June 10, 2026

The Covenant Foundation Announces Recipients of 2026 Covenant Award

New York, June 10, 2026 – The Covenant Foundation is proud to announce the recipients of this year’s Covenant Award, honoring three exceptional Jewish educators for their integral contributions building the field of Jewish education.

The 2026 Covenant Award recipients are: DR. JONAH HASSENFELD, Director of Learning and Teaching, Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston (Schechter Boston); RABBI CHARLES E. SAVENOR, Executive Director, Civic Spirit, and JOEY WEISENBERG, Founder and Director, Hadar’s Rising Song Institute.

 

“It is a pleasure and a privilege to honor Jonah, Charlie, and Joey, who are building significant bodies of work in three of The Covenant Foundation’s priority areas, which are central to Jews in North America in this moment,” said Deborah Meyer, Chair of the Board of The Covenant Foundation.

“They now join over 100 past Covenant Award recipients, who, for more than three decades, have represented the most creative approaches to Jewish education.”

Along with the recognition that accompanies the Award, The Covenant Foundation will honor the recipients with $50,000 each, and each of their institutions will receive $10,000.

“Jewish educators working with students of all ages and in all stages of life, Jonah, Charlie, and Joey explore the beauty, relevance, and significance of the core tenets and connective tissue of the Jewish people,” said Joni Blinderman, Executive Director of The Covenant Foundation.

“Through meaningful dialogue, active civic participation, and the spiritual power of music, they each respectively deepen our understanding of what it means to build an engaged, inclusive Jewish community, and we are thrilled to welcome them into the Covenant family.”

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Dr. Jonah Hassenfeld

As the Director of Teaching and Learning at Schechter Boston, DR. JONAH HASSENFELD oversees the entire educational vision and program of the school, and teaches adult Israel education courses to parents, as well as an 8th grade Talmud class.

In his work, Hassenfeld strives to build an educational program that empowers young American Jews to become the authors of their own Jewish journeys by offering them multiple pathways to Jewish life at school. Alongside Jewish studies colleagues, he worked on the redesign of the school’s Hebrew program, including the establishment of tracks for transfer students, native speakers, and students with language-based learning differences.

Hassenfeld regularly leads discussion groups for parents, students, and teachers that focus on challenging topics including Israel, Jewish life and broader political and educational topics. Through text study, personal reflection, and guided conversation, Hassenfeld works to foster a culture of respectful disagreement and shared meaning-making within the school community.

To this end, Hassenfeld’s work has increasingly centered on Israel education. He redesigned Schechter’s Israel studies approach, created an Israel studies seminar course as part of 8th grade social studies, and teaches an Israel 101 course to parents and faculty, which he has also presented at other communal institutions.

This past spring, Hassenfeld delivered a seminar to a cohort of fellows at the Mandel Educational Leadership Institute, spanning leaders from day schools, camps, synagogues, and supplementary schools. The session focused on building curricula rooted in historical thinking, primary source inquiry, and dialogic pedagogy, especially around complex or divisive topics.

“Dr. Hassenfeld consistently shows his incredible gift for drawing students in and engaging them with connection, compassion, and intention,” writes Lisa D. Popik Coll, former Board Chair at Prizmah, who nominated Jonah for the Award.

“His students know to question everything, and to question the questions themselves. They come away from his classes with their own thoughts and ideas, their own relationship to the subject, and a toolbox of approaches that can be applied to further educational experiences.”

Upon hearing that he received the Award, Jonah shared, “I am humbled to be selected for a Covenant Award. I am grateful to the Foundation, to Lisa Coll for nominating me, and to the colleagues, families, and students at Schechter Boston who make me better every day.”

“Jewish education has rarely felt more urgent or more difficult, and my students at Schechter are the source of my hope. Watching them wrestle with hard questions about Torah, Israel, and the world they will inherit makes me confident that tomorrow will be better. This award matters as a recognition of the essential work all teachers do.”

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Rabbi Charles Savenor

RABBI CHARLES “CHARLIE” SAVENOR has served since 2022 as Executive Director of Civic Spirit, a national civic education organization that works to strengthen civic education through the lens of Jewish values in both Jewish day schools and other faith-based schools. In this role, he oversees all of Civic Spirit’s educational programming and operations.

Savenor has broadened Civic Spirit’s reach and brought Orthodox and Modern Orthodox Jewish day schools into dialogue with other Jewish and non-Jewish faith-based schools. At Civic Spirit Days, he leads daylong civic education programming and civil dialogue training for students from a broad range of denominational schools to build relationships and practice problem solving.

