The Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva is proud to honor Rachel and Dr. Mark Stein, pillars of the RPRY community who have centered their lives around the attribute of chessed—helping others.

 

Both natives of the Bronx, Mark and Rachel first met when they were students together at The Bronx High School of Science. They were married in June 1998, setting up their first home in Riverdale, where their two older children were born: Batya (RPRY ’13, Bruriah High School ’17, Nishmat ’18, now a student at Princeton University) and Nechama (RPRY ’16, Bruriah High School ’20, soon to be a student at Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim and then Barnard College). The Steins moved to Highland Park in 2004, the day before Batya began kindergarten at RPRY. Avi, the only New Jersey-born Stein, is now in seventh grade at RPRY and recently became a bar mitzvah. As a family, the Steins enjoy traveling; on one of their most memorable family trips, they traveled to Cuba with Rachel’s mother, visiting her childhood home.

 

Rachel and Mark have given countless hours over the years to volunteering for the school. Mark, a highly skilled amateur photographer, can often be seen with his camera in hand, capturing and documenting extraordinary moments in the RPRY’s educational, social, and religious life. Rachel has volunteered at RPRY in numerous capacities: she has served as class parent, coordinated the Box Tops campaign, and assisted with the Scholarship Breakfast, Scholastic book sale, Family Fun Run, and Chanukah teachers’ gifts program. Outside the walls of the school, Rachel and Mark devote their time and energies to a wide array of volunteer projects at Congregation Ahavas Achim in Highland Park, and their children have followed suit, serving as youth leaders and in other capacities. In their professional lives as well, Mark and Rachel demonstrate extraordinary generosity of spirit and mind. With a degree from Yale University’s School of Law, Rachel works as an attorney advisor for the Social Security Administration. Mark, a widely respected oncologist, practiced medicine from 2004 to 2017 at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, leaving that position to become an associate professor in medical oncology at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center. In 2019, Mark was honored with the Medical Devotion Award from the Rofeh Cholim Cancer Society.