The International Lion of Judah Conference

 

MK Rachel Adatto

Dr. Rachel Adatto was elected to Knesset in 2009 and is a member of the Labor, Health and Welfare Committee, among others. Her legislative focus is improving the Israeli health system, strengthening health care services in the country’s periphery, and promoting women’s health. Dr. Adatto is both an accomplished physician and hospital administrator who for many years was an advisor to the Israeli government on health issues. From 1995-2009, she was Deputy Director General of Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

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Carol Asher

Carol Asher is board president of ReNEW Schools, a non-profit charter management organization aimed at turning around failing schools in New Orleans. She has an extensive background in professional marketing and development for nonprofit organizations. Ms. Asher is most well known for her proven record of accomplishment and specialty of converting nonprofit charities into productive and accountable business operations. Her experience includes raising millions of dollars for organizations that improve the quality of life and economic climate for communities. Asher most recently directed 504connect, an initiative to retain the influx of young professionals who are in New Orleans with dual aspirations of sparking social change and advancing their careers.


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Allison Baumwald

Allison Baumwald, vice president for Women’s Philanthropy at THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, is responsible for stewardship, engagement and solicitation of women donors throughout our system. Prior to assuming this role, she served as vice president of Resource Development, managing special project fundraising, including a $15 million day school campaign, the PJ Library and other agency needs.  Over the past seven years, Allison served as director of development, associate Campaign director, and director, Business and Professionals Affinity and Campaign associate.

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Mariuma Klein Ben-Yosef

Mariuma Klein Ben-Yosef is the co-founder and director of Israel’s renowned Shanti House (Beit HaShanti), a home providing support for young people who are homeless or at risk. She founded Shanti House after she herself survived a difficult, traumatic childhood and young adulthood, drawing on her experiences to create a unique treatment method based on the belief that everyone is a human being. That is the foundation of the Shanti House credo: to help every child, whoever he or she is, regardless of religion, race, sex or nationality. The home's doors are open 24 hours a day, and youngsters are admitted at any time, without requiring official referral or a waiting period.

For 18 years Shanti House relied solely on donations. In 2000, the house received government recognition, and has since received support from the Ministry of Welfare, comprising 8 percent of the the home’s annual operating budget.

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Will Berkovitz

Will Berkovitz is vice president of Partnerships and Rabbi in Residence at Repair the World. Ordained at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, he was previously director of Hillel at the University of Washington and Jconnect Seattle.

In that capacity, he was instrumental in making innovation, post-college programming and Jewish service-learning pillars of the organization. Prior to his work with the University of Washington, Will served as executive director at the University of Oregon Hillel, where he created international conferences, and at the St. Louis Hillel at Washington University, where he founded an inner-city literacy camp and created several other award-winning initiatives.

Before becoming a rabbi Will worked as a journalist in Seattle where he edited and wrote for local, regional and national magazines focusing on cultural arts and wilderness travel. Will has lived in Israel, England and in several cities around the United States and has lead service trips around the world. He currently lives in Seattle with his wife Lelach, and their sons Nativ and Idan.

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Shlomit Bicha

Shlomit Bicha is a Youth Futures trustee working with children at risk in Bat Yam, Israel. Youth Futures is a program of the Jewish Agency for Israel. Shlomit came to Israel with her parents from Ethiopia during the 1970s in a secret operation. She was raised and studied in Ashdod, where she participated in the Tanach (Bible) quiz. After finishing high school, she served with the police and then, upon finishing her service in the IDF, she worked with children and youth at risk and with the Ethiopian community. In her current work, she is responsible for 16 kids, ages 10–11. At the same time, she is working on her BA in Criminology at Ashkelon College.


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Daniel Blain

Daniel Blain is senior vice president of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland.  In this role, he is responsible for the Federation’s human resource development, financial resource development, endowment, and marketing.  Daniel joined the staff of the Federation in 1989 and  has worked in the Human Resources, Planning, Community Relations and Campaign departments. He has directed eight annual campaigns, overseeing growth from $24.7 to $31.1 million during his tenure.

Daniel graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and earned double Masters degrees in Social Work and Jewish Communal Service from Hebrew Union College and Washington University. He was a recipient of the FEREP Scholarship for graduate study. Daniel lives in Shaker Heights with his wife, Miriam Rosenberg, and their children, Max and Ruby.

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Shifra Bronznick

Shifra Bronznick is a consultant who specializes in creating new initiatives and helping not-for-profit organizations navigate change. Shifra has consulted for diverse organizations, including the Public Education Network, The Fresh Air Fund, Hebrew Union College-JIR, American Jewish World Service, and the Charles H. Revson Foundation. Shifra is the founding president of Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community, selected annually by Slingshot as one of the most innovative and effective organizations in Jewish life. She is the co-author with Didi Goldenhar and Marty Linsky of the book, Leveling the Playing Field.

Shifra is the lead investigator for Visioning Justice, a long term action research project commissioned by the Nathan Cummings Foundation to strengthen the field of Jewish social justice. She has also worked with many next generation change leaders to support them in developing their visions and communities. Shifra has been chosen three times by the Forward as one of the fifty most influential Jews, most recently in 2009.

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Naomi Brunnlehrman

Naomi Brunnlehrman is a professional American Sign Language Interpreter with an MA from the The Jewish Theological Seminary. She is a pioneer in interpreting synagogue liturgy from Hebrew to ASL without relying on an English translation. In 1996, in partnership with Deaf colleagues, she co-founded The Jewish Deaf Resource Center (JDRC) to serve as an advocacy organization within the wider Jewish Community. JDRC is a non-profit organization that has done work both nationally and in partnership with colleagues in Israel. In 2009, Naomi and JDRC received an award from the Westchester Jewish Council for its advocacy work. Naomi and her husband Steve reside in Westchester, NY, with their two sons.


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Simona Burbacki

Simona Burbacki was born to and raised by Jewish parents who immigrated to New York from the FSU. They instilled in her a great pride in her heritage and a sense of responsibility towards her community. Throughout her studies at Hofstra University, Simona volunteered for the Board of Jewish Education in NY, the ZOA, Fuel for Truth and other projects geared towards advancing Israel and the Jewish community worldwide. After she completed her BA in Political Science and International Affairs, Simona was recruited to work in financial services in NY for a growing Israeli start-up. Eventually making the move to Tel Aviv in 2008, she worked in financial services as a product specialist/account manager for Superderivatives and then decided to complete her MBA at Tel Aviv University. Returning back to NY after two and a half years in Israel has proved to be bittersweet, but Simona is relishing the experience and has recently joined Traiana ICAP as a strategic account manager, working with global investment banks in the post-trade processing arena.

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Laura Buyanovsky

Laura Buyanovsky is an alumna of Tel-Aviv University’s Sofaer International MBA program. Born and raised in Toronto, she completed her undergraduate studies in Commerce with a specialization in Finance and Economics at the University of Toronto.  Before coming to Tel-Aviv University, Laura worked as a commercial underwriter in the area of corporate management liability at Travelers Insurance. Her professional areas of interest are international real estate finance and development and economic analysis.

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Shoshana Shoubin Cardin

Shoshana Shoubin Cardin, known by Presidents and Prime Ministers worldwide, served on the board of the Jewish Agency For Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). She was the vice chair of UJA and vice president of the JNF.

Ms. Cardin was the first woman to chair the board of THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, United Israel Appeal, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and to serve as president of CJF and CLAL. She was also president of the Federation of Jewish Women’s Organizations and chair of the Maryland Commission for Women.

The recipient of numerous local, national, and international awards from Hadassah, HIAS, ZOA, JNF, the State of Israel and more, she received honorary doctorate degrees from Boston Hebrew and Touro Colleges, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Baltimore Hebrew, Syracuse, and Bar-Ilan Universities. She is the co-founder and past chair of Shoshana S. Cardin High School. In 2008 she authored an autobiography, Shoshana.

