When Hannah Litowitz first used M&M candies to teach students their Hebrew numbers and colors, Dwight Eisenhower had just been elected to his first term as president and Israel was just celebrating its fifth birthday.

Fifty-four years and thousands of students later, Litowitz and her M&Ms, golden dreidels, blessing charts, Israeli stamp collection, and all her other innovative teaching tools have been packed or given away.

This month Congregation Neve Shalom in Metuchen, where she taught in the religious school the last 21 years, honored Litowitz on the occasion of her retirement.

A service and kiddush were held Oct. 6 in her honor.

On Oct. 14, current and former students, parents, and others gathered at the synagogue to say good-bye and thank you to a woman who taught generations of children to love being Jewish.

Litowitz also was presented with a prestigious Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education on behalf of the Jewish Education Service of North America.

The award, given annually to a handful of teachers across North America, comes with a minimum $2,500 stipend — $1,000 of it from the educator"s local federation — as well as an expenses-paid trip to Nashville for the Nov. 11-13 General Assembly of United Jewish Communities, where Litowitz will be again honored.
"Hannah Litowitz reflects the best of Jewish education because she teaches her subject well, and her subject is her love for Judaism," said Philip Cantor, immediate past president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, in presenting the award.

"She is a role model, and we will miss her greatly. I will miss her personally because she was such a great teacher to my own children."

Litowitz, a Woodbridge resident, reflected on her love of teaching as she prepared for her move to a retirement community in Ocean County in December.

"It was a way of life, my vacations, everything was planned according to my Hebrew school schedule," said Litowitz, during a phone interview several days after the Oct. 14 event.

"It seems strange not to be doing anything now. Whenever I see a picture in the paper of something I can use in class, I still clip it out. I"ve given away my teaching materials, and it all seems a little empty and strange — but I"ll get used to it."

Litowitz has always believed that you don"t have to be fluent in Hebrew to be a good Jew, although she encouraged learning the language.

"Most important is a love of Judaism," she stated. "I teach them about tikun olam [repairing the world] and how to behave toward each other."

To impart Yiddishkeit to her students, Litowitz stressed Jewish and Israeli music, art, and culture. For Yom Hashoa, Holocaust Remembrance Day, she used postage stamps depicting such figures as Anne Frank and Swedish rescuer Raoul Wallenberg and Holocaust artifacts to enhance her lessons.

"It"s so nice to come to shul on Shabbat and see my former students coming up to read Torah," explained Litowitz. "They tell me they are getting married, or sometimes I meet their parents and they tell me about all their children"s accomplishments, and we are happy together. I will really miss that."

Rabbi Gerald Zelizer, who hired Litowitz at Neve Shalom, said that he makes a point of asking children who are becoming bar or bat mitzva which teacher in the religious school taught them the most.
"Invariably they say Hannah Litowitz," said Zelizer. "Besides her love for children, she has multiple methods for teaching children."

He related how she would give the weather report in Israel in Hebrew, and give out a golden dreidel to those who learned the Hanukka blessings correctly.

"Kids really remember things that way," he said. "I tell you, I hate to lose her."

Neve Shalom"s Cantor Sheldon Levin said he was always impressed with the array of tapes and CDs she used in her classroom and her love of Jewish music.

In Litowitz"s honor, Levin played the piano at the Oct. 14 event while former and current students serenaded their teacher.

Litowitz began her teaching career in 1953 at Congregation Beth Torah in Orange. When that synagogue closed, the Newark resident moved to Sharey Tefilo in East Orange, which later merged with Temple Israel to form Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange. She later spent three years at Shomrei Torah in Hillside.

In 1963, Litowitz began a 24-year stint at Temple Beth Ahm in Springfield. While there, she moved to Woodbridge and also began teaching at Neve Shalom.

"When I first began, we used to give the kids homework," said Litowitz. "You had great expectations. Now we give almost no homework — they don"t do it anyway. They all have so many different activities today they just don"t have time for it. Now you have to teach them in class and you really have to motivate them."

Former student Michelle Preffer, 18, of Edison said Litowitz left her with a love of Jewish music and an interest in Hebrew.

"I"m just starting college now and taking Hebrew, and you know, it"s funny, a lot of the words I"m learning now I already learned from her," said the Monmouth University student. "She"s definitely helped me along the way."

Ten-year-old Rachel Rosen of Metuchen remembered "getting a candy bar from Israel and learning to sing all the blessings," and added, "She was like a grandma to me."

At the Oct. 14 event, Shelley Telson, vice president of education at Neve Shalom, helped present to Litowitz a scrapbook, a sculpture of a golden dreidel, and a basket of those famous M&Ms.

Telson recalled how her own children, when they were Litowitz"s students, "used to jump out of the car and run into her classroom. They couldn"t wait to come in and learn their prayers and colors on that chart."

As the program closed, Litowitz became a teacher one last time, offering bags of M&Ms and hugs to each child in the room.