A lifelong educator and lover of children, Rivera Singer, head of El Cerrito’s Tehiyah Day School, could not leave her work even when a protracted illness kept her from returning for fall instruction this year.
Singer governed Tehiyah’s administrative affairs from her Berkeley home for several months before succumbing to the illness last Friday at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland. She was 65.
According to staff at the nondenominational Jewish school, Singer brought to Tehiyah unprecedented prestige. The school’s popularity has risen in recent years among families representing all the streams of Judaism.
Singer was hired by Tehiyah’s selection committee in 1994 because of her depth of experience in both mainstream and Jewish education, said Steve Tabak, acting head of school. The educator had logged 40 years in education at the time of her death.
Tabak described his former colleague as a “true scholar of Hebrew and Judaic studies” as well as a skilled administrator.
“She was very much in control. She knew how to delegate and how to train people to assume bigger roles and more responsibility,” he said.
Tabak added that Singer was an ardent advocate for youth. “She loved children. She had a dollhouse for the little kids to play with in her office.”
Before her death, she had been pushing for a capital campaign to build a gym-and-auditorium complex for the school.
The mood was somber at Tehiyah Monday, the first day of instruction following Singer’s death. Students, faculty and administrators gathered for a brief assembly in Singer’s honor, Tabak said.
Graveside services also took place Monday. Rabbi Maier Deshell, a personal friend of Singer’s from her native New York, led the ceremony.
While she did not affiliate with any area synagogue, she was known to attend several on occasion.
Born and raised in the religious Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, Singer attended both public and religious schools during her formative years. She went on to receive a doctorate in education from New York University.
Deshell recalled his lifelong friend as a charismatic and intellectual person who “attracted people to her like a magnet.”
During her last months, a steady stream of friends and family made the pilgrimage to her home from as far away as Paris and Israel, Deshell said.
Singer is survived by two daughters, Ruth and Miriam Singer, both of Tel Aviv.
A second service, conducted by school staff, will be open to the public at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Congregation Beth El, 2301 Vine St., Berkeley.
Charitable donations in Singer’s name can be made to Tehiyah Day School, 2603 Tassajara Ave., El Cerrito, CA 94530, or call (510) 233-3013.