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Neshama Carlebach

One of the leading performers in Jewish music today, Neshama Carlebach is a powerful singer-songwriter who is continuing the legacy established by her late father, the internationally beloved Reb Shlomo Carlebach. Both with her band, and in collaboration with the Bronx-based Green Pastures Baptist Church Choir, Carlebach sings her father’s incomparable melodies as well as original compositions. Her latest album is "Higher and Higher," recorded with the Green Pastures choir.

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Rebecca Caspi

Rebecca Caspi leads the JFNA Global Operations: Israel and Overseas division. In this capacity, she is responsible for managing efforts to link North American Jewry, through the Federation system, to Israel and the rest of the Jewish world.

Prior to joining the Jewish Federations team, Rebecca worked for over 16 years at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Her positions there included executive director of Worldwide Human Resource Development, deputy director for International Relations, and director of Human Resources and Administration for the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute. 

Rebecca was the first woman ever appointed to JDC’s global executive management team.  She has an extensive background in operational management, human resources and financial resource development. Before joining JDC, Rebecca worked for the City University of New York.  Upon making aliyah, she managed a private medical clinic in Tel Aviv and performed with the Israel Sinfonietta Orchestra.


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Liat Damoza

Liat Damoza, a Donor Missions Coordinator for the Jewish Agency for Israel, was born in a Jewish village in the Gondar region of Ethiopia. Liat and her family fled Ethiopia and found refugee in the Red Cross camps in the Sudan Desert. Following nearly two years of suffering in Sudan, Liat's family managed to contact undercover agents of the Mossad, who eventually brought them to Jerusalem. Liat arrived in Israel with her parents and part of their extended family. The family was split between Israel, Sudan and Ethiopia until they were all reunited by the miraculous airlift of 1991 known as Operation Solomon.

Liat grew up in Kiryat Yam. She served in the National Service as a counselor in a boarding school where she worked with teenage immigrants who were alone in Israel, With financial assistance from the Jewish Agency, Liat earned a BA from Bar Ilan University. While on campus, Liat was an active member of the World Union of Jewish Students. Liat also proudly toured North American campuses as ambassador of the Israel at Heart program. Following three years of working fora hi-tech company, Liat decided to become professionally involved in the Jewish communal world.

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Sarah Davison

Sarah Davison is a leader at THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and currently sits on its executive board and on the board of the Women’s Department. She has been involved in many aspects of the Federation’s young women’s leadership programming and was a member of JFNA’s National Young Leadership Cabinet. In February, she will travel to Israel on a Heart to Heart mission, the second in a successful initiative by National Women’s Philanthropy to broaden its outreach. Sarah is married to Mark Davison and they have two children, Jack and Madeleine.

 

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Alisa Robbins Doctoroff

Alisa Robbins Doctoroff chairs the board of UJA-Federation of New York. She previously served as chair of the Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal, and was involved for many years with its work, particularly in Israel and with young people.

Ms. Doctoroff is the immediate past president of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School and was instrumental in founding its high school division in 2001. She is active on the boards of a wide spectrum of organizations that promote engagement with Jewish life and identity through education, culture and religious life, including Moving Traditions, Mechon Hadar, and the Jewish Theological Seminary where she chairs the Governance Committee. She is also past president of Congregation Or Zarua, co-founder of the Jewish Lens and a board member of the Jewish Funders Network.

Ms. Doctoroff graduated from Harvard College in 1980 and received an MBA from the University of  Chicago Graduate School of Business. She also holds an MA in Jewish Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary.

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Naomi Efrat

Born in Haifa, Israel, in 1982, Naomi Efrat dreamed of living on a kibbutz. But as she grew up, she realized her dream wasn't as simple as she’d imagined: Kibbutzim were falling apart, going through privatization. After her IDF service as commander of a special unit for youth at risk, she began to search for a way to empower development towns, work with neglected sectors of society, and fulfill her kibbutz dream in today’s Israel.

At Kama Urban Kibbutz in Beersheva she found her place: an urban community dedicated to supporting the town and empowering its people, committed to staying in the Negev and still living in a collective, kibbutz fashion. Feeling strongly connected to urban communities, Naomi decided to work at Shahaf Center, which supports religious, secular and Arab communities of this sort all over Israel. Naomi received her BA in Psychology a year ago. She loves painting, writing and hiking, and she sees herself committed to her community and way of life for the years to come.

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Adva Elkabetz

Adva Elkabetz is Cornell University Hillel’s first Israel Fellow, a program jointly sponsored by Hillel International and The Jewish Agency for Israel. Adva recently passed the Israeli bar exams after an internship in the Knesset. This followed her study of law and public policy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After her IDF service, Adva also was a tour guide with the Israeli Ministry of Tourism and participated in Ometz, a tutoring program for high school students with emotional and educational difficulties.


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Gloria Feldt

Gloria Feldt is a leading activist, best-selling author, and commentator on women and leadership, politics, power, health, and media. Her current book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power — Tools for Leading an Unlimited Life examines why women are stuck at 18 percent of top leadership roles and, through both inspirational stories and practical tools, shows how women can redefine power, lead themselves with intention, and reach parity from the boardroom to the bedroom for good — their own and society’s.  

Gloria's other books include the New York Times best seller, Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles, co-written with Kathleen Turner; The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women’s Rights and How to Fight Back; and Behind Every Choice Is a Story. Her blog, Heartfeldt, can be found on her website, www.GloriaFeldt.com.

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Ethan Felson

Ethan Felson is vice president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the coordinating body for 14 national Jewish agencies and 125 local JCRCs and federations. Among the issue he covers at JCPA is interfaith relations. In this capacity, he has played a leadership role responding to anti-Israel divestment and de-legitimazation campaigns in American churches, including the Presbyterian Church, which rejected divestment again this year despite a well-coordinated campaign. He has written for Shm'a, the American Jewish Year Book, JTA, and numerous other publications.


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Sally Friedman

Sally Friedman serves on JFNA’s Planned Giving and Endowment Committee and is one of the vice chairs of the Professional Advisory Committee. She previously served on the Endowment Professionals advisory committee, where she chaired the Endowment Best Practices sub-committee that established the Star of David Society for national endowment recognition.

Sally was on the United Jewish Appeal Young Women’s Leadership Cabinet from 1976 until 1981. She was on the executive committee and was southeastern regional chair for the cabinet. She also co-chaired the Birmingham Jewish Federation’s first Business and Professional Women’s group.

She serves on Birmingham’s Israel and World Jewry Bureau and served for several years on the board of Henry S. Jacobs Camp, the Union for Reform Judaism’s Southern region camp. Sally is a passionate advocate of Jewish summer camping, Jewish day schools and teen trips to Israel.
She is married to Richard Friedman and has two children, Liora and Sammy. Sammy met his beautiful wife, Emily, at Jewish summer camp.


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Pnina Gaday

Pnina Gaday, director of Hillel at Tel Aviv University, is the first Ethiopian Hillel director. She made aliyah with her family at age 3 after an arduous trek across the wilderness of her homeland and Sudan. In 2003, she completed her service in the IDF, where she worked with Ethiopian youth. She enrolled at Hebrew University where, eager to explore her unique Jewish identity and bond with fellow Ethiopian Jews, she quickly became involved with the campus Hillel. She created Ethiopian Night, a celebration of her native culture that drew 300 people and has become an annual event.

This deeply personal event inspired Pnina to return to Ethiopia, where she developed a new sense of pride and returned to Israel eager to make an impression on her college peers. She later traveled to Australia, England, Belgium and the former Soviet Union, where she led Passover seders in several different cities and towns. In each new place, she has made it her mission to educate and inspire Hillel students of various backgrounds.

