GA 2007 speaker bio page

Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, was elected as Tennessee's governor in 2002 and re-elected in 2006 – reportedly becoming the first governor in over a century to win all 95 counties in Tennessee. Previously, Bredesen served as mayor of Nashville. Before entering public service, he launched HealthAmerica Corp., a health care management company.

As governor, Bredesen has focused on accountability and open government, and established the toughest ethics rules in the history of Tennessee’s executive branch. His top priority is education, and during his tenure, Tennessee has raised teacher pay, expanded a Pre-K initiative across the state, and launched the Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation. Bredesen is also proud of the job growth and environmental conservation efforts under way in Tennessee, as well as efforts to find ways to maintain state health care plans.

Bredesen is a founding member of Nashville's Table, a nonprofit group that collects discarded food from local restaurants and distributes it to the city's homeless population. He also founded the Land Trust for Tennessee, a nonprofit organization that works statewide to preserve open space and traditional family farms. His wife, First Lady Andrea Conte, is founder and president of You Have the Power – Know How to Use It, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about crime and justice issues.

Sarah Chasin is not yet a college graduate, but has already amassed a formidable track record as an activist and volunteer. At a young age, she volunteered with her mother in a nursing home. Her efforts kicked into high gear at George Washington University, where she led the Tzedek community service effort at Hillel; worked at a local soup kitchen, Miriam's Kitchen; and became active in Students Taking Action Now: Darfur.

Though Sarah had planned to study anthropology, geology and theater, her career path made a sharp turn after she took part in Hillel's Alternative Spring Break, where her group joined the post-Katrina rebuilding efforts in Gulfport, Mississippi. Deeply moved by this experience and the need that still existed, Sarah took a year off from college to move to Gulfport where she coordinated sustainable service efforts and service learning programming at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College via the AmeriCorps VISTA program. During this stint, Sarah became interested in the effects a natural disaster has on community health, and is now a junior working towards a degree in Science in Public Health. After graduating from George Washington, she plans to work in global health and development.

Howard Dean is the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, propelled into national prominence when, as a former Governor of Vermont, he nearly captured the Democratic nomination for President in 2004. His campaign is held up as a pioneering example of building grass-roots activism and fundraising by encouraging an online community. Dean studied medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and practiced internal medicine in Vermont before entering politics.

Pnina Gaday is the director of the Tel Aviv University Hillel. Her family’s epic trek during Operation Moses led her from Ethiopia to Israel, and now pushes her to give back to Am Yisrael though her work at Hillel. She recently traveled back to Ethiopia to visit her birthplace and reexamine the contrasts between the Judaism of Ethiopia and the Judaism practiced in Israel and the West. She is dedicated to helping young Ethiopians in Israel maintain their pride in their unique heritage while becoming part of the social fabric of Israel.

Dany Gliksberg is the deputy director of the Ayalim Association, which builds student villages in the Negev and Galilee that seek to strengthen both settlement and social involvement. Gliksberg, 28, was born in Jerusalem; he served in the special forces branch of the IDF air force. After his military service, he traveled, then enrolled in a program in Middle Eastern studies at Hebrew University, but left to co-found the Ayalim Association. "We are making a difference," says Gliksberg. "We believe that the social structure in Israel needs to change for the better, and we are doing something positive about it."

Jonathan Greenblatt is the co-founder of Ethos Water, a brand of bottled water created to raise funds to help children around the world get clean water. He was previously a Clinton White House staffer and vice president of Starbucks, and is an acknowledged thought leader on ethical branding and social entrepreneurship. Greenblatt teaches social entrepreneurship at UCLA and advises corporations and non-governmental organizations on the intersection between business and sustainability. He serves as an advisor to the United Nations Foundation, where he helped launch the Global Water Challenge. Greenblatt also advises the X-PRIZE Foundation, leading the design of a $10 million prize competition focused on breaking the cycle of global poverty.

Isaac 'Buzi' Herzog is Israel's Minister of the Diaspora, Society and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism and also Minister of Welfare and Social Services. A member of the Labor Party, he is a son of the late Israeli President Chaim Herzog. He is an attorney by profession and has also headed two other ministries, Tourism and Housing and Construction. He previously served as secretary of the Economic-Social Council, as government secretary under Ehud Barak, and as chairman of Israel’s Anti-Drug Authority. In the Knesset, he has served as a member of the Knesset Finance, Internal Affairs and Environment, and Anti-Drug Abuse Committees, as well as Israel Labor Party Parliamentary Group Whip. He has chaired the Lobby for the War Against Drugs in Israel, the Lobby for Tourism in Israel, the Lobby for Youth in Israel, and the Municipal Lobby, and is a member of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus and the Environmental Lobby. He is also chairman of the Israel-Australia Parliamentary Friendship Union.

Idit Klein is the executive director of Keshet, a Boston-based organization of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Jews and allies that works to create a fully inclusive and welcoming Jewish community. Klein was instrumental in helping Keshet expand from its roots as a small volunteer organization to become a professionally run agency that offers workshops, support groups and social events. She was the producer of the widely praised documentary, “Hineini: Coming Out In A Jewish High School.” Klein has worked as an activist on queer and other social justice issues in Jerusalem and in Boston. She is a board member of the Jewish Organizing Initiative and was the recipient of a Joshua Venture Fellowship for her work with Keshet.

Esther Kustanowitz writes, edits and consults in varied areas of expertise including Jewish life, marketing, pop culture and online social media. She served as media relations director for 2007's Jewlicious Festival and PR and media consultant for the ROI Summit 2007. Esther blogs at My Urban Kvetch and Jdaters Anonymous; contributes to Jewlicious and Beliefnet's Idol Chatter; and maintains the online community for ROI120.com. In early 2007, Esther began writing Good for the Jews, a JTA blog about North American Jewry. Her widely-read "First Person Singular" column appears biweekly in the New York Jewish Week. She is also senior editor for PresenTense Magazine, a magazine for Jews in their 20s and 30s. Esther is the author of The Hidden Children of the Holocaust: Teens Who Hid From the Nazis, and has contributed to and edited several other books.

Kathy E. Manning is the chair of the UJC’s executive committee, the first woman to serve in that capacity. She is the immediate past chair of the UJC budget & finance committee and was UJC’s treasurer. She is a past chair of the small federation steeringcommittee and past chair of the HSSP public policy and legislation committee. She is a former member of the National Young Leadership Cabinet and a recipient of the Young Leadership Award.

Manning is a past president of the Greensboro Jewish Federation and has served as chair of the Greensboro Jewish Federation Annual Campaign, co-chair of the Operation Exodus Campaign, and Women’s Cabinet chair. She is a past president of the B’nai Shalom Synagogue Day School and serves on the boards of the Greensboro Symphony and Triad Stage. She has co-chaired the Alexis De Tocqueville Society campaign for the United Way of Greensboro and has been active on the National Council for Community and Justice and the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro.She was a partner at Smith Helms Mullis & Moore from 1989 through 2002. She currently specializes in Immigration Law at Manning & Associates, PLLC, in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Alexandra Orlov made aliyah from Azerbaijan when she was 8 years old. She studied at the Technion and was part of the Atidim program, which entitles talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue science studies. In 2006 she joined the IDF as an engineer.

Bruce Pearl is the popular coach of the Tennessee Volunteers basketball powerhouse and a motivational speaker; he attributes his success to “Jewish guilt and the fear of losing.”

His energy and enthusiasm have led a once-mediocre Tennessee team to NCAA tournament success, and won Pearl national coach of the year honors. His marketing savvy has made his teams more popular than ever.

Though federations may not be emulating Pearl’s motivational tactic of having members of his team run laps at 5 a.m. as punishment for missing academic goals anytime soon, they will be interested to hear the insights about teamwork, commitment and perseverence that helped Pearl take several athletic programs to new heights in a short time frame.

“It’s a great country, isn’t it, when you can start from really humble beginnings, work hard, believe passionately and accomplish just about anything,” says Pearl.

Before landing his job leading the Vols program in one of the nation’s top basketball conferences, he worked his way up from the bottom, beginning as a student manager at Boston College after being cut from the team. He has had success at each program he has led, beginning with Southern Indiana, which captured a Division II national championship, and then at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which reached the NCAA Sweet 16 in 2005.

Pearl grew up in the Boston area, and has a degree in business administration from Boston College. He has two daughters, Jacqui and Leah, and two sons, Steven and Michael. (Read Sports Illustrated feature on Pearl.)

Dr. Condoleezza Rice is the U.S. Secretary of State. Prior to this, she was President Bush’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor.

Before joining the Bush administration, she completed a 6-year tenure as Stanford University 's provost, during which she was the institution's chief budget and academic officer. As professor of political science, Dr. Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching honors -- the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching. At Stanford, she has been a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control, a senior fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army. She also has written numerous articles on Soviet and East European foreign and defense policy, and has addressed audiences in settings ranging from the U.S. Ambassador's Residence in Moscow to the Commonwealth Club to the 1992 and 2000 Republican National Conventions.

From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush Administration as director, and then senior director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a special assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as special assistant to the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender -- Integrated Training in the Military.

She was a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the international advisory council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony board of governors. She was a founding board member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California and was vice president of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. In addition, her past board service has encompassed such organizations as Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco.

Howard Rieger is president and chief executive officer of United Jewish Communities. He previously served as president of the United Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh where he led major initiatives, including a total annual fund-raising achievement of over $35 million in his last year in the community; inspired the 1990-91 Exodus Campaign for resettling Jews from the former Soviet Union, which raised one of the highest per capita amounts in the country, $15 million; refocused and redesigned services to senior citizens in the Pittsburgh Jewish community in the early 1990s, resulting in the establishment of the Jewish Association on Aging; was the advocate for a $60 million community capital campaign for the development and renovation of seven local agencies in 1969, one of the first successful efforts of its kind nationally; conceptualized the 2000-01 restructuring of the federation into a team-oriented model aimed at integrating the $100 million UJF Foundation with ongoing federation operations; and helped to formulate a worldwide Jewish communal training program, a partnership undertaking between the Pittsburgh federation and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which recruited and developed more than 450 new professional leaders from its inception in 1989, until his departure from Pittsburgh in 2004.

In addition, Howard served as chair of the United Jewish Communities' National Jewish Population Survey 2000-2001 Publications Advisory Committee, as well as a participant in many ongoing UJC functional areas.

Before serving in Pittsburgh, Howard worked at the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland for 11 years. During his tenure there he filled positions in virtually every area of the federation, including as assistant director of the federation; he concluded his service there as its first director of operations. The latter position presaged a trend within the federation system of appointing chief operating officers.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Howard earned a Ph.D. in Government from Southern Illinois University. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Masters of Public Administration from Roosevelt University in Chicago. He was also an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Geneseo.

Howard has taught at Carnegie Mellon University's Graduate School of Urban and Public Affairs and participated in the Council of Jewish Federations' Continuing Professional Education program as a faculty member.

Ari Sandel is a director, writer, and producer; he won a 2007 Academy Award for West Bank Story, a musical comedy about Israelis and Palestinians with rival falafel stands in the West Bank. Sandel premiered West Bank Story at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and has since screened it at over 115 film festivals worldwide -- winning 26 awards. (Loved the clip you saw during the GA? Buy the DVD here.) He made his feature documentary directorial debut with Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland, which premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Sandel directed and hosted a travel segment on the FX Network’s The X Show for two seasons. He is very involved with political organizations for peace, and has explored peace issues in his travels throughout the Middle East, Europe, Asia and South America.

Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter is the scholar-in-residence for the 2007 GA, who will help provide delegates with provocative insights into our communal future.

Schacter is a leading voice in the modern Orthodox movement (video of Rabbi Schacter discussing High Holy Days), and is the University Professor of Jewish History and Jewish Thought and Senior Scholar at the Center for the Jewish Future at Yeshiva University. Rabbi Schachter is also a member of the UJC Rabbinic Cabinet.

Yeshiva University President Richard Joel calls Schacter “one of the nation’s premier Jewish educators and leaders.” Schacter has a strong record of building and reinvigorating Jewish institutions. He was the founding dean of the Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik Institute in Boston, and the first rabbi of Young Israel of Sharon, MA, where he helped create a vibrant new community. During his tenure as the rabbi of The Jewish Center in New York City, the congregation grew from 180 to over 600 members. He also had a successful stint as rabbi of the Maimonides Minyan in Brookline.

As our scholar-in-residence, Schacter is well-suited to offering a spiritual and intellectual context on the challenges and opportunities facing the Jewish community. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages from Harvard University and received his rabbinic ordination from Mesivta Torah Vodaath.

Schacter is co-author of the award-winning book A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism. He is the founding editor of the prestigious Torah u-Madda Journal, is on the board of governors of the Orthodox Union, and is a member of the faculty of the Wexner Foundation and the Wexner Heritage Foundation.

