Some 300 people turned out for a gala dinner benefiting Chabad-Lubavitch of Greenwich, Conn., and its Camp Gan Israel. Directed by Rabbi Yossi and Maryashie Deren, the organizations held the affair at the State University of New York’s Performing Arts Center in Purchase.

Don Snyder, a former news producer for NBC’s “Today” show and a recipient of a Ford Foundation Fellowship at Columbia University, was honored at the dinner along with Alma Rutgers, an elected member of the Greenwich Board of Estimate and Taxation, and a former president of the Hadassah Women’s Organization.

“Chabad of Greenwich has enabled our three young children to have a love of Judaism and a Jewish heritage that is beyond our greatest dreams,” remarked additional honorees Pam and Andy Karetsky. “Chabad of Greenwich has given our family the gift of spirituality.”

Ana Lilienfeld, the dinner’s “woman of valor,” spoke about the joy of working with Camp Gan Israel and seeing the Chabad center grow from a tiny outpost in suburban Connecticut to a thriving institution with a preschool, Hebrew school, adult education program and daily prayer services. …