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Galactic

The latest album from this celebrated New Orleans band is YA-KA-MAY, a visionary mix intertwining New Orleans sounds from jazz to brass band to funk and beyond. With this release, the group reaffirms its status as the quintessential modern-day New Orleans band and one of the funkiest outfits in the known universe. Galactic includes drummer Stanton Moore, bassist Robert Mercurio, saxophonist/harmonica player Ben Ellman, keyboardist Richard Vogel, and guitarist Jeff Raines.

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Girls in Trouble

Girls in Trouble is the songwriting debut of multi-instrumentalist Alicia Jo Rabins, who performs all vocals, guitar parts and string sections for the album. Alicia marries her classical training and folk-punk sensitivity to her penchant for Jewish literature, mysticism and history. The result: pop hooks grounded in experimentation, subtle musicianship and a taste for ruminative lyrics.

Alicia began playing music at age 3, and advanced to play violin in conservatory programs and chamber groups before moving on to poetry, in which she holds an MFA. Disenchanted with poetry by a series of downtown internships and cocktail parties, Alicia escaped to Jerusalem in search of spiritual grounding. After two years studying ancient Jewish texts, she returned to New York and created Girls in Trouble, a synthesis of her explorations in music, poetry and mystical literature.

In the tradition of Leonard Cohen and Joanna Newsom, Alicia's music draws the listener into a world of poetry, intimacy and violence. Her songs draw from ancient material, yet remain deeply personal; her performance is raw, naked, and unbound. For her debut album, Alicia recruited Aaron Hartman of Old Time Relijun (K Records) to play upright bass, Tim Monaghan to play drums, and Jascha Hoffman to play piano, keyboards, and vibraphone. They recorded in rural North Carolina with master analog engineer Scott Solter (Spoon, The Mountain Goats).

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Judy Gold

Emmy-Award-winning actress and comedian Judy Gold is best known as the star of the critically acclaimed Off Broadway show, 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, for which she was nominated for a 2006 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. The New York Times called this one-woman show "fiercely funny, honest and moving." A book based on the show was nominated for the prestigious Quill Award.

Judy's new show, Jewdy: My Life as a Sitcom, just premiered to rave reviews in Washington, D.C. and was featured last summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Mass. Most recently, Judy was in the cast of Nora and Delia Ephron's Love, Loss and What I Wore. She has guest-hosted and appeared numerous times on The View, and she appears regularly on The Joy Behar Show on CNN.

Judy recently appeared on "Ugly Betty" and "The Wendy Williams Show." She was host of HBO's At the Multiplex with Judy Gold from 1999-2009. Her stand-up comedy specials include Comedy Central Presents: Judy Gold, Comedy Central's Tough Crowd Stands Up, and a half-hour HBO special, which received a Cable Ace Award.

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Leah Golan

Leah Golan is the director general of the Israel department at the Jewish Agency. She has worked for the Jewish Agency in a variety of positions including regional director of Southern Israel, director of aliyah for Western countries and countries in distress, and director of the planning division of the Israel department. As director general of the Israel department, Leah has led a process that has resulted in  three main focuses of activity: partnerships, youth at-risk, and priority areas.

The department is defining new partnership models with Diaspora communities, Israeli philanthropists and other bodies, with the goal of involving them in Jewish Agency activities and the department's central programs: Youth Futures, a program for empowering youth at-risk in national priority areas, Partnership 2000, Atidim, Net@ and many more.

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Dr. Karla Goldman

 

Dr. Karla Goldman is the Sol Drachler Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan, where her research focuses on the history of the American Jewish experience with special attention to American Jewish communities and the evolving roles and contributions of American Jewish women. She directs the university's Program in Jewish Communal Leadership.

 

Dr. Goldman’s first book explores the role of women in the development of 18th and 19th century American Judaism. She is currently completing a history of the Jews of Cincinnati, and she is also engaged in an ongoing study of the Jewish experience of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

 

Dr. Goldman previously taught American Jewish history at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and served as historian in residence at the Jewish Women's Archive in Brookline, Massachusetts. She is the author of Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism.

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Sharna Goldseker

Sharna Goldseker is vice president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, where she directs 21/64, a non-profit consulting division specializing in next-generation and multi-generational strategic philanthropy. In that capacity, she facilitates Grand Street, a network of seventy 18-28 year olds who are or will be involved in their family’s philanthropy. She also oversees Slingshot, a funding collaborative for Jewish funders in their 20s and 30s; speaks and consults on generational transitions; and trains other advisors on 21/64’s approach to multigenerational engagement.

Sharna has 14 years of experience in the non-profit sector, including 11 years in the philanthropic field as a grantmaker and as a consultant to families, foundations and federations on next-generation and multigenerational philanthropy. Prior to joining ACBP, she was a program officer at Philanthropy Advisors, a multi-family foundation office in New York, where she managed grantmaking in the areas of legal rights, reproductive health, social justice and the environment.

Sharna currently serves on the boards of the Goldseker Foundation and the Council on Foundations, the advisory board of Strategic Philanthropy Ltd., and is chair of the Council’s 2011 Family Philanthropy Conference.

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Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein received her doctorate in philosophy from Princeton University. Her award-winning books include The Dark Sister, which received the Whiting Writer’s Award; Mazel, which received the 1995 National Jewish Book Award and the 1995 Edward Lewis Wallant Award; Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel, which received numerous favorable reviews and was named one of the best books of the year by Discover magazine, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Sun; and Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew who Gave Us Modernity, won the 2006 Koret International Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought. 

Her latest novel, Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, was published by Pantheon Books in 2010. She has received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and Guggenheim and Radcliffe fellowships, and she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. She lives in Massachusetts, and is a Research Associate at Harvard University.

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Reva Gorelick

Reva Gorelick is a senior at the University of Pittsburgh, majoring in Applied Developmental Psychology. She is a program intern at the university Hillel; a member of VoKols, its a cappella group; and president of Plant to Plate, which raises awareness about agriculture and sustainability.


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Rabbi Steve Gutow

Rabbi Steve Gutow is president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the coordinating body for 14 national Jewish agencies and 125 local Jewish community relations councils and federations.  He is a lawyer, rabbi, and activist. Steve serves on the Economic Recovery Task Force of the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and on the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, a coalition of 18 Jewish social justice organizations building a unified movement that is part of the national Jewish agenda.  He has chaired the Save Darfur Coalition.

Steve was  the founding executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council and the first southwest regional director for AIPAC.  He is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and served as Adjunct Law Professor at St. Louis University. Steve has been named to the “Forward 50.” In 2009 and 2010, Newsweek named him the 20th most influential rabbi in the U.S.


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Nela Hasic

Nela Hasic is director of the Women’s Health Empowerment Project in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a non-sectarian initiative of JDC and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Ms. Hasic and her family, members of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Jewish community, fled when civil war broke out in 1992. With JDC assistance, she was flown to Belgrade with her children, while her husband stayed in Sarajevo. Six months later, the family was reunited in Budapest, and soon afterward made aliyah. After spending a decade in Israel, Ms. Hasic returned to Sarajevo in 2002. In January 2004, she began work with JDC on this women’s health initiative.

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Anne Heyman

Anne Heyman is the founder of the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, a residential community in rural Rwanda that is a home to youth who were orphaned during and after the genocide of 1994. A native of South Africa, Anne graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 and from the George Washington School of Law in 1986. After two years in private practice, she went to work for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where she stayed until the birth of her third child. Since leaving the District Attorney’s office, Anne has been actively engaged in philanthropic work both in and outside of the United States.

Her roles as former president and co-chair of the board of Dorot reflect her ongoing commitment to the many needs of the homebound and homeless elderly. Her dedication to and work with the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York, Young Judaea, Tufts University Hillel and the Jewish Community Centers of America show how important Jewish youth and continuity are to her and her family’s foundation, of which she is the director. Perhaps, however, it is with respect to the notion of tikkun olam, the Jewish obligation to repair the world, that Anne is most passionate. From active engagement in the battle to stop the genocide in Darfur, to programs in Israel, the Former Soviet Union, Uganda and most recently Rwanda, Anne’s commitment to improving the lives of others is unwavering.