Daniel Sieradski is an artist, writer and activist devoted to exploring new forms of Jewish cultural expression. He was described by the magazine Tikkun as "one of the most recognized Jewish literary voices on the Internet." He has worked with young Jewish cultural innovators and established Jewish organizations in developing their Internet presence and strategies. Sieradski founded several Internet and "real-world" ventures, including Jewschool (a leading progressive Jewish weblog) and Corner Prophets (which promotes Israeli-Palestinian coexistence through hip-hop music). Through his Jew it Yourself initiative (which features projects such as ShulShopper.com and a forthcoming "open source" beit midrash), Sieradski hopes to radically alter the way Jews engage with Judaism. He recently became director of digital media at the JTA news service, and blogs as the Orthodox Anarchist.

Session Speakers

Robert P. Aronson is CEO of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, and serves on the agency’s Board of Governors. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Jewish Foundation of Metropolitan Detroit, a philanthropic consultant to William Davidson of Guardian Industries and Michael H. Steinhardt’s Jewish Renaissance Media. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Theological Seminary (NY), an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Social Work, and co-founder of the Professionals Leaders Project. Since taking the helm of the Detroit federation, Aronson has been instrumental in creating its largest fundraising effort, the $60 million Millennium Campaign to enrich Jewish family experience with a focus on renovation and renewal on the city’s two Jewish Community Center campuses. He has championed strengthening Detroit’s ties to Israel by overseeing the largest mission to Israel undertaken by a Jewish community, and through Federation’s participation in programs with its Partnership 2000 region of the Central Galilee. Other achievements include upgrading communal services for older adults, and launching the Detroit Legacy Initiative to secure the future of the endowment of the Jewish community.

Edward J. Beckwith is a partner in the Washington office of Baker & Hostetler LLP. He is nationally recognized in the legal and administrative specialties which concern establishing and guiding the operations of charitable and educational organizations, healthcare institutions and trade associations. His advice is often sought with respect to the maintenance of the tax-exempt status of such organizations and the tax aspects of contributions and other financial support programs. Beckwith also advises affluent families with respect to the accumulation, management, and distribution of their personal wealth. These clients rely upon his extensive experience in several legal areas including business, tax and property law. A significant aspect of his practice involves the application of the tax laws to family and business financial arrangements, including the preparation of related documents to conserve and transfer wealth, the administration of such arrangements, and the representation of clients before legislative, judicial and regulatory branches of government at all levels. Beckwith is active in the American and the District of Columbia Bar Associations, as well as the American Law Institute. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He also is a Fellow and a regent of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel where he has served as the state chair in the District of Columbia as well as the chair of the College’s Philanthropy Study Committee and its Committee on Charitable Planning and Exempt Organizations. He lectures throughout the United States and has written extensively, including articles and speeches for the American Law Institute/American Bar Association Committee on Continuing Professional Education and the Council on Foundations. Beckwith is the founder and chair of the Advanced Estate Planning Institute, sponsored annually by the Georgetown University Law Center. In addition, he is an adjunct tax professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches graduate seminars in Advanced Estate Planning and Charitable Organizations and Planned Giving.

Tobin Belzer is a research associate at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, and a senior research associate at the Berman Center for Research and Evaluation. Belzer earned her PhD in Sociology from Brandeis University; as a doctoral candidate, she was awarded the Joshua Venture Fellowship for Young Jewish Social Entrepreneurs. This grant funded her research on the intersection of young adult Jewish identity and Jewish organizational culture. A book based on that project is forthcoming. With Rabbi Julie Pelc, she is the co-editor of Joining the Sisterhood: Young Jewish Women Write Their Lives. Belzer was recently awarded the Hadassah Award for Excellence in Writing about Women from the American Jewish Press Association. She is a 2007-08 Fellow of the Congregational Studies Team's Engaged Scholars Program, funded by the Lilly Endowment.

Martin Ben Moreh is the director general of Meitar, the College of Judaism as Culture. Born in Scotland, he made aliyah in 1970. He was a Fellow of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership, in Jerusalem; director of Military Academy for Educational Leadership in Pluralistic Judaism; a candidate for general secretary of the national Kibbutz Artzi movement (drawing 44% of the vote); head of youth leadership, Kibbutz Artzi movement; secretary of Kibbutz Nirim; director of the Kibbutz Educational Center, Givat Haviva; creator of leadership workshops for the young; head of the history dept., Ma’aleh Habsor School, Negev; founder of International Gar’in for Kibbutz Neve Ur, Jordan Valley; accounts director, advertising agency, Scotland; chairman :UJA (Young), Scotland.

Ady Ben-Naim works at the "Youth Futures" program in Sderot. She is 25 years old, and was born and raised in Sderot. Through the program she works for, she is responsible for 15 kids; some of them are children at risk. Since they live in Sderot, all of the kids deal with trauma caused by the Kassam rockets that fall on Sderot on a regular basis. Ben-Naim served a full term in the IDF.

Andrea Gilbert Berger is the director of the Jewish Foundation of Nashville, which is the endowment division of the Jewish Federation of Nashville. She has been the director there for three years. Andrea is responsible for the overall administration and marketing of the Jewish Foundation, including its B’nai Tzedek program, Book of Life program and annual grants process. Andrea is an attorney by profession, having practiced at law firms in Nashville and in Philadelphia.

Avraham Berkowitz is the executive director of the Federation of Jewish communities of the CIS and Baltic States. Rabbi Berkowitz is responsible for the development and management of 430 Jewish communities that are members of the FJC. He is an expert with respect to the rebuilding of the emerging Jewish communities in countries of the Former Soviet Union.

Elise Bernhardt is president and CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Culture. Prior to this position, Bernhardt was the Artistic Advisor of NY City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival. She was Executive Director of The Kitchen, a NY performance space. Bernhardt founded and directed Dancing in the Streets, which produces performances in public spaces. She has served on numerous panels and committees and is the recipient of the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture, the BAX 10 Award, the Doris C. Freedman Award for enriching the public environment, a Certificate of Merit from the Municipal Art Society of NYC and a Distinguished Alumnae citation from Sarah Lawrence College.

Eytan Biderman is the executive chairman of the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development (CJAED). Eytan specializes in the fields of strategy, business development, M&A and private investments. He serves on the board of NGT (New Generation Technology) – the technological incubator in Nazareth, is the chairman of the underwriting committee of Mizrahi-Tefahot Underwriting – the investment banking arm of the Mizrahi banking group, and on the boards of other companies, including high-tech firms. Previously, he served as senior advisor to the Ministry of Industry and to the Ministry of Economics, and well as a lecturer on business strategy in academic institutions. He holds an MBA from Harvard.

Aaron Bisman is co-founder and president of JDub, a not-for-profit record and event production company that is building community through innovative Jewish music and cross-cultural dialogue. JDub has impacted millions of young adults across the country and throughout the world by giving them opportunities to experience their Judaism on their own terms. A DJ and graduate of NYU’s Music Business program, Bisman was a recipient of the Joshua Venture Fellowship and is the co-creator of the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists. Bisman discovered and signed Hasidic reggae singer Matisyahu and managed him through the spring of 2006. JDub’s current artists include Balkan Beat Box, Golem, Soulico, Michael Showalter, and SoCalled. In the little free time he has, Bisman cofounded Altshul, a traditional egalitarian community in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Ilona Blank was born in Khmelnitsky, Ukraine where she grew up knowing little about Judaism. She was hired by the Chesed in her community, which was funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Her commitment to Judaism and her understanding of Jewish communal activism and values deepened when she got involved with Project Kesher and took over leadership of the Project Kesher women's group in Khmelnitsky. She graduated from Project Kesher's Advanced Leadership training program, initiated numerous Jewish communal celebrations and activist programs in Khmelnitsky, joined the Project Kesher board in Ukraine and coordinated a domestic violence program for her region. She then served as the administrator of the ORT KesherNet Center in Khmelnitsky. Since moving to New York City, she has worked for FEGS Health and Human Services System, a Beneficiary Agency of UJA-Federation of New York. The activism she helped initiate in Khmelnitsky and the ORT KesherNet center she helped found, continue.

Caron Blanke has worked professionally in the Jewish community for over thirteen years. A JCC Association Scholarship Recipient, Blanke has held positions in four different Jewish Community Centers, as well as the West Coast regional office of the JCC Association. The Shalom Baby program that she started at the Denver JCC six years ago has become a national model for outreach to families with young children. Currently, Blanke oversees all early childhood programs at the Robert E. Loup Jewish Community Center in Denver, Colorado and is the acting director of the Early Childhood Center.

Alina Bliumis was born in Minsk, Belorussia, and is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in New York. Her work often reflects on her own experiences, developing subjects dealing with migration, social developments and cultural engineering. Her projects range from video art to documentary films to site-specific installations. Though based in New York, Alina is a truly global artist. She has shown her work at exhibitions and film festivals across the globe, from the New York Video Festival to Videomedeja, International Video Festival, Serbia, from Busan Biennale, Sea Art Festival, South Korea to 1st Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Russia. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at the MuseumQuartier in Vienna and Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, Italy.

Linda Blumberg is the planning director for the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, where she has been working for the last 11 years. She began her work with the federation as the director of the Commission on Jewish Eldercare Services and continues to work on initiatives related to older adults. Prior to coming to the federation, Linda worked for Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and prior to that for the Council for Jewish Elderly in Chicago.

Julie I. Bram has been active in Jewish communal life since she was 17 years old and began teaching religious school. Her first volunteer position with the Los Angeles Jewish Federation was as a speaker for their Commission on Cults and Missionaries. She is currently a member of Federation’s Platinum One Leadership development program and serves on Federation's Planning and Allocations Committee. Bram is also active in the Women’s campaign of Federation and is a member of the Lion of Judah committee. She and her husband are founding partners of the Los Angeles Jewish Venture Philanthropy Fund which seeks to support new and innovative charitable programs with both financial backing and business expertise. Bram serves on advisory committees and boards for a wide variety of charitable causes, including: American Friends of Hand in Hand, a group dedicated to supporting four award-wining schools in Israel that are educating Israeli Arab and Jewish children together; Jews for Judaism, an international, counter-missionary, counter-cult, educational outreach and counseling organization; the Holy Land Democracy Project, which strives to combat anti-Semitism by educating Catholic high school teachers and in turn their students about Israel and Judaism; and Jewish World Watch, a non-profit organization that strives to combat genocide and other atrocious violations of human rights around the world through education, advocacy, and refugee relief.

David Bryfman is an Australian-born Jewish educator who has worked in formal and informal Jewish educational institutions in Australia, Israel, and North America. He currently works for JEXNET and MAKOM as an Israel educator supporting the work of informal youth organizations. In Australia, he was the director of Informal Jewish Education at a large Jewish day school, a Hillel director, the director of birthright israel in Australia and several other Israel experience programs. Bryfman was the director of the St. Louis Central Agency's Community Supplementary High School and Teen Initiative programs. Bryfman is a graduate of Brandeis University's Informal Jewish Education Leadership Seminar. Bryfman is currently a doctoral student in Jewish education at NYU, focusing on Jewish adolescent identity development and experiential Jewish Education, and is a Fellow in the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program.

Clare Burson is armed with a voice that The Nashville Rage described as “awakening on a sunny morning, a breeze whispering through soft curtains ... rumpled, a little seductive, and highly musical.” A Tennessee native, Burson independently released her full-length debut album, The In-Between, to much critical acclaim in the spring of 2003, and has recently released her second album, Thieves. Burson’s first experiences with music, however, were as a classical violinist and later as a Bluegrass, Irish, and Klezmer fiddler. After college and a year in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, Burson moved to Boston, where open mike nights quickly translated into headlining slots in the Boston area and New York. From 2001-2005, she was actively involved in a tight-knit group of Nashville producers, players and writers whose credits include Lucinda Williams, Patty Griffin, John Prine, Matthew Ryan, Josh Rouse and Alison Krauss. During this time, Grammy-nominated Irish singer Maura O’Connell re-recorded Burson’s song “Hold On” for her release, Don’t I Know. Burson’s music has been featured on the ABC dramas“Six Degrees” and “Big Shots” as well as the WB’s “Dawson’s Creek.”

Danyael Cantor is the executive vice president of FEDERATION - CJA. He worked for a number of Jewish organizations before commencing his Federation career, including the Jewish National Fund, Hillel, the Canadian Zionist Federation, and the World Zionist Organization in Israel. Cantor began his federation work with a three-year term with the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond, Virginia, joined the staff of the Montreal Federation as assistant campaign director, then became campaign director. He led the Montreal Community through seven successful campaigns including Operation Exodus and Operation Montreal; he was presented the Vivian Rabineau Award by the Council of Jewish Federations Campaign Directors Institute for his outstanding achievements in Financial Resource Development. Cantor is an alumnus of the first Mandel Executive Development Program and was the first of that class to become a Large City Federation director. He has enjoyed two extended living experiences in Israel. He has lectured and taught in Canada, the United States and Israel on a range of topics related to the Jewish communal field. In his current role, Cantor has stewarded the Montreal Jewish Community through perhaps its greatest challenge and opportunity ... the establishment of the Montreal Jewish Community Campus, a $40 million expansion and re-engineering of that community’s infrastructure and social service system.

