Lion's Share - May 2017

Academic Achievement

Scheck Hillel Honors Valedictorian, Salutatorian Mazal tov to Jordana Zackon and Danielle Scheck, who addressed their peers during the Class of 2017 Commencement ceremony.

In addition to achieving high levels of academic performance, our valedictorian and salutatorian have each made an impact on their community through active service and leadership. Jordana will attend Washington University in St. Louis’s Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, and Danielle will attend the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Congratulations to these dedicated students and their families!

Jordana Zackon Valedictorian

Danielle Scheck Salutatorian

Scheck Hillel National Merit Tradition Continues Four rising seniors - Keith Bonwitt, Nathalie Fuhrman, Roy Glazer and Max Peicher - have been named qualifying honorees in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship® competition. These students attained some of the country’s highest scores of the 2016 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Qualifying Test/(PSAT/ NMSQT®) out of approximately 1.5 million students, nationwide.

Mazal tov!

Community

Pictured, l to r: Keith Bonwitt, Max Peicher, Roy Glazer and Nathalie Fuhrman

Q&A With Moshe Weinstein, ‘95, CEO of Biotech Start-Up

Where do you live at the moment?

I live in Tel Mond, near Tel-Aviv, Israel, with my wife and two children.

What educational path did you pursue after Scheck Hillel?

I have moved around a lot since graduating from Scheck Hillel! I spent a year in yeshiva in Israel, and decided to extend for another year to serve in the IDF as a medic in a combat unit. I then returned to the U.S. to complete my undergraduate degree at Yeshiva University. My first job out of college brought me back to Israel, where I worked first at Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) and later at SodaStream.

Where do you work currently?

I am CEO of Moebius Medical, a startup biotechnology company in Israel.

The most pressing need when I came on board was to find a partner to fund and run clinical trials for a new drug-developed in Israel-to treat the pain caused by osteoarthritis.

In December of 2016, we signed an exclusive global licensing deal with Sun Pharmaceuticals (an India-based global pharmaceutical company) to further develop our pain product for osteoarthritis. Even though I’ve worked the past 10 years in the pharma industry, my background is in business administration and marketing, so those are the skills that I bring to bear in this venture.

What is most rewarding about the work you do? What are the challenges?

To have gotten such a big partner behind us, and to be able to push this forward as fast and efficiently, is very rewarding. I enjoy working with a global team, acting as the link among brilliant professionals from the US, India and Israel.

appreciate my own life back in the U.S. Read Moshe’s full profile in the summer issue of Kol Hillel.

What is one essential academic or life skill you honed at Scheck Hillel?

Thanks to a great group of Judaic Studies teachers, we were allowed to question and to look for the reasoning behind the subjects we were learning.

We were encouraged to think and approach things logically, and not just accept things blindly. I also appreciated that I was encouraged to pursue the Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now called the Science Talent Search), a nationwide contest for which I was semifinalist.

What is your advice for future Scheck Hillel students who might consider a career in your field?

Travel the world and learn other cultures. I have visited more than 80 countries, and I try to connect with the Jewish community wherever I go.

Try to use every summer to pursue an internship in an area of interest to you, or to perform community service. I worked at a Jewish camp in Russia, an experience that helped me

Moshe Weinstein, pictured above, l, with India’s ambassador to Israel, celebrating the signing of the deal