Congratulations to Matana for being a recipient of the “Shining Light Award” at the “Shine Your Light”  Tribute Concert in Orange County, CA.  Read about this event HERE

Matana – which means gift, is a real gift to our community. If there is a program to do with youth, Matana is not only volunteering, but bringing her contagious energy.

Matana a member of the OC NCSY board. NCSY is a wonderful youth organization filled with leadership opportunities, Jewish values and traditional observance.

She gives freely of her time helping out with the younger chapter, and she coordinates all of the Chesed projects. An example of how Matana shares her talents, she manages all of the social media outlets for the program.

Matana also is a role model for the youngest children at her Shul, Beth Jacob Congregation of Irvine. She leads the tot-Shabbat with such enthusiasm that she is attracting all sorts of participants.

At her school, TVT, she participates in the moot beit din and is an AIPAC high school representative.  She also contributes to various online Jewish communities on topics from Passover to her passion about Israel.

With all of these things keeping Matana busy, it would make sense that Matana would just want to spend her free time hanging out with friends or dealing with homework. Well, that would not be Matana. Last summer, Matana was talking to her friend about how dressing modestly was not the easiest thing to do—well at least without using specialty shops.  She asked how could she inspire her friends to dress more modestly while shopping in all of the favorites—H&M, Forver 21? With her talent in social media, she took a route that has the capability of reaching thousands of women of all ages.

So, she came up with the idea to blog about TStyle—Tsnius fashion.  Their facebook page is amazing and their Pintrest page offers so many ideas for dressing modestly.

As an 11th grader, we have no doubt that Matana will continue to shine her light on the importance of dressing modestly, Jewish education, and helping others wherever she goes.