Sanford R. 'Sandy' Cardin is the president of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. The foundation supports programs throughout the world that spread the joy of Jewish living, giving and learning. In Tulsa, the foundation is also active in youth-related issues, including education and assisting victims of abuse. Among the boards on which Sandy serves are the Jewish Funders Network, the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame and the Center for Leadership Initiatives. He also chairs the Westbury Group, an international association of Jewish funding organizations, is the past president of the Grantmakers of Oklahoma and recently finished his term as a member of the board of the Council on Foundations.

Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen is the associate rabbi of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender synagogue serving people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. As a rabbinical student, Rabbi Cohen served communities in France, England, and her native Montreal. Rabbi Cohen worked as a translator for Dr. Yossi Beilin when he served as Israel’s Minister of Justice and in his office in the Knesset. Passionately committed to progressive and feminist Judaism, she is an activist and an advocate for full inclusion and celebration of LGBT Jews in the Conservative movement and the larger Jewish world. She is also an advocate for LGBT civil rights, including the right to marriage for same-sex couples in New York State and nationally. Rabbi Cohen has been profiled in the New York Times and was named one of the “Heeb Hundred,” Heeb Magazine’s “hundred people you need to know about.” She was honored at the 2005 Ma’yan Seder as a leading young Jewish feminist activist.

Dr. Leonard A. Cole, an adjunct professor of political science at Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, is an expert on bioterrorism and terror medicine. He is a Fellow of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and has been a recipient of grants and fellowships from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Cole has written for professional journals as well as general publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, and The Sciences. He has testified before congressional committees and made invited presentations to government agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Office of Technology Assessment. He has appeared frequently on network and public television and has been a regular on MSNBC. He is the author of seven books including The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story and, most recently, Terror: How Israel Has Coped and What America Can Learn.

Phyllis Cook is the executive director of the Jewish Commuity Endowment Fund and associate director of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco; during her tenure, the Endowment Fund assets have grown from $27M to $2.8 billion. She serves on 4 private foundations in addition to overseeing the federation’s 72 supporting foundations, and 868 philanthropic and restricted funds. She serves on the advisory board of the Brandeis University Steinhardt Social Research Institute.

William Daroff, vice president for public policy and director of the Washington office of United Jewish Communities, is a leading advocate for the American Jewish community’s agenda in the nation’s capital. As the chief lobbyist and principle spokesperson on public policy and international affairs for the 155 Jewish federations and 400 independent communities represented by UJC, Daroff ensures that the voice of Jewish federations is a prominent force on Capitol Hill and in the Executive Branch.

Ron Dermer, 35, was born and raised in Miami Beach. For nearly ten years, he worked in Israel as a consultant, advising some of the country’s leading politicians, including Benjamin Netanyahu and Natan Sharansky. For nearly three years, he was a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He co-authored, with Natan Sharansky, the best-selling book, The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, which has been translated into ten languages. In 2005, Dermer was appointed to serve as Israel's Minister of Economic Affairs in the United States. His brother David Dermer is in his third term as mayor of Miami Beach and his father Jay Dermer was a two-term mayor of Miami Beach as well.

Alisa Robbins Doctoroff has been a leader in the expansion and establishment of high-quality Jewish education and identity-building programs. She is president of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School and was instrumental in creating its high school division in 2001. She is a co-founder of The Jewish Lens, a curriculum designed to teach Jewish values through photography, and serves on the Board of the newly constituted Moving Traditions, whose goal is to deliver meaningful, contemporary Jewish experiences at key life cycle moments. Under her chairmanship, the Task Force on Youth and Young Adults at UJA- Federation of NY developed the innovative 6 Points Fellowship to support young Jewish artists and cultivate young adult populations. Doctoroff chairs UJA-Federation’s Israel Task Force which focuses on Jewish renewal and identity-building programs for Israelis. She is a past president of Congregation Or Zarua, a vice president of the American Jewish Committee and serves on the Board of Governors of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. Doctoroff graduated from Harvard College, received an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and an MA in Jewish Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Rina Edelstein, as director of the donor relations division for JDC's FSU division, works to articulate and represent the needs of the clients served by JDC in the FSU to individuals and organizations. In addition, she manages the programmatic implementation of restitution funds for elderly Nazi victims in the FSU, enabling them to receive critical services through JDC's welfare programs for elderly Jews. Edelstein also works closely with field staff to coordinate work done with various donors from around the world. Her responsibilities also include oversight and management of children's programs, Jewish renewal programs and capital projects in the FSU. In the course of her work she travels extensively throughout the FSU to oversee programs. She meets frequently with community leaders and official government representatives. Prior to joining JDC, Edelstein served with the Israeli Consulate in New York and the Israeli Democracy Institute in Jerusalem.

Brian Eglash is the director of campaign and financial resource development, overseeing all operations of the annual campaign as well as other special development efforts for the United Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. He was previously assistant planning director, Partnership 2000 coordinator, and director of allocations and overseas operations for the Pittsburgh federation, and also served as director of agency endowment development for the UJF Foundation. He is a recent graduate of UJC's Mandel Executive Development Program and currently co-chairs the Large City Campaign Directors Group. Previously he held several positions at the Jewish Agency/World Zionist Organization in Jerusalem. He was coordinator of Project OTZMA, director of Sherut La'am, and director of long-term English language programs. In 1990, Brian made aliyah to Israel and served in the NAHAL unit in the Israeli Defense Forces. Brian is a recipient of the "Outstanding Jewish Educator & Professional" award from the Joint Authority for Jewish Zionist Education; the World Council of Jewish Communal Service Distinguished Service Award; and the Doris and Leonard H. Rudolph Jewish Communal Professional Award.

Deborah Skolnick Einhorn is a Ph.D. candidate at Brandeis University. She is currently conducting research for her dissertation, which focuses on American Jewish Women's philanthropy. She is particularly interested in the impact of social change funding on the field, and will be interviewing women nationwide to learn more about these trends. Her previous research in the area of women's philanthropy has probed the subjects of recognition strategies, differences among young donors, giving circles and foundations, as well as the history of Jewish women's organizations. Einhorn is a graduate of Tufts University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, where she received a master's degree in Modern Jewish Studies. Beyond her academic life, she serves on the boards of Tufts Hillel, the Brookline Brighton Jewish Community Fund and her local women's giving circle.

Shepard (Shep) Englander serves as the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, the largest Jewish non-profit in Cincinnati. It raises over $6 million annually to support programs of its local, national and global partners. From the elderly to people with disabilities to families in financial crisis, these programs help improve the lives of thousands of people in need. As the top-ranking Jewish professional in Cincinnati, Englander - with the help of the federation’s leadership - helps set community priorities, develops and launches key initiatives, and builds community resources, leadership and trust. Since his arrival in 2004, Englander has restructured the federation to be more collaborative, competitive, transparent and responsive to its community and partners. The result: a reversal of a once downward-sliding annual campaign, multi-million dollar endowment gifts received, and increased community participation. The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati has repeatedly been chosen by UJC for national pilot projects. In 2006 the federation received UJC’s prestigious Saphir Award for outstanding innovation, and was honored as a Freedom Station by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Englander was also chosen to serve on the select advisory committee to UJC’s President Howard Rieger. Prior to his current position, Englander served as vice president of United Jewish Federation in Pittsburgh, where he directed local and Israel/Overseas campaign initiatives and foundation and government funding distributions. As a Washington, D.C. attorney, Englander represented not-for-profit clients in a public policy -related practice and, as associate director of United Jewish Communities' Washington office, he managed the public affairs operations of its public policy and lobbying office. Englander first gained his non-profit experience after college working as a community organizer with a grass-roots, anti-poverty organization - a background he draws upon to build trust and collaboration among Cincinnati’s local Jewish community organizations. He graduated from Leadership Cincinnati in 2007 and serves as a member of Leadership Cincinnati’s Planning/Diversity Committee. He also teaches the course “The American Jewish Community” annually to incoming Shaliachs (cultural ambassadors from Israel who serve terms in the U.S.).

Carlton Evans associate produced and is currently the director of distribution for The Tribe, an award-winning short film about the history of the Jewish people and the Barbie doll, an official selection at over 75 festivals, including Sundance and Tribeca, 2006. He is also the director of advisory dervices for the Moxie Institute, a pioneering organization that determines and shares best practices for online film distribution and marketing. Evans is the co-founder and co-director of the Disposable Film Festival, which celebrates achievements in new media filmmaking. He also helped establish the Mission Minyan, a grassroots organization of young Jews who get together on a regular basis for spirited traditional davening and related festivities in San Francisco's Mission District. Evans has taught film theory, art history, and architecture at Stanford University, San Francisco State University, and the San Francisco Art Institute. He has also developed education guides for KQED-TV’s Spark series on Bay Art artists and art organizations.

Judie Fien-Helfman is the chief planning officer at the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. The federation’s boundaries encompass over 1,500 square miles in the Greater Washington area, including the District of Columbia, Southern Maryland, and Northern Virginia. Fein-Helfman oversees the distribution of over $22 million a year to over 40 local agencies, 60 synagogues, and 3 international partners. A hallmark of the federation’s planning and program focus is the development of collaborative programs utilizing the resources and expertise of individual agencies and congregations on behalf of the broader community. In addition, planning and community needs are the foundation and driver for the federation’s financial resource development. Judie originated the PAC (Professional Advisory Committee) approach to interagency planning and program development. The Special Needs PAC has been the model for subsequent PACs on children, interfaith, teens, and seniors. The PAC forged the vision and philosophy of mainstreaming individuals and families with special needs into existing programs and “birthed” The Jewish Foundation for Group Homes. Today there are ten agencies represented on the PAC. A graduate of the Baltimore Institute for Jewish Communal Service, she served previously as the director of community relations for the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington.

Ira Forman is the executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, "the national voice of Jewish Democrats." Forman also serves as the research director of the Solomon Project, and in that capacity co-edited the book Jews in American Politics. Prior to joining NJDC, he served as director of congressional relations for the Clinton administration's office of personnel management.

Ellen Frank is a scholar, writer and artist. She holds many awards in painting, scholarship and book design. In 2005, she founded Ellen Frank Illumination Arts Foundation, Inc. (EFIAF), a non-profit organization, to revitalize, create and exhibit illuminated art. Using historic and literary traditions to combine art and social justice, EFIAF promotes global peace and understanding through its Peace Education Program, the Illumination Atelier. Uniting international youth, artists and scholars, EFIAF bridges ethnic and religious diversity and national identity. CITIES OF PEACE and Hanukkah Illuminated: A Book of Days with Everett Fox, are two major projects of EFIAF.

Lois Frank is the national chair of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, national vice president of the American Jewish Committee, past national chair of the Jewish Coalition for Literacy, the Georgia Juvenile Justice Commission. She received the Atlanta chapter's National Conference for Community and Justice Award, and the AJC Selig Distinguished Service Award. She is a past Atlanta president of Women’s Philanthropy and and Women’s Campaign co-chair.

Matt Freedman is the chief planning officer of THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore. In that capacity, he is responsible, with community leadership, for developing and operationalizing strategic direction and priorities for the federation, defining organizational mission, integrating resource development and communal agenda, implementation of collaborate financial resource development, and directing the distribution of the federation's $37 million in annual resources. Freedman also oversees volunteer leadership development, including the federation’s missions programs, as well as supplemental resource development including corporate sponsorships and foundation relations. Freedman has been with THE ASSOCIATED for twelve years serving in campaign and planning roles and has also worked at Hillel. An alum of the Darrell Friedman Institute for Jewish Communal Leadership, he has held fellowships with the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and completed the Mandel Executive Development Program of United Jewish Communities.

Peter B. Friedman is an executive vice president of the Jewish Federation/Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago. He is responsible for administering a process that allocates more than $90 million annually to local and overseas programs and involves the participation of more than 250 volunteers. He has had major responsibility for a number of local planning projects, including three Chicago-area Jewish population studies, and community long range planning and priority studies. He has also participated in national and international (Israel, Former Soviet Union and Latin America) Jewish planning processes and projects.