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Vanessa Hidary

Native New Yorker Vanessa Hidary, aka The Hebrew Mamita, grew up on Manhattan's culturally diverse Upper West Side, graduating from LaGuardia High School of the Arts and Hunter College. Her experiences as a Sephardic Jew with close friends from different ethnic and religious backgrounds inspired her to write "Culture Bandit," a solo show that chronicles Vanessa's coming of age during the golden age of Hip-Hop and her dedication to fostering understanding and friendship between all people.

She has appeared three times on "Russell Simmon's Def Poetry Jam" on HBO, and is featured in the film "The Tribe," which was selected for the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival in NYC, and the 2007 Jewish Motifs International Film Festival in Warsaw, Poland.

Vanessa has recently begun conducting poetry and racism workshops with the Bnai' Brith Youth Organization (ages 14-16), and is working with Birthright Israel NEXT directing "MONOLOGUES": An evening of solo performances exploring Jewish Identity inspired by a 10-day trip through Israel.

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Fran Gordon Immerman

Fran Gordon Immerman is a Jewish communal activist, choral singer and creative philanthropist with over 20 years of involvement in the local, national and international Jewish community. 

Her love of Jewish music led her to be active in the Jewish choral movement and to her current project: Sacred Rights, Sacred Song. For the project, Fran collaborated with six Jewish composers, spanning generations and genres, to develop seven original pieces of music, with orchestration and narration, addressing the serious issues in Israel stemming from the lack of religious pluralism. The objective is to raise awareness of the issues, raise our voices in concern and raise money to support non-governmental organizations in Israel working to advance religious pluralism. Sacred Rights, Sacred Song – A Concert of Concern was premiered in Cleveland on November 6.

Fran’s involvement in Federation includes serving on the National Young Leadership Cabinet from 1991-1996, and then, from 2000-2004, chairing the Partnership 2000 program between Cleveland and Israel’s Beit Shean Region. A native of Akron, Ohio with deep roots in Eretz Yisrael, she now lives in Cleveland and maintains a second home in Jerusalem.

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Jordana Jaffe

 

Jordana Jaffe, a MASA alumna, created Embarkability to empower and teach women in their 20s how to start their own successful businesses. She launched her first business at 24 years of age without knowing the first thing about entrepreneurship, and eventually was running “live ORGANIZED,” a successful business featured on NBC, in Women's Health, and the New York Daily News. Jordana speaks on college panels, at university functions and at sorority meetings, and leads her own workshops.


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Arlene Kaufman

Arlene Kaufman has served in numerous capacities at the national level in the Jewish communal world, and has long worked in service to Jewish continuity and international issues. She currently serves as International co-chair of Masa Israel Journey. She is a key funder of Birthright Israel post-trip programming and a former national major gifts and missions chair for United Jewish Appeal. Arlene currently sits on the board of the American Joint Distribution Committee and has served on the Jewish Agency Board of Governors, the board of the American Jewish Committee and is past president of the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach.

Other board memberships include: The American Friends of the Weizmann Institute; the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL); the American Friends of Israel Science and Arts Academy; Livnot, the Board of Governors of Hillel; the Institute for Jewish and Community Research; and BBYO.

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Rachel Olstein Kaplan

Rachel Olstein Kaplan is the director of Volunteer Services at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda, where she leads service learning trips, oversees the long-term volunteer program and runs local outreach efforts.

Her interest in social justice began when she volunteered for a year with AmeriCorps after high school. After receiving her BA from Vassar College in Urban Education and French, she spent two years teaching second grade at an inner-city school. She then shifted to the outdoor classroom, teaching at the Teva Learning Center and leading service trips in India and the Azore Islands. 

Rachel studied in Israel on a MASA grant and received an MA in Community Leadership and Philanthropy Studies at Hebrew University; her studies focused on international development. She lives in New York with her husband Ori.

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 Alexis Kashar

Alexis Kashar received her B.A. in Finance and her J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. After receiving her J.D. in 1992, she practiced civil rights and special education law until 2004 in Los Angeles. During that time, she represented deaf individuals and individuals with disabilities in obtaining access to public places under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She represented hundreds of children with special needs in obtaining free and appropriate public education.

Ms. Kashar relocated to New York in 2004 with her family and is currently involved with several community boards and activities. Through her volunteer work with the Jewish Deaf Resource Center (JDRC), she inspired the creation of UJA-Federation of NY's first Jewish Community Deaf Interpreting Fund. She is also the current chairperson of the Scarsdale Village Council on Persons with Disabilities, and vice president of the board of trustees for the New York School for the Deaf. In addition, she chairs the National Association for the Deaf Civil Rights Subcommittee and is a member of NAD's Bioethics committee. Ms. Kashar also has presented on laws providing for access for people who are deaf or have disabilities, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and the new United Nations Convention on the Disabled.

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Debbie Kenvin

Debbie Kenvin is the president and founder of Savvy and Chic, a personal empowerment and development organization that works to empower girls and women to reach their highest potential. Her gift to empower others has come from her personal experience of being the only hearing child in three generations of a deaf family. She also battled with obesity until early adulthood.

Debbie co-founded the non-profit organization Girls Empowerment Partners, dedicated to helping tweens and teens become authentic, motivated, confident and inspirational to those around them. GEP provides public awareness and community education, working with schools as well as local and national communities to educate girls and young women.

Debbie co-chaired a gala to raise over $250,000 for the Holocaust Museum in Dallas. She has organized walks to raise awareness of obesity and fund research for the Obesity Action Coalition, and to benefit Brians’ Kids, a local after-school program to help children and teenagers who need positive role models. Her first book, Tips, Tools and Practical Wisdom for Teens, will be published in late November.

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Valerie Khaytina

Valerie Khaytina is deputy North American representative and head of New York Team for World ORT, a global Jewish education and training organization. She represents the organization to Jewish federations, endowment funds and private funders. Prior to joining World ORT, Valerie was an assistant director in JFNA’s Planned Giving and Endowments department, managing Israel and overseas initiatives.  

 

Valerie grew up in Kiev, Ukraine, where she benefited from the support of the North American Federation system. She went to a Jewish camp and day school, her family received JDC food packages, and she was able to leave the Ukraine thanks to the U.S. Jewish community’s lobbying. She chose a career in the Jewish communal field as a way to giving back to the community for everything it has done for her family.

 

Valerie holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the City University of New York. She is involved in a number of volunteer activities with Jewish organizations in New York City, Ukraine, and Israel. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.

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Erin Kopelow

Erin Kopelow is admissions director and marketing coordinator for the Sofaer International MBA Program at the Recanati School of Business Administration in Tel Aviv. After graduating from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with a degree in political science, she moved to Toronto, where she worked in creative development for an innovative, niche television production company. Erin came to Israel for the first time in fall 2005 on a one-year volunteer MASA program and was seconded to work with MASA in marketing, PR, and communications. Impassioned by the culture of Israel, Erin made Aliyah in 2007. In 2008 Erin was a fellow in PresenTense's Global Summer Institute. Shortly after completing her fellowship, she was recruited to build and launch the Sofaer International MBA Program at Tel Aviv University. Erin is married and currently lives in Tel Aviv.

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Stephen Kiernan

Stephen P. Kiernan’s most recent book is Authentic Patriotism: Restoring America’s Founding Ideals Through Selfless Action. Kiernan is also the author of Last Rights. His numerous awards include the Gerald Loeb Award for Financial Journalism, the Associated Press Managing Editors’ Freedom of Information Award, and the George Polk Award. He lives in Charlotte, Vermont.

