Greenburgh Hebrew Center Nursery School Director

Jackie Binstock was born in Philadelphia, Pa. to a large, close extended family. Her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles had all escaped the Holocaust, a fact that had a deep impact on her and shaped her outlook on the world from a very early age. Her family were ardent Zionists and extremely active in both their Jewish and secular communities. She and her sister were educated in the local public schools and their congregational religious school, and later at Gratz College High School for Jewish Education. She attended Jewish day camps as a child, and, as a teenager, worked at Camp Ramah in the Poconos. She was active in Young Judea, and after completing high school, spent two years in Israel at Bar Ilan University. She finished up a joint BA in English Literature and Jewish Studies at Stern College of Yeshiva University. Jackie married her husband Marvin in 1974, and began working as a pre-school teacher while he attended graduate school in Chicago. During the summers, they worked as sports staff at Camp Ramah in New England. They subsequently had three children, Amy, Michael and Josh, and moved back to New York, settling in Riverdale. Once her youngest was old enough to attend pre-school, Jackie took a position first at Gan Miriam pre-school, and then at SAR Academy, a modern Orthodox day school, both in Riverdale. She taught third and sixth grade secular studies at SAR, and worked on special projects as well. During the summers, she worked at Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, NY, as the division head for children entering first grade. At the same time, she went back to school to get her Master's degree in education, with an emphasis in early childhood education. She received her degree in 1987 from Hunter College of the City University of New York. She remained at SAR for 15 years, then took a four year hiatus from teaching to work at the National Ramah office in Manhattan. In 2005, Jackie took the position as director of Greenburgh Hebrew Center Nursery School, where she remains today.

Jackie is on the board of her synagogue, Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, where her family have been members for 28 years. She is also an active member of the NY Board of Jewish Education's Westchester Early Childhood Directors Network, and is part of the initial cohort of educators for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's Early Childhood Initiative, where she is working on best practices in Jewish early childhood education, and on bringing Jewish early childhood education to the forefront as an important tool for lifelong Jewish identity.