Meryl Gallatin has been committed to UJA-Federation for over 30 years. She has traveled to Israel 19 times, leading 3 missions. A Lion of Judah for 22 years, she remains an active liaison to her NY Federation; a member of the Long Island Women’s Cabinet; and a member of the Planned Giving and Endowment Committee. After having served as the Southeast Florida Lion of Judah chair of NWC of UJC, Gallatin was “promoted” to National Lion of Judah Endowment chair and is now part of the National Women’s Philanthropy Executive Board. She is also a member of UJC’s National Planned Giving and Endowment Committee. Gallatin is currently the WD’s Major Gifts chair, and a member of the Federation Board. Gallatin also served as the Lion of Judah Endowment chair and Leadership Day chair for two years. She travels abroad quite extensively and has seen the work that is being done in our JDC recipient cities. Meryl and Ron Gallatin have recently started a charity called “Hands on Tzedakah” which reaches out to those people and needs which fall below the “radar screen” of our federations and organizations such as United Way. They have even been able to partner with JDC and secular organizations to achieve their mission in helping those here in the States and overseas.

Rabbi David Gedzelman is the executive director of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life. He was the founding creative and rabbinic director of Makor in New York City, where he conceived and created a cutting-edge venue for Jews in their 20s and 30s providing innovative arts, cultural and educational programming to engage an under-involved population. Previously, he was director of Hillel at the University of Judaism, where he was also a lecturer in Rabbinics. He also served as director of Hillel at Pierce and Valley Colleges. He received rabbinical ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and is a member of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement. He serves on the Boards of Directors of the American Pardes Foundation, Hillel International, Jewish Funds for Justice, BBYO Inc., and The Curriculum Initiative.

Susie Gelman currently serves as campaign co-chair for the Greater Washington Jewish Federation. She also chairs the birthright israel Foundation board. She is a member of UJC’s Israel Emergency Campaign allocations committee and evaluation committee and a co-chair of UJC Israel.

Myra Giberovitch is a consultant specializing in the development of services and programs for survivors of genocide and war-related trauma. She initiated the first community-based social service program for Holocaust survivors in Canada and is internationally recognized as a pioneer in this area. Giberovitch created, and continues to supervise, Services for Holocaust Survivors and their Families, at the Cummings Jewish Centre for Seniors in Montreal. She has also worked with Japanese Canadians, Rwandans and war veterans. Giberovitch’s prior community involvement includes lay positions at Canadian Jewish Congress serving as chairwoman of the National and Quebec Region Holocaust Remembrance Committees and the Montreal Jewish community’s Yom Hashoah commemoration. She is widely published and presents internationally at social service and academic conferences including events sponsored by the Canadian Parliament, the World Conference of Jewish Communal Service and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Giberovitch is a guest lecturer at McGill University and conducts staff training workshops on a range of survivor topics including psychosocial functioning, ageing and traumatic memory, service delivery, creative empowerment strategies, clinical interventions, and holistic approaches to well being. In addition, she participates in designing new models of service delivery as community and survivors’ requirements change, and consults on the development and implementation of programs that are sensitive to survivors’ unique needs.

Conrad L. Giles served his medical internship and residency at the University of Michigan, spent two years at the National institute of Health then returned to open his practice in Detroit. Giles became active in the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, eventually becoming its president. Subsequently he served as chairman of federation's executive committee, president of the Michigan Jewish Conference, and regional chairman and national vice chairman of the United Jewish Appeal (now UJC). Giles engaged in numerous activities of the Council of Jewish Federations, serving on various committee posts and finally as treasurer and vice president before becoming its president. He was a vice president of the American ORT Federation and continues to serve as a member of the executive board of the World ORT Union. He served as co-president of the UJA-Federations of North America during the pre-merger period of UJC. He was elected a vice chairman, board of trustees of UJC. Giles has served as a member of the board and executive committee of the American Joint Distribution Committee and a member of the board of governors and executive committee of the Jewish Agency for Israel. Currently, he is a vice chair of the JCPA. Giles is a pediatric ophthalmologist who has been published extensively in professional journals. He is chief emeritus of ophthalmology at Children's Hospital of Michigan and clinical professor of ophthalmology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

Leah Golan is the director general of the Israel department at the Jewish Agency. She has worked for the Jewish Agency since 1992 in a variety of positions including regional director 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 which has resulted in the department having three main focuses of activity: partnerships, youth at risk, and priority areas. The basis of cooperation between worldwide Jewry and Israeli society is the relationships between Israelis and Jewish communities; partnerships which support communities in Israel and the Diaspora. In this manner they are changing risk to opportunity for the next generation, and are strengthening the national priority areas in Israel: the Negev and the Galilee. 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 the periphery, Partnership 2000, Atidim, Net@ a program for technological skills aimed at reducing the digital gap among youth and many more.

Aaron Goldberg is the associate vice president of the international division for Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. In this capacity, he is responsible for Hillel operations outside the U.S. which is comprised of 50 Hillels in 13 countries and on 4 continents. Prior to his appointment, Goldberg served as the associate director of the Israel on Campus Coalition – a national coalition of nearly 30 Jewish agencies committed to promoting Israel education and advocacy on campus. During that time, he was responsible for the creation and launch of several significant national pro-Israel initiatives, as well as the publication of the 2005 Israel on Campus Yearbook and In Search of Israel Studies. Goldberg also served for seven years as the assistant director of the Chicago and Jerusalem offices of the Anti-Defamation League. He was regularly quoted in the media on issues related to Israel and the local community, and worked with elected, public, and community officials to effectively address issues of hate crimes, terrorism, and anti-Semitism. Moreover, he regularly wrote analysis of current events in Israel and administered the Israel country project of an international education program. Upon coming to Washington, Goldberg worked in the press office for Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). During that time he was charged with generating public support for the Senator’s legislative initiatives by actively securing coverage of his positions in the small, ethnic, and specialty press. He was also responsible for harnessing the communications potential of the Internet in a way that would reach a broader segment of his constituency.

Bert Goldberg is the president/CEO of the Association of Jewish Family and Children’s Agencies, the umbrella of over 140 human and social service agencies throughout the United States and Canada. He came to this position after serving as executive director of the Jewish Family Service of Orange County, California and as founding executive director of the Jewish Family Service of Allentown, Pennsylvania. He has also held management positions with the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago and Seattle, the Eastside Community Mental Health Center of Bellevue, WA, and the Jewish Federation of Chicago. Goldberg has taught Social Work and Jewish Communal Service on the faculties of De Sales University, Chapman University, and the Daniels School of Jewish Communal Service of the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, in Los Angeles. A member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers, a Certified Social Work Manager, and a Diplomate in Clinical Social Work, Bert is treasurer of the World Council of Jewish Communal Service, a board member of Soaringwords, the National Interfaith Coalition on Aging of the National Council on Aging, and the National Network of Social Work Managers, and a past president of the Jewish Communal Service Association of North America.

Marshall Goldsmith is an authority on helping successful leaders and teams get even better. His latest book is “What got you here, won't get you there.” Goldsmith coaches top executives, helping them make measurable improvements in their own behavior and in the behavior of their teams. Recently, the American Management Association named Goldsmith one of 50 thinkers and business leaders who have most influenced the field of management, and Forbes named him one of the five most-respected executive coaches. He has been selected as an American Red Cross “National Volunteer of the Year.”

Naftali Goldsmith came to UJC after serving as the web project manager in the marketing department of UJA-Federation of New York. Previously, he was the director of web services at Thinking Craft, a direct response marketing consultancy based in Florida. He has been doing strategic web consulting and project management since the late 1990's both in the private sector and in the Jewish communal world. Naftali has advanced degree training from Columbia Teachers College in education and technology and is certified by the Project Management Institute as an enterprise Project Management Professional.

Norman Goldstein is the UJC national chairman of Israel@60, vice president of UJC's Israel & Overseas committee, a member of the executive committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington; a committee member of the Jewish Agency for Israel; and a secretary and member of the executive committee of the American Jewish International Relations Institute. He is a past president of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, and Ohr Kodesh Congregation, and founding chairman of the Jewish Leadership Institute.

Sonia Gomes de Mesquita is the head of the international liaison department of World ORT. In this pivotal role she is the main contact person for all governing bodies, lay leaders and the national directors of ORT fundraising organizations, and is responsible for coordinating all of World ORT's global fundraising activities. Her position was created to meet the universal demand by ORT's national fundraising and operational organizations for greater cooperation and coordination, and is successfully delivering on its obligations. Prior to joining ORT, Gomes spent eight years working in the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel. During this time she was responsible for a number of projects, including a successful mission to bring more than 600 orphaned children to Israel from the CIS, and the development of a project to deliver Open University study courses to 3,500 Jewish students in the CIS. Before that, Gomes worked at the Israel Embassy in Helsinki. She joined the Israel Defense Forces and served as an education officer in the Southern Command.

Debra Barton Grant is the executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley. During her tenure the Jewish Federation has become a true Functional Federation. Debby moved to South Bend from Chicago, where she was the director of institutional advancement at the Community Foundation for Jewish Education. At the CFJE, she was responsible for the Dawn Schuman Institute, the agency’s adult Jewish education arm, and served as the director of Miriam’s Path, the department for women’s and girls’ education and leadership development. Grant was honored to receive the coveted Samuel A. Goldsmith Award for Professional Distinction in a Jewish Communal Agency from the Jewish Federation/JUF of Metropolitan Chicago. Prior to the CFJE, she worked for three years as the assistant vice president/Midwest regional director of the birthright israel North America initiative through the United Jewish Appeal Midwest regional office. Before moving to Chicago, Grant spent two years at the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, working as both a planning and an endowment associate. She was a FEREP scholar through UJA, working at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. She currently serves on the executive board of Alzheimer Services of Northern Indiana and sits on the board of the local United Religious Communities.

Harold Grinspoon is a real estate entrepreneur and the founder and president of Aspen Square Management. He established the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, which creates and funds initiatives that transform Jewish life. Two of its newest initiatives include the PJ Library, which sends free Jewish children’s books and music to families with young children each month; and the Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy, which works with Jewish camps, day schools, retreat centers, and other institutions to help them become more effective organizations. The PJ Library, in partnership with local philanthropists and federations, will be in over 50 communities across the country by the end of this year, distributing over 10,000 books to children on a monthly basis. As a result of the Grinspoon Institute’s challenge grant programs (Meet Your Match and Create Your Match), more than $25 million has been infused into Jewish camping. Grinspoon serves on the board of the birthright israel Foundation and is a founding partner in the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education. His wife, Diane Troderman, has been his active partner in all his philanthropic activities, and both are on the board of governors of Hillel. They give charitably beyond the Jewish community to education incentives for inner city children, the YMCA, organizations devoted to women and girls, a teacher recognition program, medical research, a parent-child reading program, and initiatives that promote entrepreneurship through the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation.

Gidi Grinstein served as secretary and coordinator of the Israeli negotiation team on the Permanent Status Agreement between Israel and the PLO for Prime Minister Ehud Barak. He is the founder of the Yesodot Group, which seeks to reform Israeli governance; a member of the Kol-Dor Group for global Jewish peoplehood; was a member of "Israel 2025 – Scenarios for Future Developments"; and was a founding member of a group that worked to realize the vision of the birthright israel program. Gidi is a graduate of Tel Aviv University's schools of Economics and Law, and of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government as a Wexner-Israel Fellow. He is a Captain (Res.) in the Israeli Navy.

Matthew Grossman is the executive director of BBYO, Inc., serving as BBYO's chief professional officer responsible for working with the organization's lay and professional leaders in setting a vision and implementation strategies for the BBYO movement. Prior to BBYO, he worked for Hillel, playing a key role in the organization’s decade-long renaissance. Grossman's interests in public and Jewish community service were prominent throughout his college career, including serving as president of Hillel at George Washington University, and receiving a George Washington University Presidential Scholarship after initiating a relationship between the University and President Clinton’s Americorps program.

Rebecca Guber is the program director for the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, where she launched the Fellowship in June 2006. Prior to Six Points, Rebecca worked at Hazon, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and founded the Shpatzirin Festival. She is a board member of AMDaT, a site-specific dance company; and the Artists Alliance, a grass-roots artist organization composed of artists from a broad spectrum of national backgrounds. She has participated in numerous next-generation Jewish leadership development programs including the Selah Leadership Program, ROI 120, and the Professional Leaders Project.

Rabbi Steve Gutow is executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. After working for nearly 30 years as an attorney and in Jewish and political activities, Gutow focused his career on his faith and community and attended the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where he received his ordination in 2003. Gutow, who spent more than a decade practicing law in Texas, served as chair of the Dallas Jewish Community Relations Council and then went on to serve as the founding regional director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s Southwest Region. He also organized the pro-Israel lobby’s efforts in six southwestern states and helped create chapters in nearly 40 cities. Gutow went on to become the founding executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, where he led national groups in formulating strategies to maintain First Amendment religious freedoms. Following his ordination, Gutow became the first full-time rabbi at the Reconstructionist Minyan of St. Louis where he served as the St. Louis Rabbinical Association representative to the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis. At the same time, he served as adjunct professor of law at St. Louis University Law School, teaching a seminar on Jewish law. In workshops, in speeches and in articles, he has addressed subjects including racial harmony, religious pluralism and civil liberties, the safety and security of Israel, poverty and healthcare. His 2001 article, “Tikkun Olam: A Public Policy Focus,” expressed his understanding of the underpinnings of the Jewish rationale for social justice - something so central to his being that in 2001 he was awarded both the Reconstructionist Student Association Prize for Social Action within RRC, and the Rabbi Devora Barnoff Memorial Prize for Spriritually Motivated Social Action.