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David Krantz

David Krantz is president and chair of the Green Zionist Alliance: The Grassroots Campaign for a Sustainable Israel. He is a member of the board of the American Zionist Movement, and an associate editor of PresenTense magazine. David completed his first master's degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and currently he's studying toward masters degrees in nonprofit management and Judaic Studies at New York University.


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Liel Leibovitz

A ninth-generation Israeli, Liel Leibovitz is currently an editor and columnist for Tablet, an online magazine of Jewish life and culture, as well as an assistant professor of communications at New York University. His most recent book, co-authored with Todd Gitlin, is The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election, an examination of the idea of chosenness and its influence on American and Israeli history, theology, and politics. He is also the author of Aliya: Three Generations of American-Jewish Immigration to Israel, and the co-author, with Matthew Miller, of Lili Marlene: The Soldiers' Song of World War II.

 

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Sandy B. Lenger

Sandy B. Langer is the National Women’s Philanthropy Board JDC Liaison and is an alumni of Jewish Federation’s of North America’s National Young Leadership Cabinet. She has held many positions within her local federation, the Jewish Federation of Middlesex County, including Chair of Lion of Judah, President of Women’s Division, and General Campaign Chair. Sandy is a Young Leadership Award recipient and was awarded the Israel Bonds Lifetime Achievement Award this year.

 

Outside of her federation commitments, Sandy is a member of the Board of Directors of Hadassah and a board member of the Tourette Syndrome Association of New Jersey. Sandy is married to Dr. Steven Lenger and they have 3 children: Marisa, Paul, and Carly.  

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Rabbi Naomi Levy

Rabbi Naomi Levy is the founder and leader of NASHUVA: The Jewish Spiritual Outreach Movement. Her new book is called Hope Will Find You. Naomi has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show and NPR. Author of Talking to God and the national bestseller To Begin Again, she was named one of the 50 top rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine and was listed as one of the 50 most dynamic Jewish leaders in the nation by the Jewish Forward. She was also recently listed by the Forward as one of the 50 most influential female rabbis in the nation. Jewish Women International honored her as one of “Ten Women To Watch” in 2009.

 

Naomi was in the first class of women to enter the Jewish Theological Seminary and the first Conservative female rabbi to head a solo pulpit on the west coast. Naomi attended Cornell University where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude. She lives in Venice, California, with her husband, Rob Eshman, and their children, Adin and Noa.

 
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Saundra Levy

Saundra Levy is the executive director of the Jewish Endowment Foundation of Louisiana. Previously she was the executive director of the Historic District Landmarks Commission for the city of New Orleans. A native New Orleanian, she cares passionately about her Jewish community of New Orleans and the city as a whole. She has spent her professional life involved in the preservation of Judaism and Jewish organizations and institutions and of everything that makes New Orleans a unique city. 

 

After Hurricane Katrina, she located her staff and ran the foundation office in Baton Rouge from September until December. Her experience in Katrina only strengthened her resolve to raise endowment funds for the Jewish community.

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Ann F. Lewis

Ann F. Lewis is president of the No Limits Foundation, a non-partisan organization that provides information on domestic and international issues and advocates for an active and engaged America, at home and around the world.  Lewis was previously senior advisor on the historic Hillary Clinton for President Campaign, where she oversaw outreach to women voters and to the Jewish community.

Lewis served in the White House from 1997–2000 as director of communications and then as counselor to President Bill Clinton. She was director of communications and deputy campaign manager for the Clinton-Gore Re-election Campaign in 1995–1996, and senior advisor to the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton for U.S. Senate in 2000.
Ann Lewis serves on the board of the Center for U.S Global Leadership and the board of the Jewish Women's Archive. She received the Belle Moskowitz award from the National Jewish Democratic Council in 2009.


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Professor Zipora Libman

Professor Zipora (Zipi) Libman is vice president for Planning and Development at the Kibbutzim College of Education in Tel Aviv, Israel. She is also a faculty member of its Department of Methodology and Statistics.  In 2008, Prof. Libman headed the team which launched the Kibbutzim College International Program, created to make its academic know-how accessible to the global student community.

Professor Libman also serves as associate professor of Statistical Education on Israel's Council for Higher Education, providing expertise on teacher training and on issues relating to high school curricula. She has published extensively in Hebrew and English, and has co-authored five books. She has an M.Sc. in Microbiology (cum laude) from Tel Aviv University. Her M.A. in Education (cum laude), also from Tel Aviv University, focuses on the methodology of research and evaluation. She received her Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.


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Irina Lipsky

Irina (Ira) Lipsky is director of JDC's relief and community renewal efforts in Georgia.  She began working for JDC as a native of Minsk and made aliya in 1998. She gained increasing responsibility for assisting Jewish communities across the FSU, including Siberia, Moscow and Volga. Today, in addition to leading JDC’s efforts in Georgia, she helps train new directors and to establish JDC offices in Jewish communities across the FSU.

 

 

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MK Tzipi Livni

MK Tzipi Livni is Israel’s opposition leader and leader of the Kadima party. From 2006 to 2009, she was vice prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. She also served as minister of justice from November 2006 until February 2007.

Prior to her election to the Knesset, she served as director general of the Government Companies Authority. In this capacity, she was in charge of the privatization of government corporations and monopolies. She was a member of the Likud Party until the end of 2005, when she, together with other prominent political figures, formed the Kadima Party. In September 2008 she was elected chair of Kadima.

A lawyer by profession, Mrs. Livni received her law degree from Bar-Ilan University, and practiced law in a private firm for 10 years before entering public life.  Her fields of specialization included commercial law, constitutional law and real estate law. Born in Israel in 1958, she served as an officer in the IDF, and later in the Mossad. She is married and the mother of two children.

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Frank London

Trumpeter/composer Frank London is a member of the Klezmatics and Hasidic New Wave. He has performed with John Zorn, LL Cool J, Mel Tormé, Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, LaMonte Young, They Might Be Giants, David Byrne, Jane Siberry, Ben Folds 5, Mark Ribot, Maurice El Medioni and Gal Costa, and is featured on over 100 CDs. His own recordings include Invocations (cantorial music); Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars’ Di Shikere Kapelye and Brotherhood of Brass, Nigunim and The Zmiros Project, The Debt, The Shekhina Big Band, the soundtracks to the films The Shvitz and The Divahn and four releases with the Hasidic New Wave.

His projects include the folk-opera A Night In The Old Marketplace (based on Y.L. Peretz's Bay Nakht Oyfn Altn Mark), Davenen for Pilobolus and the Klezmatics, Great Small Works’ The Memoirs Of Gluckel Of Hameln and Min Tanaka's Romance. He composed music for John Sayles’s The Brother From Another Planet and Men with Guns, Yvonne Rainer's Murder and Murder, the Czech-American Marionette Theater’s Golem and Tamar Rogoff's Ivye Project. He was music director for David Byrne and Robert Wilson’s The Knee Plays, collaborated with Palestinian violinist Simon Shaheen, taught Jewish music in Canada, Crimea and the Catskills, and produced CDs for Gypsy legend Esma Redzepova, and Algerian Pianist Maurice el Medioni. He has been featured on Sex and the City, at the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Lincoln Center Summer Festival, and was a co-founder of Les Miserables Brass Band and the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

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Yael Luttwak

Yael Luttwak is the founder and co-director of Slim Peace Groups. She is an Israeli-American who studied filmmaking in London. Her 2007 documentary, “Slim Peace,” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and told the story of her experience bringing together Palestinian and Israeli women in a weight loss/nutrition group. Together with Suha Khoury she has created 17 subsequent groups to date and is responsible for the organization’s fundraising, budget, strategy and staff management.