Early in his tenure at Civic Spirit, Savenor expanded the organization’s student experiences and public programming focused on the organization’s three core pillars for generating long-lasting, effective, and meaningful civic learning. Using a foundation of Jewish values, these three pillars—democratic fluency, civic skills, and civic belonging—are integrated throughout Civic Spirit’s broad spectrum of programming for students and teachers in Jewish and other faith-based middle and high schools.

Savenor also oversees, facilitates, and serves as a mentor for Civic Spirit’s Educators Cohort Fellowship, an annual program that brings together educators from Jewish and other faith-based schools to learn how to integrate faith values and civic discourse into their classrooms, and leads Civic Spirit’s “We the People” online learning program. This annual virtual learning series weaves the rich history of Jews in America with Torah learning and current events.

“Charlie is perfectly aligned to lead an organization like Civic Spirit, embarking on a mission to mold character, good citizenship, and critical thinking through civic education of young Americans in day schools,” said Kathy Elias, a board member of Civic Spirit who nominated Savenor for the award.

“As he has done in so many settings, Charlie sets the educational vision and teaches alongside a team of educators at all workshops and conferences. He believes that the integration of Jewish teachings and values in civics education is essential to the betterment of both the Jewish community and American society.”

Upon receiving the news that he’d been selected for the Award, Savenor shared, “Torah has given my life purpose, passion, and hope. Building Jewish community through meaning and learning is truly all I have ever wanted to do.”

“When Joni called with this extraordinary news, I was overcome with gratitude, both for this recognition from The Covenant Foundation and for the inspiration and support I have received from my parents, teachers, mentors, and students. I cannot think of a more meaningful year than America’s 250th to receive this award, as it also affirms my work at Civic Spirit to address political polarization, social divides, and rising hatred through civic education.”

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Joey Weisenberg

JOEY WEISENBERG is the Founder, Creative Director, and Lead Educator of The Hadar Institute’s Rising Song Institute, which he established in 2016. Weisenberg founded RSI to create a home for the Jewish music and educational prayer content and programs he had been developing since joining Hadar in 2004. The focus of his work is in changing how American Jews relate to prayer and community by transforming t’filah and song into a co-created communal act of spirituality and cultural expression.

Since 2007, Weisenberg has visited and taught in hundreds of communities, universities, yeshivot, seminaries, conferences, synagogues, and festivals around the world and across the Jewish denominational spectrum, helping communities learn how to sing together.

In 2024, Weisenberg, along with the Hadar Community Group project, helped launch over one hundred Rising Song Circles around the United States.

He also has an online educational platform of Master Classes in Jewish Song and Prayer. Through these courses, Weisenberg has created widely accessible pathways to in-depth Jewish song leading and musical training.

Weisenberg has performed and taught extensively around the world, and his music has reached hundreds of thousands of people. With each gathering, he aims to help participants experience a feeling of joint interdependence and bring that energy back to their home communities.

A critical aspect of Weisenberg’s work is training emerging musical-spiritual practitioners, religious leaders, and musicians who can inspire others and cultivate singing communities across the country.

“Joey is a mentor to so many budding artists and musicians, offering intensive teaching about music and Torah and helping them blossom into fully-fledged composers and musicians,” said Peninnah Schram, Professor Emerita of Speech and Drama at Yeshiva University, who nominated him for the award.

“He brings them into his community, invites them to perform with him, encourages them to create their own music, and produces their albums. He has created a network of fellow artists—an amazing and important group in which people care for each other, collaborate, and support each other in the work of making Judaism more soulful and beautiful.”

“Wow, what an honor!” Weisenberg said, upon hearing that he’d been selected for the 2026 Award.

“I teach Jewish communities how to sing together, channeling the songs and dreams of hundreds of people who have generously shared music and life with me throughout the years. I was lucky to be a student of past Covenant Award recipients including Ateret Cohen, Peninnah Schram, and Rabbi Shai Held, whose stories and teachings will resonate through me forever. My deepest thanks to my teachers and colleagues at the Hadar Institute who lift up the many voices of Torah and sing a brighter Jewish future into being.”

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The Covenant Foundation and the Jewish community will honor the 2026 Award recipients at a celebration in the fall.

Guidelines on nominating an educator for a 2027 Covenant Award are online now.

The Covenant Foundation is a program of Crown Family Philanthropies.