant Rosenthal home!
Aside from Brenda’s ample volunteer work, she is a nurse practitioner in a large internal medicine practice, as well as surgical assistant to Howard. Most important, the Rosenthals have instilled an abiding love of Torah in their children; Aryn, Daniel, Naftali and Davida.
At the reception, the OU will also pay tribute to the legacy of Dr. Bernard Lander, the founder, and for 40 years, president of Touro College. Dr. Lander died on Feb. 8, 2010, at the age of 94.