David A. Harris serves as the executive director of the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) -- a partnership of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, in cooperation with a network of thirty-one national organizations and nine regional affiliates committed to promoting Israel education and advocacy on campus. The ICC provides a united community front to advance a proactive, pro-Israel agenda on more than 400 college campuses throughout North America. Before joining the ICC, Harris worked in Washington, D.C. as the deputy executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council; as the director of governmental and public affairs for the American Jewish Congress; and as the Washington representative for the Israel Policy Forum, among other positions.

Stephanie Hausner serves as the Campus and Programs Coordinator for the UJC/JCPA Israel Advocacy Initiative. In this role Stephanie assists communities with their campus, high school and general Israel Advocacy programming. This includes assisting Federations and CRCs address emerging problems on campuses, such as coordinating community responses to Palestinian Solidarity Movement conferences, divestment campaigns, and other anti-Israel activity. Stephanie has created a manual on building coalitions on campus to improve Israel advocacy on university campuses. Additionally, she organizes regional Israel advocacy workshops and coordinates the IAI Student Advocacy programs across the country. Additionally, Stephanie has been working on the JCPA JAVA (Jewish Activism and Virtual Advocacy) programs, which include our Facebook presence and other new media programs. Prior to joining the JCPA, Stephanie was a campus activist serving in leadership roles of Hillel, the campus Israel group-Coalition of Hopkins Activists for Israel, and several other campus and national political organizations.

Doreen Hermelin spends much of her time with charitable endeavors. Appointed by President Clinton in 1997, the Hermelins served as U.S. ambassadors to Norway until 2000. Currently, Mrs. Hermelin’s community involvements include: national president, ORT America; co-chair of the Endowment Committee,Women’s Department of the Jewish Federation; Board of Directors, Women’s Department of Jewish Federation of Metro Detroit; Board, Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit; co-chair of Michigan Chapter of State of Israel Bonds; Foundation Board of the Henry Ford Health System; National Women’s Philanthrophy Advisory Board of United Jewish Communities; Detroit Board of the Jewish Theological Seminary; associate vice-chair for the University of Michigan Campaign; Board of JARC (Detroit residential program for developmentally challenged); Ort, Detroit, Board of Trustees; Michigan Opera Theatre, Foundation Board; Karmanos Cancer Institute chair; Hermelin Davidson Center for Congregational Excellance for Judaic Erichment; life member of Hadassah. Hermelin is a recipient of the Women of Valor Award from State of Israel Bonds, the Humanitarian Award from B'nai B'rith, the award from Yad Ezra, the Heart of Gold award from United Foundation, the Vision of Hope Award from Women’s American ORT and also was named Woman of the Year by B'nai B'rith Women. The Hermelins are recipients of the Ambassador’s Award from the Norwegian ambassador to the United States.

Miriam Prum Hess is the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles' vice president and director of day school operational services, on loan to the Bureau of Jewish Education. She was previously the L.A. federation's vice president, planning and allocations and refugee resettlement and acculturation coordinator. Before coming to the L.A. federation, she was director of admissions at the University of Judaism (L.A.) and director of the community relations committee for the Jewish Federation, San Fernando Valley Region. Hess's work as an educator includes work for the University of Southern California Schools of Business Administration, Communications, Public Administration and Social Work, the University of Judaism, Masters of Business Administration Program, Hebrew Union College School of Jewish Communal Service. Among the recognition she she has received are the City of Los Angeles, Certificate of Appreciation; City of West Hollywood, Commendation; Jewish Federation, Micah Award for Exceptional Programming; and the Jewish Communal Professionals of Southern California, Special Award.

Alan Hoffmann is the director general of the education department of the Jewish Agency. Prior to this, he served as head of the Mandel Center for Jewish Continuity at the Hebrew University, director of the Melton Centre for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at the Hebrew University and executive director of the Council for Initiatives in Jewish Education (CIJE) in New York.

Becca Hornstein is the executive director of the Council For Jews With Special Needs, an agency that provides the support and resources to Jewish children and adults who have disabilities and their families to enable them to participate fully in Jewish life. The agency maintains the only database of Jewish resources for persons with disabilities in the U.S. and Canada. She brings her experience as the parent of two adult children with disabilities along with her background as a college instructor, nationally recognized speaker and consultant in the field of disabilities to the agency. Becca is currently the co-chairperson of the North American Consortium of Jewish Special Educators and a member of the Union for Reform Judaism Disability Resources Taskforce.

Judy Horowitz joined UJC Consulting in 2004 after more than two decades providing planning and financial consulting to hospitals and health systems. During her tenure with UJC, Judy has worked with large and large-intermediate federations on a variety of projects, including strategic planning, redesigning planning and allocation processes, governance restructuring, integrating Federation Peer Yardstick findings, and implementing UJC’s collaborative model.

Liz Jaffe retired as vice president of national programs at the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science. Prior to this position, she held positions at the Westchester-Putnam School Boards Association, the United Jewish Communities, the Educational Alliance and the New York Association for New Americans. She has been an active community volunteer, most recently serving on the Executive Committee of UJA-Federation of New York, where she chaired the Commission on the Jewish People. She is now on the cabinet of the Network Commission as chair of the National and International Task Force at UJA-Federation of New York and chairs the Federation’s new cross-commission service initiative. At UJC, Jaffe is a member of the Alliance Leadership Committee and is the national chair of the Otzma program. She serves on the Board of Directors of UJA-Federation of New York, the Jewish Coalition for Service, and the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, and is a member of the Education Committee of JAFI. She teaches computer skills to senior adults at the JCC of Manhattan.

Donna W. Kahan is the associate vice president, centennial/continuum for the JUF/Jewish Federation of Chicago. Before joining the federation, she was an active lay leader, having served as president of the women's division and on the federation board of directors. Her major responsibility is working in partnership with federation agencies to raise the requisite funds for capital projects and named endowments. She also supervises the agency and day school endowment programs and the Jewish day school guaranty trust fund. She was a charter member of the Jewish Women's Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago and is curently a life member.

Shirley Kalb is the associate director of the Hadassah Leadership Academy and director of its Alumnae Association. She spent most of her professional career at Hadassah as director of strategic planning, where she still sits on its Zionist Education Action Team. Since its founding, she has served as the staff liaison to the Hadassah Brandeis Institute. As a National Hadassah Board volunteer, she was chair of Young Judaea and the Speakers Bureau. Twice she was a delegate to the World Zionist Congress, and has traveled to Israel more than 60 times. Her volunteer activities include taping books for the visually impaired.

Rabbi Elie Kaunfer is executive director of Mechon Hadar: An Institute for Prayer, Personal Growth and Jewish Study. Mechon Hadar has created a network of grassroots religious communities across the country, and this summer launched the first full-time egalitarian yeshiva program in the United States. Kaunfer is a co-founder of Kehilat Hadar, an egalitarian community committed to spirited traditional prayer, study and social action. In the past six years, Hadar has attracted over 2,500 people to its Shabbat and holiday services, weekly Beit Midrash and social action programming. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, Kaunfer completed ordination and an MA in liturgy at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is a founding board member of Limmud NY and is on the advisory board of STAR: Synagogue Transformation and Renewal. Kaunfer is also a member of the Jewish Emergent Group of Synagogue 3000. He served as a faculty member for the Wexner Heritage Foundation, and has taught widely on subjects from the development of prayer to the involvement of young people in Jewish life. Kaunfer is a former corporate fraud investigator and analyst at Morgan Stanley. The Forward newspaper named him one of 50 Top Jewish Leaders.

Shaul Kelner is assistant professor of sociology and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on Jewish education and American Jewish organizations. He is currently writing a book on Israel experience programs and diaspora Jewish identity.

Evelyn B. Kenvin was a senior vice president of Citigroup and its national director of community development investments. She retired in 2006 after twenty-five years with the company. Her previous responsibilities at Citigroup included oversight of multi-family real estate workouts during the downturn in the early 1990s. Prior to joining Citigroup, she was involved in the manufacturing aspects of a family shoe business and developed affordable real estate in Brooklyn. She has also served as a real estate consultant to banks and developers. Evelyn is on the boards of UJA-Federation of New York. She has served as chair of its women’s business and professional division and is currently the chair of the policy and emerging issues cluster and the loan fund task force of its Commission on the Jewish People. She is also on the board of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. Evelyn is married to Arthur H. Rosenbloom.

Helmi Kittani is co-director at the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development. Helmi has a background in banking, having been head of several branches of Bank Hapoalim, before going on to head Bank Hapoalim's management training program at their head office in Tel Aviv. He went on to offer business consultancy services before joining CJAED in 1992. Helmi brought to CJAED his links with the Arab community, Arab businesspeople and the heads of Arab municipalities. Helmi, along with CJAED founder Sarah Kreimer, was awarded the Knesset's Quality of Life Award for his long work in improving the quality of life of Arab citizens of Israel. Helmi is on the board of the Arab Business Club and of the technological incubator, New Generation Technology, both of which were established as independent organizations by CJAED.

Lori Klinghoffer is chair of UJC National Women’s Philanthropy. She has been a member of the UJC National Women’s Philanthropy Board since 2001, having served as northeast region idea exchange chair, campaign vice chair, Board retreat chair and co-chair of the NWP Machar Mission, a campaign training/leadership development mission to Israel. She was previously UJA campaign chair of the United Jewish Communities of MetroWest, New Jersey, for whom she also served as president of the Women’s Department and chaired the Women’s Campaigns. She serves as vice president on the UJC of MetroWest Board of Trustees.

Mona Kolko is on the UJC National Women's Philanthropy board and is national co-chair of LOJE. She is a member of the board of directors of the Jewish Community Federation of Greater Rochester, NY, serving on several committees including the P2K steering committee; community relations; commision on Christian-Jewish relations; women’s division executive council and LOJE committee. Kolko is also a member of the gallery council of the Memorial Art Gallery, and is a life member of NCJW and Hadassah.

Irina Kopytova made aliyah from Gomel, Belarus through the Na'aleh program of the Jewish Agency after participating in summer camps in Belarus. She was an aliyah counselor during her army service, and was a counselor in various summer camps in the former Soviet Union. She is 26 years old, and has worked with birthright Israel groups from the FSU that visited Israel and with SELAH students.

Michael Kotzin is executive vice president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, in which capapacity he oversees the federation's communications and community relations activities. He was a faculty menmber at Tel Aviv University for eleven years. A frequent spokesman for Chicago's Jewish community, he is a respected authority on many facets of Jewish communal affairs and has published widely on these topics.

Iris Kraemer is a speech pathologist in private practice. She currently serves as local chair for Partnership 2000 in Jacksonville, FL. Recently, she volunteered in middle schools in Israel's Hadera-Eiron region. She also hosted a program in Jacksonville for visiting camp counselors from Hadera.. She has spoken about P2K to middle-schoolers at the local Jewish day school

Debbie Krivoy is the director of Avoda Arts, the leading developer of arts-based Jewish learning experiences for youth and young adults. She is an education and training professional with more than 18 years of experience in curriculum design, teacher-training, and arts program management. Krivoy has designed a wide variety of arts-based learning programs, including traveling exhibitions, student film festivals and a semester-long “Artist Beit Midrash.” Prior to joining Avoda Arts, Krivoy served as director of program design services for an educational consulting firm in Boston, where she oversaw the creation of workplace learning programs focused on leadership, mentoring, critical thinking and creative problem solving. She has written several articles on integrating the arts and media into Jewish learning.

Rabbi Lynne Landsberg is the senior advisor on disability issues for the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center and Department of Jewish Family Concerns. She was previously the associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the regional director of the Union for Reform Judaism Mid-Atlantic Council. She has served as vice president and is currently serving as honorary chair of the Harvard University Divinity School Alumni/ae Council.

David Lazar immigrated to Israel from Los Angeles. He served in the IDF through Hesder, combining military service with yeshiva studies. Lazar was one of the founders of Moshav Gan Or in Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. He is a graduate of the Jerusalem Fellows program of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership. Lazar has served as the educational coordinator for Congregation Mevakshei Derekh and the rabbi of Congregation 'Ya'ar Ramot' in Jerusalem. During this time he has also served as the chaplain for the Israel AIDS Task Force. Lazar, in collaboration with Israeli businessmen Eli Wurtman and Jacob Ner David, founded RIKMA - Spiritual Community Leadership Development. RIKMA is devoted to the cultivation and advancement of professional community leadership in Israel. For much of the last decade, David has been working with the GLBT community in Israel, teaching and counseling. He has been active in the Jerusalem Open House since its inception and has been officiating at same-gender weddings on a regular basis. Since 2003, David has served as the rabbi of Kehilat Tiferet Shalom in Ramat Aviv, during which time the community has grown from 38 to over 170 member units.

