A deaf aunt alerted Mogil to the needs of the hearing-impaired community, so Mogil, who always wanted to be a teacher, decided during college to specialize in working with the deaf. She works as an HES (Hearing Education Services) consultant at the Cooke Center, a Lower East Side school that serves students with a variety of developmental disabilities and language-based learning disabilities, and she co-founded a day camp in Manhattan for youngsters with hearing loss who don’t use American Sign Language (ASL).
“I always loved being with children — helping was the main goal,” says Mogil, who lives in Midtown and had theatrical aspirations; she’s appeared in several Off-Broadway plays, and on Saturday Night Live, singing backup to an Adam Sandler performance of “The Chanukah Song.” She has learned ASL, but “I’m not fluent in it,” she cautions.
Raised in Roslyn, L.I., she went on a family trip to Israel at 13, developed a strong pride in being Jewish, went back on Birthright a dozen years later, and decided she wanted to “give back” to the Jewish community.
First, she led nine Birthright trips and worked as director of special projects for Birthright’s alumni organization. Then, she volunteered for the Chabad Relief Project, which distributes food packages to indigent Jews in New York, and advises about-to-marry Jewish couples on the traditions of a Jewish wedding, and she and her husband invite ex-Birthrighters to their apartment for kosher Shabbat meals. She also assists the Inside Legion Jewish self-defense organization.
She went on a family trip to Israel at 13, developed a strong pride in being Jewish, went back on Birthright a dozen years later, and decided she wanted to “give back” to the Jewish community.
A cigar aficionado, she is a co-founder of La Sirena Cigars, which produces a line of premium cigars she helped create. Mogil says she has always had an entrepreneurial bent. “I’m always looking,” she said, “to create the ‘next thing.’”
Keys to her heart: At 25, Mogil met her future husband, Max, on a Birthright Israel trip. During an icebreaker session at JFK Airport, she had to find someone who played a musical instrument. “I’m a classical pianist,” said Max, sitting next to her. Love bloomed. Nowadays he demonstrates his virtuosity at his mother’s home in Cherry Hill, N.J. “I love it whenever he plays,” Mogil said.