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Nofar Maharat

 

Nofar Maharat is a representative to the Ethiopian Residents Committee in Pardes Channa- Karkur, Israel. Born in Ethiopia, she and her family reached Israel in 1991.The family went to an absorption center in Shavei Tziyon and within a few months moved to a large caravan site in the area. Nofar graduated from an agricultural high school and served in National Service as a teachers' aide in a special education program.

Nofar was later accepted as a student in a special program initiated by the Fidel Association at the Ruppin Academic Center. Program participants were trained as educational and social mediators during their first year of study and then studied for a BA in Business and Management. She is currently in her final year of study and has been a recipient of a Miami scholarship for three years. She is extremely active in local affairs and was a candidate for the municipal council in the 2008.

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Jakir Manela

Jakir Manela is the founder-director of Kayam Farm at Pearlstone. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, where he founded the Wisconsin Environmental Jewish Initiative and became the first undergraduate representative to the board of COEJL (Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life). 

After graduating, Jakir worked as a Jewish environmental educator for the Teva Learning Center. In 2006, he was hired to establish a farm at the Pearlstone Center outside of Baltimore, Maryland; Kayam is now the most active Jewish educational farm in the country, welcoming over 3,300 participants annually — Jews & non-Jews — for education, volunteering, holiday celebrations, and more.  Jakir manages a growing staff of Jewish farmer-educators, facilitates programs, and works on development.  With his wife, Netsitsah, and sons Lev and Shama,  Jakir hopes to soon establish Moshav Kayam — a pluralistic, intergenerational, sustainable Jewish intentional community near Kayam Farm.

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Kathy E. Manning

Kathy E. Manning is the first woman to chair the board of trustees of the Jewish Federations of North America. She is the immediate past chair of the JFNA executive committee, and previously served as the organization's treasurer, chair of the Budget and Finance committee, and in several other JFNA leadership positions. Ms. Manning is an attorney specializing in immigration law at her own firm, Manning & Associates, PLLC, in Greensboro, NC.

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Dr. Nigist Mengesha

Dr. Nigist Mengesha has served since 2003 as director-general of the Ethiopian National Project, which assists Ethiopian-Israeli youth through after-school scholastic programs, outreach centers for youth at risk and workshops that empower parents and community lay leaders. Dr. Mengesha immigrated to Israel in 1984. In Ethiopia, she served as a social worker for the Ethiopian Prisons Authority. After making aliyah, she received a B.A. in Social Work from Bar-Ilan University, an MSW from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and graduated from the fellowship program of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership in Jerusalem. She received her degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Sussex in July 2007 for her thesis “Socio-Educational Mediation among Ethiopian Immigrant Jews in the Israeli School System.”

Dr. Mengesha has been a community activist and advocate of Ethiopian rights since her arrival in Israel. Her activities included working for the Israeli Social Welfare Department, serving as the SHATIL (a New Israel Fund project) project coordinator for Ethiopian organizations, founding and directing Fidel, the Association for Education and Social Integration of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, representing Israel at the Durban United Nations Conference Against Racism, and sitting on the boards of many international and national voluntary organizations. Dr. Mengesha received the 2010 Samuel Rothberg Prize in Jewish Education from Hebrew University in June 2010.  

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Bizu Riki Mulu

Bizu Riki Mulu, who immigrated to Israel as a child from Ethiopia, is a jewelry artist and community activist with Chassida Shmella, a dynamic non-profit founded by members of the Ethiopian-Israeli community living in North America. Chassida Shmella’s main goal is to preserve the rich 3,000 year-old legacy that is unique and vital to the full history of the Jewish people. The organization shares the history and religious customs of Ethiopian Jewry with fellow Jews and non-Jews in North America. It also assists Ethiopian Jews and helps them maintain their ties to Israel, while building bridges with other Jewish communities. In addition, Chassida Shmella assists Ethiopian Jews in North America to advance through inter-community networks, educational opportunities and communal partnerships.

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Tehila Nachalon

 

Tehila Nachalon serves as the director of the Israel Office of the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey. Before joining the Federation in 2006, she worked as advisor to Natan Sharansky during his tenure as Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs. She has also served as a grant officer at Yad Hanadiv: The Rothschild Foundation, and as assistant director at the New England branch of ADL.

Tehila is one of the founders and an active member of The “Yerushalmim” Movement, whose goal is to promote Jerusalem as a strong, pluralistic and inclusive city. She currently chairs "Ne'emanei Torah Va'Avodah," a religious-Zionist movement which works to strengthen tolerance and openness in Orthodox Judaism. She holds LLM and LLB degrees from law school of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and has extensive Jewish education from Bruria (Midreshet Lindenbaum) and Beit Morasha Seminaries. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband Elazar and their four children.  

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Lauren Nadler

Lauren Nadler, a junior at Cornell University, served as a Peer Network Engagement intern for Cornell Hillel during her sophomore year, which gave her the opportunity to establish the only Jewish women’s group on campus. The group hosts programs that are Judaism-based, fun, and meaningful. Lauren is interested in social justice and women’s rights and hopes to go to law school in the future.

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Angella Nazarian

Angella Nazarian is a professor of psychology who teaches at universities in the Los Angeles area.  She also conducts personal development seminars.  She is a contributor to the Huffington Post and MORE Magazine, and her writing and award winning verses have appeared in MOTH and in New Millennium Press Literary Publications.

Angella’s  memoir Life as a Visitor chronicles her harrowing escape with her family from revolutionary Iran in 1979 when she was 11. The book takes readers on a physical and emotional journey from past to present, from the exotic to the familiar, and from a country's political struggle to Angella’s own inner struggle in search of home, family and sense of belonging.

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Patti Neumann

Patti Neumann is founder and CEO of CITYPEEK.com, the Mid-Atlantic’s leading online hospitality resource guide for where to Go, Eat, Stay and Play. A National Women’s Philanthropy board member, she also consults and is a featured columnist for the Baltimore Business Journal on social networking.


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Amy Beth Oppenheimer

Amy Beth Oppenheimer, a MASA alumna, is the director of Faces of Israel, an interactive film and discussion program that sparks conversations about civil rights, democracy and religious pluralism in the Jewish homeland. The program has been brought to over 100 venues, including Hillels, synagogues, JCCs and summer camps.

Amy was raised with a love for Israel and a strong Jewish identity. She began research for Faces of Israel while studying on a MASA program at Haifa University. She currently resides in Reno, Nevada.

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Julie Wise Oreck

Julie Wise Oreck, a fifth-generation Louisiana Jew, was born and raised in New Orleans. She graduated from Tulane University and then went on to New York for graduate work in property and casualty insurance. Presently Julie is a producer in the insurance business with a local Independent agency.

She served eight years on the National Young Leadership Cabinet, where she held the portfolios of Women’s Campaign chair, co-chair of the Southeastern Region, co-chair of the Southeast Regional Outreach Conference and National Mentor chair.

After finishing her term on Cabinet she was asked to join the Israel and Overseas Pillar of JFNA. During her tenure with JFNA, she served as the international chair of OTZMA, a year-long leadership development program in Israel for American young adults ages 22-26.  Julie is now a member of the JFNA board of trustees and is on the Audit and Marketing committees. She also sits on the Advisory Board of National Women’s Philanthropy. In addition, she is on the board of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and co-chairs the Control committee.


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Marcia Kelner Polisuk

Marcia Kelner Polisuk is the development director for Hillel in Latin America. As the immediate past director of Hillel Rio de Janeiro, Marcia helped to build the infrastructure for the now thriving center of Jewish life for Brazilian young adults. 


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Dr. Lisa Richardson

Dr. Lisa Richardson has had a distinguished career in education and the non-profit sector. She is currently the director of Research and Evaluation at the New Orleans based non-profit, the Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies, where she leads the Sexual and Reproductive Health Advocacy Project. Dr. Richardson served as an assistant professor at California State University Northridge in the Pan-African Studies and Urban Studies departments, and as a visiting professor at Florida State University.  Her areas of interest and expertise include socio-cultural factors affecting the mental, physical and reproductive health of women and girls, women's leadership, and HIV prevention in communities of color.