Michael I. Lebovitz serves as senior vice president – chief development officer of CBL & Associates Properties Inc. Previously, Lebovitz served the company as senior vice president – mall projects. Prior to joining CBL, he was affiliated with Goldman, Sachs & Co. He is past president of the Jewish Community Federation of Greater Chattanooga, serves on the national boards of UJC, Hillel and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and is a board member of McCallie School and the Chattanooga United Way.

Benny Levin is acting chairman of the Board of Directors of dbMotion, headquartered in Israel. Before joining dbMotion, Levin co-founded NICE Systems in Israel, a worldwide leader of multimedia digital recording solutions for business interaction management. Prior to founding NICE, Levin served in the IDF in military intelligence, retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was awarded the Chief of Intelligence Award for Creative Thinking, Israeli military intelligence’s most prestigious award. Levin is also vice chair of Israel Venture Network and chairman of IVN's Economic Reconstruction Initiative.

Daniel Linver is the Taglit-birthright israel professional for Seattle as well as the associate director of Hillel at the University of Washington. With two years of experience working at Hillel at Brandeis and spending the last two years at Hillel UW, Linver has brought his excitement about working with Jewish young adults to the Taglit-birthright israel alumni living in the Northwest. He really enjoys working with alumni as well as helping to organize Taglit-birthright israel trips for Jewish young adults from the Seattle area. As part of his job he has led Taglit-birthright israel trips, social justice trips to both Central America and Israel, and planned many different kinds of events for Jewish young adults in the Seattle area (including a Jewish Arts Month and a huge Purim party at a local art space last year). He has four years experience as a beer brewing instructor, and DJs as a hobby.

Sacha Litman is the principal consultant of Measuring Success, and works as a partner with UJC in the design and implementation of the Federation Peer Yardstick. Sacha’s firm designs quantitative tools to help non-profits measure and enhance their performance. Sacha worked for McKinsey & Company, and received his M.B.A. with high honors from Kellogg Business School and an M.P.A. from Harvard University through the Wexner Fellowship Program.

Rep. Nita M. Lowey is currently serving her tenth term in Congress, representing parts of New York's Westchester and Rockland Counties. As a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, chairwoman of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, and a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Lowey is an extremely effective, committed legislator with a substantial record of accomplishment. Congressional Quarterly cited her as one of the 50 most effective members of Congress, saying she “maneuvers skillfully through the appropriations process.” Few members of Congress have taken key leadership roles on so many vital public policy issues. Lowey has led the effort to make our nation more secure by improving first responders’ preparedness and equipment and preparing for a possible avian flu pandemic. She has worked to increase health care access and biomedical research and spearheaded the effort to more than double funding for breast cancer research. A strong proponent of education, she has successfully fought efforts to cut funding for public broadcasting and has supported fully funding the federal government’s commitment to education at all levels. Because she understands that instability abroad undermines security at home, she is a fierce advocate for increasing developmental assistance abroad as the chairwoman of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee. Lowey served in the House Democratic Leadership in 2001 and 2002 as the first woman and first New Yorker to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She served as Assistant Secretary of State for the State of New York before being elected to Congress.

David Makovsky is a senior fellow and director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process. He is also an Adjunct lecturer in Middle Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He has written several books, including Lessons and Implications of the Israel-Hizballah War: A Preliminary Assessment, Making Peace with the PLO: The Rabin's Government Road to the Oslo Accord, Engagement Through Disengagement: Gaza and the Potential for Renewed Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking, and A Defensible Fence: Fighting Terror and Enabling a Two-State Solution.

Alan Mark Mann is executive vice president of the Mandel Center for Excellence in Leadership and Management, as well as the center's executive vice president for community services. His previous Jewish communal experience includes serving as executive vice president for JCC and Community Services, senior vice president of the JCC Association, executive vice president of the JCCs of Greater Boston, center director for the South Area JCC, a branch of JCCs of Greater Boston, program director for JCC of Atlantic County, Margate City, NJ, and group work supervisor, Emanu-EL Midtown YM-YWHA, NYC. He also served as executive director of Striar JCC on the Fireman Campus and helped return the agency to financial stability; as acting executive director of the JCCs of Greater Boston; as a member of the JWB executive development program; as a key JCC professional involved in developing a new Jewish Community Campus in Newton (he eventually became the first executive director of the Leventhal-Sidman JCC); as director of a celebration of Israel's 30th Anniversary of Independence that drew nearly 50,000 people; and was a JWB scholarship recipient.

Rob Mann is a vice chair of the UJC Board of Trustees and a member of the UJC Executive Committee. He is the chairman of the UJC National Campaign Training Department. Since becoming a trainer in 2003 Rob has spoken or trained at over 50 Federations throughout the U.S. and Canada. Mann was previously the co-chair of the UJC National Young Leadership Department and Young Leadership Cabinet. He is a member of Chicago’s JUF Board of Directors and Executive Committee. Previously he was the chair of JUF’s Tikkun Olam Volunteer Network. Mann received Chicago’s Young Leadership Award in 2003, and was selected to be a Wexner Heritage Fellow in 2006. A member of the Young Presidents Organization, Mann is President of Henry-Lee and Company, a Chicago-based designer and distributor of women’s apparel.

Sharon Mars serves as the state initiative and Israel delegation director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC. In this capacity, Mars is responsible for coordinating AIPAC’s various state divestment efforts. She is also charged with organizing and executing congressional missions to Israel. Previously, Mars worked for the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, a coalition organization of businesses and non-governmental organizations advocating for a strong U.S. international affairs budget. Prior to her work in the policy arena, she worked in the media and marketing field for sports television company Fox Sports and online advertising company 24/7 Media.

Yavilah McCoy is a teacher, writer, editor and diversity consultant. She holds degrees in English Education and Judaic Studies and has taught Judaic Studies, Hebrew Language and English Literature on elementary and secondary levels. In addition to serving the Jewish community as an educator, McCoy has served on the boards of the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Family and Children’s Services, Hadassah, Jewish Community Relations Council, and the St. Louis Jewish Light. McCoy is a trained facilitator for the Anti Defamation League’s “A World of Difference” Program, the National Conference for Community and Justice’s Dismantling Racism Institute, and the National Coalition Building Institute of Washington, DC. She was awarded a Joshua Venture Fellowship for Jewish Social Entrepreneurs and she utilized this training and support to become the founding director of AYECHA, a national not-for-profit, providing educational resources for Jewish diversity, and advocacy for Jews of color in the United States. McCoy has become an acclaimed international speaker on the subjects of “Increasing Awareness of Jewish Diversity” and “Developing Strategies for Inclusion.” In her spare time, she enjoys teaching and performing her family’s legacy of Jewish Gospel. McCoy is currently the New England Director of the Curriculum Initiative.

Yeganyahu Avishai Mekonen emigrated from Ethiopia to Israel in 1984 as part of Operation Moses, and has worked as a photographer and filmmaker on projects investigating issues of race and identity. A section of his documentary film project, Judaism and Race is part of “The Jewish Identity Project; New American Photography” that originated at the Jewish Museum, NYC, and has traveled to the Skirball Museum, L.A. and the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco. His award-winning documentary work has been broadcast on Israel’s Channel 1 and has screened at many festivals in Israel, Europe, and the US , including the Tel Aviv Cinemateque, the Jerusalem Cinemateque, Haifa Jewish Film Festival, Makor, and the International Competition Documentary Festival, Czech Republic. He has lectured on the subject of Ethiopian Jews in the U.S. and in Israel both independently and through the NY Israeli Consulate.

Nigist Mengesha is the director-general of the Ethiopian National Project. Before making aliyah, she served as a social worker for the Ethiopian Prisons Authority. After making aliyah, she received a BA 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 for her thesis “Socio-Educational Mediation among Ethiopian Immigrant Jews in the Israeli School System.” 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.

Ambassador Sallai Meridor is the Israeli ambassador to the United States. Previously, he served as the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization. Prior to that, Meridor served as the treasurer of the Jewish Agency and WZO and as the head of the settlement division of the WZO. During the years of his chairmanship, the Jewish Agency underwent a major transformation. The strategy and activities of the Agency were focused on dealing with the Jewish future - the young generation of Jews. Major initiatives included the Masa national effort to bring 20,000 young adults per annum from the Diaspora for a year-long formative experience in Israel, focusing the activities of the Agency in Israel on young Israelis and young Olim, special Aliyah efforts from FSU, Ethiopia, Argentina, and France, and strategic preparations for dealing with the future challenge of Aliyah choice. In response to the war of terror against Israel, a global Jewish mobilization effort and a major emergency campaign was launched. Internally, the budget of the Jewish agency was balanced, agreements to eliminate $700M in debt (which put the agency at risk) were reached, and the Agency took a historic step by restructuring its governing bodies to include significant nonpolitical representation from Israeli society. Finally, with a view towards the Jewish future, the first ever Jewish People Policy Planning Institute was established. Prior to his work with the Jewish Agency, Meridor served as an advisor to Israel's minister of defense and minister of foreign affairs. In his governmental service, he was involved in the designing of Israel's foreign and defense policies, played a role in the peace process leading to the Madrid Peace Conference, participated in the negotiations that followed as the representative of the ministry of defense, and led Israel's Inter-Agency Steering Committee on Arms Control. He served as an intelligence officer in the IDF.

Karen Morton is UJC's Family Philanthropy chair. In Toronto, she chairs The Family Philanthropy Forum, She is also a member of the Philanthropy and Endowment Pillar as well as the lsrael and Overseas Committee in Toronto. She was the chair of the Host Reception for the 2006 General Assembly in Toronto.She was the founding chair of birthright israel Canada and she sits on the Board of Directors of Canada lsrael Experience. Morton has taken many leadership roles in the community include sewing as a member of the Toronto UJA Women's Division Executive Committee, Lion of Judah chair, member of Steering Committee and chair of National Exhibition Pavilion for lsrael @ 50, Baycrest Center for the Aged Board of Directors, the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews and the Mayors Committee on Aging. She was the co-founder of the Jewish Distress Center and a board member of Karen Hayesod's Women's Division, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Princess Margaret Hospital and the Canadian Foundation of Refugees. Previously, Morton was an English as a Second Language teacher for adults and was the owner of "A Show of Hands," a Fine Contemporary Craft Gallery. She received the lsrael Bonds Deborah Award and the Jewish Foundation of Greater Toronto Shem Tov Award.

Paul Morton is UJC's National Endowment chair. He has been one of the key leaders for Jewish Toronto Tomorrow's $250 million Capital Campaign. Previously, he chaired the inaugural Financial Resource Development Committee, the UJA Annual Campaign, the Jewish Foundation of Greater Toronto, and the UJA Past Chairmen's Committee. He has been a director of Mount Sinai Hospital and a co-chair of Baycrest's capital fund raising campaign. Morton served as president of Canadian Friends of Tel Aviv University. Morton was Chairman of Skydome (now the Rogers Centre), a member of the Executive Committee of Canada Deposit Insurance Corp. and a director of the Toronto Symphony and the National and Royal Winnipeg Ballet companies. He was the founding chairman of the Variety Clubs sports training and fitness centre. He was also president of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Toronto Blizzard. In business he was president of Global TV. He has been, and is, a director of almost 30 public and private companies in the United States, Canada and Israel. He was also president of the Canadian Motion Picture Exhibitors Association and the Banff Television Festival.

Harriet Mouchly-Weiss is a founder and the managing partner of Kreab/Strategy XXI, with over 30 years' experience in the communications field. She is chair of the Commission on the Jewish People at UJA-Federation of New York, chair of the United Jewish Communities roundtable on Israeli Arabs, and is a steering committee member of the Inter-agency Task Force on Israeli Arab Issues. She is on the executive committtee of the Israel Policy Forum and the Abraham Fund initiative, and chairs the Israel Anti-drug Foundation. She is also on the board of the Friends of the United Nations, and a member of the Committee of 200, an international professional association of preeminent businesswomen who personify the spirit of entrepreneurship and business leadership.

Harry Nadler is World ORT's North American Representative to the Jewish Federations, a new position created to strengthen the relationship between World ORT and the organized North American Jewish communities. Through his network of contacts developed over 38 years serving the Jewish communities, Nadler has been able to help represent ORT to federations and at the same time to help the professionals at World ORT be linked to North American Jewish communities. He began his career in Jewish Community Center work in St. Louis as a youth director. He later served the Nashville JCC as the program director and then as executive director in Charleston, SC and Indianapolis. Nadler was the executive vice president of the Indianapolis Jewish Federation for 17 years, then became executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County.

