Lori and Brett Zbar
Lori grew up in a Conservative Jewish home in the DC area and attended Jewish day school from kindergarten through 12th grade. Her parents were founding members of a Havurah and biweekly Jewish study group that have each continued to meet for nearly 50 years. Lori developed a deep commitment to Jewish practice, learning, and values, ideals she hoped to transmit one day to future generations. Brett grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, in a loving family that strongly identified as Jewish but was largely non-practicing. After several years of learning with a tutor at home, Brett celebrated his bar mitzvah in Israel, during a meaningful trip that included his grandfather who had immigrated to the US from Bialystok, Poland. Lori and Brett met as undergraduates at Yale, where only one of them dined frequently at the Kosher Kitchen.
When looking at schools for their children, Lori and Brett sought an educational home that combined an outstanding learning environment with a grounding in Jewish values. Most importantly, they sought a school that would partner with them to raise thoughtful, inquisitive individuals. What they found at Heschel was a second home, with a community that embraces the values of pluralism, responsibility, and the joys of finding wonder and gratitude in the everyday. Their daughter Sabrina graduated in 2021 and is currently finishing a gap year in Jerusalem. Their son Ezra is a sophomore at Heschel.
Lori is a pediatrician on faculty at Mount Sinai where she has served as the Director of Student Health for the Icahn School of Medicine. She also serves as faculty at the Arnhold Institute for Global Health and a voluntary clinician/educator at Moi Teaching and Referring Hospital in western Kenya. She was appointed to the Mount Sinai COVID Response Team during the first wave of the pandemic in March 2020, where she developed and implemented infection prevention policies. She loves caring for and mentoring medical students both in New York and Kenya, and providing comprehensive care for all of her patients. Brett trained as a physician and leads the life science practice at General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm that invests in innovative companies and leading entrepreneurs. In his role as a life science investor for nearly 20 years, Brett has supported and served on the boards of companies that have advanced new technologies and therapies for the treatment of cancer, rare diseases, and other areas of significant unmet medical need.
Brett has enjoyed many Heschel parent-child camping trips, and he recently calculated that he has spent a total of one entire month camping with the Heschel community. He first became involved as a volunteer through the Fall Campaign in 2010. Lori first became involved at Heschel through the Parenting Institute, which she co-chaired from 2012-2014. In March of 2020, she joined Heschel’s COVID Advisory Committee, and began serving on the Board of Trustees soon thereafter. She has been awed by the dedication of the indefatigable leadership of the Heschel school, as well as her incomparable co-medical advisor Dr. David Mayman. Lori and Brett are excited for this year’s benefit and cannot wait to celebrate together IN PERSON!
