Marty Leventhal of Bayside, 40-year Spanish teacher at Elizabeth Blackwell Junior High School in Ozone Park, passed away recently after battling cancer.
Leventhal spent more than 20 years teaching Hebrew at the Oakland Jewish Center in Bayside, on whose board he sat. In the early 1990s, he helped raise money for the financially-ailing temple by starting a Yeshiva and renting the building to a church.
He also worked summers at Holy Cross High School and served as mentor and friend to those he taught and those he worked with.
Growing up in Kew Gardens Hills, Leventhal at first helped his father in the family jewel business.
After attending New York University, he married his wife Shelly in the late 1960s and the couple moved to Bayside.
He retired in 2002 at the age of 59, having taught for nearly 40 years.