Photo credit: Leonard Singer
By David Woolpy
Assistant Editor
It could have been a scene from a T.V. drama.
Mount Sinai Hospital, Cleveland. Emergency. Young Lenny, surgical resident, sprints down the hall, colliding headlong into ICU nurse Tova, tumbling her onto her backside. Lenny resumes his run, but shouts a golden apology over his shoulder.
Why golden? Because mere months later, they are married on a hotel rooftop in Jerusalem.
All of that really happened.
For Leonard and Tova Singer it was the beginning of a marriage founded in love and service. But Leonard says it more poetically, “it was clearly bashert.”
Although both are children of Shoah survivors from rural Poland, Leonard and Tova herald from strikingly different worlds. Tova grew up secular in Holon, near Tel Aviv; Leonard was raised Orthodox in Brownsville, Brooklyn. What they shared was a deep sense of Jewish identity, resilience and responsibility — values that would define both their family life and their contributions to the Cincinnati Jewish community.
Later, Leonard Singer, MD, became Chief of Plastic Surgery at The Jewish Hospital until 2008, while Tova continued her nursing career until 2010 in the cardiac step-down unit there.
Tova’s commitment to healing has extended well beyond the bedside. She was deeply involved with the Auxiliary of the original Jewish Hospital and has been a lifetime member of Hadassah, demonstrating her sustained dedication to Jewish communal health and volunteer leadership. Together, they raised three daughters, all educated at Yavneh Day School.
Leonard’s involvement in Jewish leadership started with nothing less than the Anti-Defamation League. For years, he drove to Columbus for monthly advisory board meetings, culminating with being named an Associate National Commissioner.
Leonard’s next significant chapter began when Ben Gettler invited him to join the Jewish Community Relations Council. He not only joined, but would later become JCRC president during a pivotal and often challenging transition, as the organization moved from independence to its current role under the Jewish Federation umbrella. His steady leadership helped guide the community through a period of structural change while preserving the JCRC’s mission and voice.
At the same time, Leonard served on the founding board of the Wellness Community alongside Lynn Stern, reflecting the Singers’ shared belief that healing extends beyond medicine.
Equally formative was Leonard’s participation as a chaperone for the March of the Living, an international educational program that brings Jewish students to Poland to confront the legacy of the Holocaust. Leonard accompanied participants on two such journeys, including the silent march from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Yom HaShoah. For him, the experience was life-altering — transforming inherited memory into lived responsibility, and reinforcing the urgency of Jewish education, pride and moral courage in the face of antisemitism.
That commitment is reflected in the Singer’s deep engagement with Jewish learning and religious life. Over the years, Leonard has built close relationships with many Cincinnati rabbis, including Rabbis Ingber, Zola, Goldshmiedt, Smolkin and Shafrin. He studied Tanya with Rabbi Yisroel Mangel and for a time led weekday services at Sha’arei Torah.
When asked about the growing alienation of Jewish youth, Leonard is unequivocal. “We need an all-out effort to instill Jewish pride and knowledge in our young,” he says. “Quality day schools should be entirely subsidized and competitive with the best local schools.” In response to rising antisemitism, his answer is equally direct: “The response cannot be hiding one’s identity. It needs to be secure Jewish pride — whatever it takes.”
We congratulate Leonard and Tova Singer, who are honored together because their impact has always been shared. Through medicine and nursing, parenting and learning, remembrance and leadership, they embody Jewish values while strengthening Jewish life. What began with a charmed collision of two young medical professionals, turned into a definitive marriage and a lasting gift to the city of Cincinnati. Bashert, indeed.
