Beth Ellen Stern has touching memories of her bat mitzvah. The daughter of Marilyn Yanofsky and the late David Mayer Yanofsky, she was born in Philadelphia in 1971 and graduated from Robert E. Lamberton High School, Temple University, and Villanova University. She attended Hebrew school at Congregation Beth T’Fillah of Overbrook Park, Penn., and became a bat mitzvah on May 4, 1984, as part of a twinning ceremony with a Russian teenager, Marina Berenstein, who was barred from having a bat mitzvah of her own while living under the Soviet Union’s dictatorship. Beth also attended Hebrew high school at a nearby synagogue, Congregation Beth El-Beth Hillel, of Wynnewood. 

 

She later moved to King of Prussia, married Michael Cohen, and became the proud mother of Jonathan Isaac, who is now a 19-year-old college student at Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island. After being widowed in 2008, Beth remarried in 2019 to Harold Stern and moved to Merrick, NY. She is the daughter-in-law of Selma Stern and the late Bernard Stern.

 

Beth has been a member of Congregation Beth Tikvah in Wantagh since June 2022, and serves on the Sisterhood Board, runs its Judaica Shop, and most recently was co-chairwoman of her Sisterhood’s Holiday Shopping Day, a community-wide event. She is the recording secretary for the synagogue’s Board of Trustees and volunteers as a greeter at Shabbat morning services and as an usher during the High Holy Days. 

 

Professionally, Beth works as a paralegal and is a notary public for New York State. Previously, she worked as a newspaper journalist in Pennsylvania for many years. 

 

The Sisterhood of Congregation Beth Tikvah is proud to honor Beth Ellen Stern as its Woman of Achievement for 2025.