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Rae Ringel

Rae Ringel is a leadership coach and trainer with an expertise in transforming professional performance to drive greater business excellence. As president of The Ringel Group, she works with nonprofit organizations of all sizes, Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and entrepreneurial start-ups.

Prior to opening The Ringel Group, Rae was the director of Professional and Volunteer Development at United Jewish Communities (UJC). Currently in the Jewish community, Rae works with The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies and Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus life. Rae also serves as a lead coach for Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, a cutting-edge organization that provides consultative services for private Jewish day schools throughout the world.  

Rae is a Phi Beta Kappa Graduate of University of Rochester. She received her Master’s Degree in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, and earned her leadership coaching certification from Georgetown University. She completed her Wexner Graduate Fellowship at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. Outside of executive suites, board and classrooms, Rae finds great fulfillment as a fitness instructor, community volunteer, wife and mother of three.


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Grace Rodnitzki

Grace Rodnitzki is director of International Relations for the Ethiopian National Project, which assists Ethiopian-Israeli youth through after-school scholastic programs, outreach centers for youth at risk and workshops that empower parents and community lay leaders.

Grace works closely with field workers and professionals in Israel, sharing her in-depth knowledge of the amazing potential and the compelling need of Ethiopian-Israelis with individual donors, foundations and Federations.

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Jon Rosenberg

Jon Rosenberg is CEO of Repair the World, an organization dedicated to making service to others a defining element of American Jewish life, learning and leadership. Before joining Repair, he served for nearly five years as the founding executive director of Roads to Success. His previous roles include deputy general counsel of Edison Schools Inc. (now Edison Learning), senior attorney at the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, director of the Children's Aid Society's Immigration and Welfare Reform Project and associate appellate counsel at The Legal Aid Society.  He has also served as chair of the NYC Bar Association’s education committee, as a lecturer at Columbia Law School, and as an adjunct associate professor at Teachers College.

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Rabbi Joanna Samuels

Rabbi Joanna Samuels is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community. Previously she served as the spiritual leader of Congregation Habonim on the Upper West Side. A graduate of Barnard College and the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary, where she was a Wexner Graduate Fellow, Joanna has been active in women's leadership for two decades.

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Sybil Sanchez

Sybil Sanchez is director of COEJL, the Jewish environmental organization that is a program of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. A veteran human rights advocate with broad experience in Jewish communal leadership, Ms. Sanchez came to COEJL from the Jewish Labor Committee where she served as executive director. She was previously director of United Nations affairs with B'nai B'rith International, and worked for many years with other national Jewish organizations on international human rights and related advocacy.  

Ms. Sanchez is a recent graduate of the UJA-Federation of New York’s Muehlstein Institute for Jewish Professional Leadership. She holds a masters degree in international affairs from Columbia University and has previously worked for the United Nations and overseas in the Balkans. She speaks Hebrew, French, and Serbo-Croatian. Sanchez is a member of the Greenfaith Committee of her synagogue, which is the first Conservative synagogue to join the Greenfaith certification program.

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Lynn Schneider

Lynn Schneider is an architect, real estate executive, and active philanthropist whose work reaches into many fields. She is perhaps best known for her efforts on behalf of the Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel (SCMCI), a world-class pediatric hospital founded by her parents, Helen (z”l) and Irving Schneider. She chairs the boards of Medical Development for Israel, Inc. and “Yeladim Shelanu,” Our Children's Foundation, on behalf of SCMCI, and is director of the Helen and Irving Schneider Foundation. Lynn has devoted herself to Schneider Children’s mission as a Bridge to Peace, promoting healing in the region and internationally through superior healthcare and training to people of all races, religions and nationalities.

She has been a leader for many years in the Federation movement, serving in several national positions including the Women's Young Leadership Council, and currently sits on the board of UJA-Federation of New York. Lynn has also been an active supporter of culture and the arts. For several decades she served on the board of the Foundation for Jewish Culture and presently sits on the board of the New York City Center.

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Ambassador Gabriela Shalev

Ambassador Gabriela Shalev was the first woman to serve as Israel's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. She recently resigned her position to head the acadmic board at Ono Academic College in Israel. Prior to serving as ambassador, she was president of the Academic Council and rector of Ono Academic College.

Until her early retirement in 2002, Ambassador Shalev was a full professor of contract law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and she has taught contract law and comparative law in universities across the United States, Europe, and Canada. She has provided legal advice and written legal opinions for public institutions, arbitrators, and lawyers in Israel and around the world. She was the Chief Legal Editor of the Judgments of the Supreme Court of Israel and legal editor of the Hebrew Encyclopedia.

She has written nine books and over 100 articles in Hebrew and English, primarily on contract law. Her contract law textbook is the standard text used in law schools and law offices throughout Israel. She has been awarded numerous awards for academic legal research, including the Sussman Prize for Law (1989), the Zeltner Prize for Law (1991), and the Israel Bar Association prize (2003).

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Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro's books include the novels Black & White and Family History and the bestselling memoirs Slow Motion and Devotion. Her short stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, Elle, Vogue, Ploughshares, and O, The Oprah Magazine, among other publications. Dani appeared on "The Today Show" for Devotion, chosen as one of their best books of this past winter, and People magazine gave it four stars for being “brave, compelling and unexpectedly witty.”  She lives with her husband and son in Litchfield County, Connecticut.


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Ronit Segelman

Ronit Segelman is deputy director of Partnerships for the Rashi Foundation. After valuable stints as a teacher for Bedouin children, and as a product developer and sales manager for various companies, she became the Jewish Agency's Community and Aliyah emissary in Denver. On her return to Israel, she served as the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado's first Israel representative. During this time she played a key role in designing and implementing the new concept of a “tailor-made” partnership with the Ramat Negev Regional Council, which was later adopted by the Jewish Agency for other communities.


Ronit later opened an office in Israel for the Merage Foundation, and was director for five years until she joined the Rashi Foundation in 2006. She has a degree in International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

 

 

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Rochelle Shoretz

Rochelle Shoretz, a two-time breast cancer survivor, is the executive director of Sharsheret, a national not-for-profit organization she founded after her own diagnosis at age 28 to provide support and resources for young Jewish women and their families facing breast cancer. A Centennial Scholar graduate of Barnard College and a Kent Scholar graduate of Columbia Law School, she served as a law clerk in 1999 to United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Since Sharsheret's founding, the organization has launched 10 national programs and responded to more than 19,000 inquiries from those affected by breast and ovarian cancer, health care professionals, women's and Jewish organizations. For its critical services, Sharsheret was awarded the New York State Innovation in Breast Cancer Research Award.

Rochelle was named a "Woman to Watch" by Jewish Woman Magazine and a Yoplait Champion in the Fight Against Breast Cancer, and she was honored by the Philadelphia Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and by the Israel Cancer Research Foundation. She is a board member and graduate of the Joshua Venture Group fellowship of young Jewish leaders, Bikkurim, and the Berrie Fellows Leadership Program of UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey. Rochelle has appeared on The Today Show, CBS News, and Fox News, and in more than 100 articles published online and in newspapers across the country. The mother of two, she lives in Teaneck, New Jersey, with her sons, Shlomo and Dovid.

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Vivian Silver

Vivian Silver, co-executive director of the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development, is driven by three burning issues: feminism, creating a shared society between Jews and Arabs in Israel, and peace in the Middle East. Born in Winnipeg, she has been a kibbutz member since moving to Israel in 1974. She presently lives on Kibbutz Be'eri, situated on the border of the Gaza Strip. She founded the Department Advancing Gender Equality in the United Kibbutz Movement, and edited a book on gender equality on kibbutzim.

