Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School’s annual Spotlight event plays a key role in raising funds for scholarships and financial aid for prospective students, as well as honoring important people in Baltimore’s Jewish community.

But this year’s honoree is notable for the impact she’s had in shaping the school over nearly 50 years, growing it from a small K-8 day school to an award-winning institution.

Beth Tfiloh’s community said “Todah rabah,” or thank you greatly, to its director of education, Dr. Zipora Schorr, at the Spotlight 2025 event on May 28.

Schorr will be ending her tenure as the school’s director of education at the end of the 2025 academic year, a position she has held since 1982 following her time as the lower school’s principal.

She will be succeeded in July by former Yeshiva University High School for Girls Head of School Bracha Rutner, but she will continue working on other projects at Beth Tfiloh until the end of the 2026 academic year.

The fundraiser event, which raised over $2 million, was a festive night where alumni, faculty and community members shared stories of Schorr’s impact on their lives, enjoyed performances from Jewish and Israeli musicians and helped support future Beth Tfiloh students.

Spotlight 2025 was co-chaired by the people on whom Schorr has had the greatest impact: her children, Hudi and Yanky Schorr.

“To the world, she’s a powerhouse, a visionary, a Jewish educational icon,” Yanky Schorr said at the event. “A woman who has literally built institutions and shaped generations. But to us, she’s also the woman who, more than once, left a board meeting to pick me up from detention.”

Many of the additions Schorr made to Beth Tfiloh during her time as director of education are what give the school its unique identity even among Jewish day schools today.

She is responsible for adding a high school, organizing the construction of a separate lower school building, expanding the school’s arts and team sports offerings and helping to found the Mercaz Dahan Center for Jewish Life and Learning at Beth Tfiloh Congregation, which hosts classes on Judaism for adults.

She has also always been committed to STEM education, and under her leadership Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School was an early investor in computer labs and a student laptop program.

Schorr noted during her remarks at the event, though, that she may not have gotten the opportunity to work at Beth Tfiloh and make these changes if not for a blessing from the Belzer rebbe.

For five generations, her family lived in Jerusalem until her father found work as a rabbi in Detroit. But her mother was hesitant about coming to the U.S. and thought she would not be able to raise her children Jewishly there. It wasn’t until she met with the Belzer rebbe that she changed her mind.

“He said, ‘Your children will be Torah Jews, and will spread Judaism to others,’” Schorr recalled. “We came to America, and every one of us — all eight of us — became teachers and principals in Jewish schools … and the Rebbe’s blessing was fulfilled.”

Since she started working at Beth Tfiloh, Schorr has become an icon in the world of Jewish education.

She received the Covenant Foundation Award for Exceptional Jewish Educators in 2003 and was inducted into the Baltimore Jewish Hall of Fame in 2017, alongside other famous Jewish Baltimoreans like Harry Attman, Howard E. Friedman and 2024 Spotlight honoree Sen. Ben Cardin.

In addition to the $2 million raised by Beth Tfiloh community members, the Haron Dahan Foundation awarded the school a $1 million gift for the Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School’s Faculty Recruitment and Retention Endowment, which supports recruitment efforts, professional development and benefits for the school’s staff.

Schorr and Haron Dahan were longtime friends, with “Dahan” added to the name of the school in 2003 to honor the latter’s contributions.

“Dr. Zipora Schorr has been Beth Tfiloh’s most remarkable character,” said Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, Beth Tfiloh’s rabbi-in-residence and two-time Spotlight honoree, at the event.

“Her love of people is matched by her love of learning, and her love of learning combines Jewish and secular knowledge in perfect synthesis.”

jdiamond@midatlanticmdia.com