Jordan Namerow is the communications specialist at the Jewish Women’s Archive, which uncovers, chronicles, and transmits the rich history of North American Jewish women. She writes for the Jewish Women’s Archive blog Jewesses With Attitude, a unique forum for young Jewish women to sound-off on a variety of subjects. Through this blog and other web-based projects, she strives to broaden opportunities for Jewish expression. A graduate of Wellesley College with a B.A. in Sociology, Namerow was the 2005-2006 Roslyn Z. Wolf-JDC International Fellow providing social welfare assistance to the Jewish community of Poland, and has also held internships with Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh and Education Center, the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute for Southern Jewish Life, and the Citizens’ Accord Forum between Jews and Arabs of Israel.

Serena Orgel is the senior development officer of the Educational Alliance, a UJA-Federation of New York network agency. Previously, she has served as the director of development for the 14th Street Y of the Educational Alliance and director of S.C.O.P.E. (Summer Camp Opportunities Provide an Edge), a program of the American Camp Association, where she raised funds for camp scholarships for underserved New York City children. She started her career in the federation world working for four years at UJA-Federation of New York in the missions and lawyers divisions. Orgel is an active alumna of Project Otzma and Livnot U’leibanot. She chaired a retreat for the Jewish Coalition for Service on “Jewish Service Programs in the 21st Century."

Andy Paller is a director for the newly formed Community Capacity and Consulting division of UJC. His areas of expertise include tactical and strategic planning, allocations, research, financial management, process management, team building and technology planning, reflecting 21 years of experience as Planning Director, chief financial officer and associate executive director for the New Orleans and Hartford Jewish federations. Paller has been part of the UJC consulting department for five years, and is the author of the Jewish Federation Financial Health Check manual. One of Paller ’s major current responsibilities is to manage Federation Peer Yardstick (FPY), a national benchmarking initiative to identify the activities associated with federation excellence and to provide individual federations a management tool to assess those areas in which increased focus could generate significant return on investment. UJC completed the second full round of data collection and analysis in 2007, to validate and refine initial findings and to begin to create longitudinal data for analysis.

Richard L. Pearlstone is the president of the Pearlstone Group, Inc., a real estate developer and financial services firm. He is special GP advisor to Jerusalem Capital I, LP, and is a national trustee of the Baltimore Museum of Art. He has served The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore on the board of directors, executive committee, executive investment committee, strategic planning committee, Board of Governors of the Associated Jewish Charities Endowment Fund, chairman of the Pearlstone Institute for Living Judaism and Campaign chairman. He has served JAFI as chairman of the board of governors, member of the executive committee, and chairman of the budget and finance committee. For the federation system, he has served on the board of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research and CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning & Leadership; as president of the Aspen community and chair of the Campaign in Aspen; and as president, national chairman, and national vice-chairman of UJA. He served on the board of the Joint Distribution Committee and United Israel Appeal, and was the founder of Gann Yielding day care. He was chairman of the board for the Baltimore Ballet, the Maryland Ballet, was on the board of Monumental Life Corporation, Westview Federal Savings & Loan, Center Stage, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; was chairman of the Harbor Bank's Investment Committee and the Aspen Country Day School's capital campaign; served on the executive committee of the Baltimore Museum of Art and on the Advisory Council of Mental Hygiene for the State of Maryland; and founded the Maryland Association of Concerned Citizens Political Action Committee. He was chairman of the board and CEO of Cross Keys Asset Management, Inc., was on the board and executive committee of Sizeler Realty Investments Trusts, and was vice president of mall development for Monumental Properties, Inc. As co-chairman of the Talmudical Academy of Baltimore's Capital Development Program, he was honored for his involvement in the growth and development of educational programs, received a Distinguished Service Award from Wurzweiler School of Social Work of Yeshiva University, was honored as a prominent leader in the world Jewish community by Meir Roseanne, Israel Ambassador to the United States, and was recognized by Ben Gurion University of the Negev for his establishment of the Pearlstone Center for Aeronautical Engineering Studies – Memorial to Jack Pearlstone.

Esther Polland chairs UJC’s Consulting Committee and is a vice chair of the board of trustees. She previously served on the UJC executive committee, representing the Large Intermediate Federations. She is a former member of the National Women’s Philanthropy board and the National Young Leadership cabinet. Pollard is a past president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston and served two terms as its campaign chair and also chair of its women’s campaign. She continues to be an active member of the board of trustees and also serves on the board and executive committee of the Houston Jewish Community Foundation. Pollard has served on numerous other boards and has had a special interest in the renaissance of Hillel. She served on the Hillel/FJCL board of directors and executive committee and recently completed three years as president of the board of Texas Hillel at the University of Texas in Austin, her alma mater.

Gil Preuss is vice president for strategy and planning at Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston. Prior to CJP, he worked at the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland as director of allocations and agency relations. Before working at the Cleveland Federation, Preuss was a professor at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, where he taught courses on organizational behavior as well as human resource practices in non-profits. Preuss received his Ph.D. from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Steven Rakitt is the president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, serving as chief professional officer of one of the largest non-profit organizations in the Southeast. Previously, he was executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island. Rakitt was a FEREP scholarship recipient, a Mandel Executive Development Program Fellow, a Rhode Island Foundation Fellow, a participant in Leadership Atlanta and past chairman of the Federation Large City Executives Forum. He has served on the FEREP Selection Committee and is currently a member of the Board of Public Broadcasting Atlanta and the advisory board of the Andrew Young School of Public Policy of Georgia State University.

Albert B. Ratner is co-chairman of the board of Forest City Enterprises, Inc. He has been in the commercial and residential real estate industry with Forest City since 1951. Ratner is well-known as a long time community booster for Cleveland and a leader in its Jewish community. He is a life trustee of the Cleveland Jewish Community Federation. He is currently on the UJC Board of Trustees and chairs the UJC Fair Share Committee.

Shulamit Reinharz was born in Amsterdam. Her parents – refugees from Germany - had been in hiding throughout the war in Holland and were among the 10 percent of Jews who survived. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and her Ph.D. from Brandeis University. Reinharz was on the faculty of the University of Michigan, then returned to Brandeis as a professor of sociology. She directed the Women's Studies Program at Brandeis. Among her innovations were creating its graduate program and its program in the prevention of violence against women. She also founded the first graduate program in Jewish Women’s Studies. Reinharz chaired Hadassah's National Commission on American Jewish Women. Subsequently, Hadassah established the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, which Reinharz heads to this day. She opened the Women’s Studies Research Center in a facility that she designed and for which she raised all the funds. The holder of the Jacob Potofsky Chair of Sociology, Reinharz is the author or co-author of ten books including The JGirls’ Guide (a finalist for the Koret Prize) and the highly praised American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise. With her husband Jehuda Reinharz (the president of Brandeis University) and an Israeli colleague, she published an annotated volume of the letters of Manya Shohat, one of the founders of Israel. She also writes a weekly column for the Jewish Advocate, a Boston-area Jewish newspaper.

Rabbi David Rosenn is the founder and executive director of AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps, a program that combines front-line work on urban poverty issues in New York, Chicago and Washington, DC with Jewish study, leadership training and community building. Ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Rosenn has previously worked for the New Israel Fund in Jerusalem, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the National Council of La Raza in Washington, DC. He has served as a chaplain at the Jacob Perlow Hospice of Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan and at the Momentum AIDS project. He is currently a member of the Board of Bikkurim: An Incubator for New Jewish Ideas. He is married to Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, the director for Jewish life programs at the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

Barbara S. Rosenthal is the vice president of resource development for North Coast Community Homes, a non-profit housing corporation that develops and maintains housing for individuals with mental retardation, mental illness and other disabilities. Before joining NCCH, she served for five years as vice president of resource development for the Center for Families and Children in Cleveland. Previously, she practiced law as an attorney with Baker & Hostetler and was a partner in her family business. She plays a leadership role on many local and national boards, including: HIAS, the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, Cleveland Chapters of the American Jewish Committee and of ORT America, and ideastream (public TV and radio merged in Cleveland). As a consultant, Rosenthal also conducts a variety of leadership seminars in the nonprofit community, focusing on governance issues and fundraising.

Rabbi Professor Naftali Rothenberg is a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, where he is Jewish Culture and Identity chair, and an Executive Committee member. He also serves as the Rabbi and spiritual leader of Har Adar, a Jerusalem suburb. He holds BA, MA and PhD degrees in philosophy, and several Rabbinical Ordination degrees including Israeli Chief Rabbinate Ordination. He served as the chief rabbi of Peru, rabbi of the IDF Training Officer School and other IDF special divisions; dean of IDF Educational Institute for Commanders; national director of WZO-Torah Education for North America. Rothenberg is associate professor for Judaic Studies in Touro College, Jerusalem. He serves as a member of the Academic Committee of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Research. Among his various academic affiliations, he was a member of the International Committee of Religion, Science & the Environment and 2005 Martin Marty Center visiting Scholar at the Divinity School, University of Chicago. His main fields of research are: environmental philosophy; religions and the environment; political philosophy; religion and politics; civic education; philosophy of Halakha; the wisdom of love (between man and woman; human beings; man and God); culture of peace. He has published numerous articles on philosophy, Jewish thought, and Halakha and has authored and edited seven books, including: Beloved Doe - The Wisdom of Love; Jewish Identity in Modern Israel, (co-ed. Professor Eliezer Schweid); Meditations on the Parasha – the weekly Torah portion as an inspiration for Jewish thought and creativity, (ed.).

Nahanni Rous is the outreach and educational content director at Just Vision, a non-profit organization that widens the influence of Palestinian and Israeli grassroots peace builders. She has been an integral member of Just Vision’s team of Israeli, Palestinian and American young women since its inception, playing a key role in selecting, interviewing and building relationships with Palestinian and Israeli peace builders, and in shaping the presentation of their stories in Just Vision’s Online Network for Peace and documentary film, Encounter Point. Rous has presented Encounter Point for the "Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance" International Conference in Bethlehem, Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Network of Arab American Professionals and American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Boston, Brit Tzedek V'Shalom/the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, alumni of the Bronfman Youth Fellowship and the Dorot Fellowship in New York, the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington DC, Al Jazeera International, and in theatrical screenings and film festivals in the U.S., Israel, and Dubai. Before working with Just Vision, Rous was a producer, writer, and reporter for WBUR Boston and WRNI Rhode Island public radio stations, and traveled across the United States in the fall of 2001 interviewing Americans about their reactions to September 11. She also served as assistant to National Public Radio's Jerusalem-based correspondent Linda Gradstein. She is an alumna of the Bronfman Youth Fellowship and the Dorot Fellowship in Israel.

Erika Rudin-Luria is the director of planning at the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland. In that role, she oversees federation strategic planning and all areas of health and human service planning, including strengthening and growing Jewish Cleveland, planning for older adults and Jewish identity issues. Prior to this, she was a supporting foundations manager in the endowment and foundations department of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, where she worked closely with thirteen foundations of the federation and the foundation advisory council to align community priorities with funder priorities. She was the primary staff of the Advancing Women to Leadership Project and the federation liaison to the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, a project she worked on for three years. Prior to joining the Cleveland federation, Rudin-Luria worked for UJA-Federation of New York. In her capacity as a program executive, she did planning and grantmaking in the arena of Jewish education and identity for the nine-county New York City region.

John Ruskay is executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, the largest Federation in North America and the largest local philanthropy in the world. After earning his doctorate in Political Science at Columbia University, Ruskay served for six years as educational director of the 92" Street Y and then eight years as vice chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. He came to UJA-Federation in 1992, where he served in several positions before being appointed to his current office.

Ken Saibel is the assistant executive vice president for financial resource development at UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey, overseeing a campaign that last year raised in excess of $20 million including the annual and IEC campaigns. Saibel has worked in the federation system for over 20 years. He is active in numerous Jewish communal organizations including his synagogue where he will be installed as president in June 2008.

Barbara Salmanson has been active in the field of children at risk in both New York and Israel. For eight years, she served as senior policy adviser on child welfare and social service issues to the comptroller of the City of New York. She is currently president-elect of the Jewish Child Care Association, a UJA Federation of NY agency serving 12,000 children, and chair of American Friends of Orr Shalom Children’s Homes, which cares for 1300 abused and neglected children throughout Israel. She also serves as vice president of the Educational Alliance, a UJA Federation of NY agency, which provides cultural and social services in Lower Manhattan. Salmanson is also an active participant at UJA Federation of NY, serving on numerous committees, including the Caring Commission and the Task Force on Children, Youth and Families. For five years, as founding NY chair, she had the privilege of representing the NY federation on the board of Ashalim, a partnership between NY federation, JDC and the Israeli government to address the needs of Israel’s children at risk.

Oded Salomon is the Jewish Agency for Israel's director general of the aliyah and integration department. Prior to his work at the Jewish Agency, Oded enjoyed a long and vibrant career in Israel's private sector, primarily in the food industry. He served as the managing director for Gerber's Israel and East Mediterranean division and worked for more than 15 years in various senior positions at Osem–Nestle, one of Israel's largest food producers and exporters. If you have visited Israel, you have most definitely tasted some of the products Oded helped develop and market. Oded also held the position of marketing manager for Rokonet Electronics; the company's integrated security solutions are sold internationally in 20 countries.