Vivian was a member of the first Israeli board of the New Israel Fund in the 1980s and of the Steering Committee of Shatil in the 1990s. She is a member of the leadership committee of ALLMEP (Alliance for Middle East Peace) and the Public Advisory Committee of Midot, which evaluates non-profit organizations in Israel. She is the present chair of Shutafut, the Forum of Organizations Promoting a Democratic and Equal Society in Israel.

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Jerry Silverman

Jerry Silverman is president and CEO of The Jewish Federations of North America. He is a highly experienced leader in the North American Jewish community and longtime corporate executive, with over 25 years of experience.

Before joining JFNA, Jerry served as president of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, where he oversaw a major expansion of the organization that helped bring a new focus on Jewish camping as a path to enhance Jewish identity. Jerry, along with his board and staff,  turned the Foundation for Jewish Camp into a more visible and successful organization.

For a decade before that, Jerry held a range of executive positions at the Stride Rite Corp. of Boston, including president of its international division; president, Stride Rite Children’s Group, and president, Keds Corp. Between 1979 and 1994 Jerry held several senior executive positions at Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco, starting as a production manager in women’s wear, moving into financial planning, working as an account executive and sales representative, then as a regional district national account manager and national sales manager of Levi Dockers.


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Marcie Greenfield Simons

Marcie Greenfield Simons is the director of The PJ Library®, a program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. Before working at the Grinspoon Foundation, Marcie taught at Sinai Academy of the Berkshires and Knesset Israel Hebrew School, both in Pittsfield, MA. She is a founder of Sinai Academy, the first and only Jewish day school in the Berkshires. Marcie was the recipient of the National Harold Grinspoon Award for Excellence in Jewish Education in 2000 and served on the board of the foundation from 2001-2004. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University and a Master of Education degree from Boston University. 

 

 

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Stacy Oberman Siwak

Stacy Oberman Siwak is a recipient of the 2010 David N. and Roselin Grosberg Young Leadership Award presented by the Jewish Federation of St. Louis. She currently serves on the executive committee of Federation’s Women’s Connection, has taken and taught the Women’s Connection WCE (Women’s Council for Education) class, chaired several Women’s Connection events, is a past board member of YPD and is a member of the board of the JCC. She is also a past member of JFNA’s National Young Leadership Cabinet and during her tenure traveled on missions to assist needy Jews in the former Soviet Union and in Berlin. She’s visited Israel several times, including for the 2008 International Lion of Judah Conference.
 
Last year, Stacy and her husband Greg participated in JFNA’s Fisher Flight, a leadership development program.  The Siwaks also led a young leadership group to the JFNA Washington Conference. They met on a JFNA National Young Leadership mission to Israel in July 1998, which was also the beginning of her involvement with Jewish Federation of St. Louis.
 
Her other volunteer positions within the national and local Jewish communities are numerous and include having been a USA team manager for three world Maccabiah Games and a volunteer at the JCC Early Childhood Center. She is a lifetime member of Hadassah.

 

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Marly L. Sweeney

Marly L. Sweeney, MSW, LCSW is an adolescent specialist who has been in practice for 30 years and has taught Clinical Work with Adolescents at Tulane School of Social Work since 1984. Once intent on working with adults, she actually began her work with children, then moved on to the clients she feared the most, adolescents, only to fall in love with them. Now adolescents have become a major part of her life's work. In her free time, Marly lends her beautiful voice to Shades of Praise Interracial Gospel Choir.

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Rabbi Melissa Weintraub

Rabbi Melissa Weintraub is co-founder and executive director of Encounter in North America, an educational organization dedicated to catalyzing conversation between Jews and Palestinians as well as between Jews from across the political spectrum. Melissa was ordained as a Conservative rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary and has represented the seminary as a rabbinic fellow in Conservative communities throughout North America. She builds on 12 years of experience in Middle East co-existence and interfaith efforts, and is the author of several articles treating the subjects of human dignity, war ethics, and human rights in Jewish sources.

An alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, Melissa graduated from Harvard University with a summa cum laude degree in Political Theory.  A recipient of a Samuel Ruben Foundation grant, she is currently working on a book exploring Jewish religious responses to terror.

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Dindy Weinstein

Dindy Weinstein is the director of Individual Giving at Seeds of Peace, a leadership development program for outstanding youngsters from conflict areas across the globe. She has 25 years of experience in non-profit management and fund development. Through its year-round programming in the Middle East and South Asia, Seeds of Peace provides young people with skills and experiences which build understanding, promote dialogue and lead to peaceful coexistence. Dindy spent many years in the Federation world and has chaired both the Women’s Campaign and General Campaign of the Sarasota-Manatee Jewish Federation.

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Eli Winkelman

When MASA alum Eli Winkelman was an undergrad at Scripps College in California, she started a program called Challah for Hunger. The idea was to bake fresh, delicious challahs every week and sell them to students and faculty to raise money for hunger and disaster relief.

The program was a hit (even former President Clinton took notice) and began to spread to other colleges. Challah for Hunger now has chapters on dozens of campuses and has raised money for American Jewish World Service and for local, national, or international organizations chosen by campus organizers.

Winkelman, now a college graduate, continues to head Challah for Hunger as its national coordinator, consulting with volunteer leaders in college communities on starting Challah chapters of their own. She stands as a powerful example of how a DIY-spirit coupled with a passion for Jewish and social justice values can make a big impact.

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Carol Wise

Carol Wise, a New Orleans native, is a major leader both in the local and national Jewish community and in the New Orleans community at large. She currently sits on the executive committee and the board of the Hillel International Foundation and serves as president of Tulane University Hillel. She is also vice president of the Jewish Endowment Foundation of New Orleans and a proud Lion of Judah. Previously, she was president of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans and chair of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce.

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Roni Yavin 

Roni Yavin has been executive director of Beit-Midrash Elul since June 2003. Beit Midrash Elul develops programs that nurture a new Jewish discourse in Israel, so that Israelis from the most diverse backgrounds can encounter Jewish and universal, modern and classic texts, and learn to incorporate Jewish values and culture into their everyday lives.

She holds a Masters in Jewish Education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has had 17 years of teaching and managing experience, working both with high school students and adults. She was born and raised in Kfar-Yechezkel, a moshav in the Jezreel Valley. Last year she led an architectural preservation project of the old synagogue in her former moshav and revived the place as a local cultural center. Married with three children, Roni lived in Har-Adar near  Jerusalem.

 

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Michal Yudin

Michal Yudin is the founder and chair of WePower (Women’s Electoral Power), an Israeli organization created to bring more women into politics and leadership positions. Previously, she chaired the absorption department of WIZO (Women’s International Zionist Organization) Israel, where she also founded and chaired the Committee for the Advancement of Women in Politics.

Ms. Yudin was born and raised in Israel and educated both there and in the United States. She served in the IDF as an officer in charge of education, in a welfare unit and in the women’s officer school. She represented the Jewish Agency in New York to promote the Kibbutz Ulpan program and other study programs for young people, and to assist those who wanted to make aliyah.

 

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Shelly Yona

Shelly Yona is a high school physics teacher in the city of Tirat HaCarmel, Israel. She started teaching physics 18 years ago at Shifman High School, and is now the head of the school’s Physics department, where she works with students from the age of 15-18. 

Shifman High School is a long-time beneficiary of World ORT’s Kadima Mada program, which enables Shelly to teach in a “smart” classroom using interactive educational equipment and teacher strategies. Shelly is also responsible for spearheading an interactive physics exhibition that increases students’ interest in the subject.

Shelly was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. As part of a Zionist Jewish family, she came to Israel when she was two years old. During her own high school days, Shelly discovered her love of physics. She has a B.A. in physics and a teacher's certificate, both from the Technion. She lives in the city of Nesher with her spouse and their two children.