Eliezer Sandberg is the chair of the Ethiopian National Project and the board chair of the National Innovation Fund of Kazakhstan. He previously served as Israel’s Minister of National Infrastructures, Minister of Science and Technology, and Deputy Minister of Education, Culture, and Sport. A lawyer by profession, he was a lieutenant in the Army prosecutor's office. He served several terms in the Knesset for Shinui and Tsomet, and was secretary-general of Tsomet. He is the counsel for business affairs for the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus, chair of Gatal – Natural Gas for Israel Ltd., chair of Gigi Cosmetics Ltd. (Israel), a board member and advisor to Dor Chemicals Ltd., a board member of Intellect Neuroscience, and a member of the board of trustees for Leo Beck High School.

Paul Schervish is the director of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, and national research Fellow at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy. He is senior advisor to the John Templeton Foundation and to the Wealth & Giving Forum. He has served as distinguished visiting professor of philanthropy at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy and as Fulbright Professor of Philanthropy at University College, Cork, Ireland, and has been named five times to the NonProfit Times “Power and Influence Top 50.” Schervish serves as a consultant to financial and development professionals and to wealth holders on the patterns and motivations of charitable giving, on the moral biography of financial life, and on discernment as a spiritual process of conscientious decision-making around wealth and philanthropy. Along with John J. Havens, senior associate director of the Center, he authored a report projecting a $41 trillion wealth transfer over the first five decades of this century: Millionaires and the Millennium: New Estimates of the Forthcoming Wealth Transfer and the Prospects for a Golden Age of Philanthropy.

Greg Schneider is the chief operating officer of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. After working in the private sector for several years, Schneider began working at the Claims Conference, where he has been for the past thirteen years. Among his responsibilities, he oversees both the individual claims compensation program and the institutional allocations grants program. Schneider oversees distribution of approximately $1 billion per year in direct payments to Nazi victims, social welfare programs for Nazi victims, and restitution of assets.

Steven A. Schoenfeld is the chief investment officer for the global quantitative management business of Northern Trust Global Investments (NTGI), with more than $255 billion in index and enhanced index strategies committed to the world’s equity and fixed income markets. In this capacity, Schoenfeld chairs NTGI’s global quantitative investment committee. Northern Trust is a leader in “mission-driven”/policy-screened investments, with more than $20 billion in socially-screened assets under management. Prior to joining NTGI, he was a managing partner of Global Index Strategies LLC., a consulting firm which provided advice on benchmark selection, investment strategy, and financial product development. Previously, Schoenfeld was a managing director of Barclays Global Investors (BGI), where he served in a variety of portfolio management and investment strategy roles, including the management of BGI’s international/global institutional index portfolios, mutual funds and ETFs. Before joining BGI, he was an investment officer at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector affiliate of the World Bank, where he helped develop the IFC Investable Emerging Market Indexes and structured the first Global Emerging Market index fund. In the 1980s he traded Japanese stock index futures at the Singapore Exchange and was a trader and analyst for a hedge fund in New York. Schoenfeld was the editor of Active Index Investing (see www.activeindexinvesting.com). He co-authored The Pacific Rim Futures and Options Markets and has contributed chapters and articles to numerous other publications. Steven is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Indexes, the Dow Jones Wilshire Indexes advisory board, the FTSE global policy committee, the Russell Indexes client advisory board, and the Standard and Poor’s Index advisory panel. He is also a member of the Pacific Council for International Policy, the advisory board of Duke University’s Global Capital Markets Center, and the international advisory board of the Israel Securities Authority.

Elaine Schreiber has been involved in a plethora of Jewish philanthropist organizations. Currently, she serves on the Board of Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, and the JESNA Board and Executive Committee, and the PEJE Donor Assembly Steering Committee. Schreiber is also Chair of the Jewish Peoplehood and Identity Strategy Center of UJC. Among her previous positions were campaign chair and president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, chair of the Phoenix Day School Consortium, and Board member of the Arizona Character in Education Commission, Arizona Community Foundation, Ohr Torah Institutions, and the Union of Orthodox Congregations. She also served as a chair of the UJC Renaissance and Renewal Pillar in addition to being the JESNA 2004 Kallah chair, the UJC Western Region chair, and co-chair of Hadesh and Hadesh West.

Hirut Alamow Shapira made aliya in 1991 when she was twelve years old. The meaning of her name is freedom, a name chosen for her as her father sat in jail for his Zionist beliefs. Her father went on to study at the Schechter Institute and became the first Ethiopian Conservative Rabbi to be ordained in Israel. Upon finishing high school she went to the army, then moved on to study theatre at the University of Haifa. She later went on to receive her Masters degree in literature. During the past six years Shapira has worked extensively with youth, in a variety of settings, teaching theater, giving youth tools to use the energy they have to do positive things and to accept differences, something that she finds rewarding and important. She treasures speaking with youth because she recognizes that they have so much to say about the world and she finds she learns much from them and their experiences. As an actress in Israel she took a part in the Shakespeare play “All’s Well That Ends Well” as Clown, a character who may be a fool but who has intelligent things to say about society and the way things work. This character was the perfect opportunity for Shapira to show herself and she truly made the character her own. Shapira also has visited the United States as a representative of National Security in Israel, speaking to people about making aliya, answering their questions and talking to them about Israel. Shapira began working for the Ethiopian National Project one year ago as a supervisor in northern Israel. She believes she is in Israel for a reason, as is the Ethiopian community – to give something to Israeli society. “As you give from yourself you give to others,” she explains. She knows the time will come when the Ethiopian community will be a true, integrated part of Israeli society, but that it will not be easy and will take a lot of hard work. And for Shapira, that work is tremendously worthwhile and enriching.

Jennie Shepard grew up in Nashville, and is currently teaching at Vienna Elementary School in Vienna, Virginia. Shepard was instrumental in involving the Nashville Jewish community in the “Paper Clip Project” by raising $12,000. She has spoken on several occasions to groups including the Hartford Jewish Film Festival in 2005, the Nashville Jewish Film Festival in 2006, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. in 2007. National Women's Philanthropy is proud to welcome Jennie home as our “Next Generation” speaker.

Robert Sherman assumed his position as CEO of the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York after 14 years as the executive director of the Bureau of Jewish Education of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties. Prior to that he was head of school of the San Diego Jewish Academy and the Maimonides Academy in Danbury, CT.

Aviv Shir-On is the deputy director general for media and public affairs in Israel's ministry of foreign affairs. He filled the positions of director of public affairs and later spokesman of the ministry and served abroad in Bonn, Germany (twice), in Washington as minister for congressional affairs and until a year ago as Israel's ambassador to Switzerland.

Bruce Sholk has been active in a variety of community roles in Baltimore. He was a founding board member of Hillel of Greater Baltimore, and served as its president. He is currently vice chairman of the Board of Directors of International Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. As an active member of The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, Sholk sits on the Board of Directors, Governance Committee, Finance Committee and Capital Campaign Committee. He chaired the Israel and Overseas Committee and The Associated’s 2007 annual campaign, and currently chairs overall Financial Resource Development. He will serve as chairman of the Board starting in 2010. Sholk is a member of the Board of Directors of UJC and chairs the Operation Promise Allocations Committee. He is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel. Sholk has spent the majority of his business career identifying emerging growth companies for investment. He is a co-founder of Axcel Partners and Greenspring Ventures, venture capital limited partnerships.

Lisa Soble Siegmann is the director of Jewish Experiences For Families (JEFF) and Informal Education for the Alliance of Jewish Education – a department of the Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. She has been in the field of Jewish Family Education for over 15 years and has been involved in informal Jewish Education for over 20. She currently oversees family education which includes the Jewish Family Education Project, in its 8th year and the PJ Library. Siegmann has written family curricula that are used all over the United States. She is known for her energy, creativity, informal style and team approach.

Noah Silverman is the Republican Jewish Coalition's Congressional Affairs director. In his current post, he advocates for policies favored by Jewish Republicans in a variety of settings, both on Capitol Hill and in the broader policy-making arena. Consistent with the RJC’s objective of serving as a conduit between the Jewish community and the Republican Party, he also works with representatives of other Republican and Jewish organizations to foster cooperation on matters of shared concern. Previously, Noah served on the legislative staff of Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ). Prior to that, he served on the staff of Senator Bob Smith (R-NH). During his tenure on the Hill, Noah worked closely with his bosses to formulate and implement their legislative agendas across a wide range of domestic policy areas, including health care, transportation, telecommunications, education, housing, and Social Security.

Randy Snow is the director of creative and strategic thinking for the Creative Department at R&R Partners. He has led the creative development for a number of brands, most notably the destination of Las Vegas, whose “What happens here, stays here” campaign has earned numerous accolades and achieved the rare feat of entering the cultural lexicon.

Michael B. Soberman has been work in the Jewish community for the past 13 years and is currently the director of National Initiatives for the Next Generation at UIA Federations Canada. His portfolios include National Jewish Campus Life, Leadership Development and Canada Israel Experience. The recent integration of these three departments enables UIAFC to provide a more seamless integration and continuum of the services and programs it offers. Previously, Soberman was the director of CIE, the Federations’ Israel Experience arm that is committed to maximizing the number of Canadian teenagers and young adults traveling to Israel on program such as Taglit-birthright israel, the March of the Living and high school/youth movement programs.

Jacob Solomon is the executive vice president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. Prior to his appointment as the Miami federation's chief executive officer, Jacob served in a variety of positions including director of planning and budgeting and assistant executive vice president overseeing the annual Federation-United Jewish Appeal Campaign. Before coming to the Miami federation, Jacob trained at the Jewish federations in New York and Philadelphia, while a student at Yeshiva University's Wurzweiler School of Social Work, where he received his master's degree. He began his studies in Jewish communal service as a recipient of a Federation Executive Recruitment and Education Program (FEREP) scholarship award.

Ronald Soloway has, for the past nineteen years, been a key member of UJA-Federation of New York’s government relations staff. Mr. Soloway is currently the managing director of government and external relations. Previously, Mr. Soloway oversaw the first year’s work of the Caring Commission, one of four commissions charged with developing program priorities and allocating targeted funds. Prior to joining UJA-Federation, Mr. Soloway held important policy positions in both government and the nonprofit sector.

Barbara Spectre is the founding director of Paideia, the European Institute of Jewish Studies in Sweden, an academic institute established through a grant of the Swedish Government that serves as a resource and stimulus for the renewal of European Jewish culture. She was formerly on the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jerusalem, where she taught Jewish Thought, and the Melton Center of the Hebrew University. Her area of research is in Models of Response to the Holocaust in Christian and Jewish Theology. Her publications include “A Theology of Doubt” (in Hebrew) and, together with Noam Zion of the Hartman Institute, the two-volume “A Different Light: The Hanukkah Book of Celebration.” She is the recipient of the 2007 Max Fisher Prize for Jewish Education in the Diaspora.

Leah Stern is a documentary filmmaker, TV correspondent, anchor and editor for IBA News, Israel's only local English language news program. Stern has directed, produced, and filmed news features in for CNN's World Report Program and is an editorial contributor to various publications such as the Miami Herald, Miami Sun Post, Jerusalem Post and Haaretz. She trained abroad at FAMU, the renowned film academy, where she shot several 35 mm films.

Marsha Sussman is one of the nation’s leading authority in acquisition and retention. She has spent over 20 years working with non-profit organizations in the area of direct-response fundraising, membership marketing, database management and fundraising systems including reporting. Representative clients include: the National Geographic Society, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Smithsonian Books and Recordings, Pizza Hut and Sylvan Learning Centers. She is currently acting as the interim managing director of marketing, communications and direct response at the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington DC.

Diane Troderman, the chair of the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA), is a respected leader in the Jewish world. In addition to her passionate interest in Jewish education, she has worked tirelessly on behalf of women’s issues and the renaissance and renewal of Jewish life, especially in the former Soviet Union. She was the founding chair of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute on Jewish Women and serves on the boards of the American Jewish World Service, BBYO and the Jewish Funders Network. Together with her husband Harold Grinspoon, she is a partner in the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education collaborative and is on the Board of Governors for Hillel. Troderman is a past president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Springfield and the University of Massachusetts Hillel, and was the founding chair of the Hatikvah Holocaust Education and Resource Center of Western Massachusetts. She has been instrumental in the growth of the Grinspoon Charitable Foundation, including such projects as “ I Have a Dream”, co-sponsored by the Grinspoon Foundation and Mass Mutual, which provides disadvantaged children an opportunity to graduate from high school and further their education.

David Valinsky founded David Valinsky Associates, a full-service fundraising firm in Columbus, Ohio. His team has worked with nonprofit organizations throughout the U.S., including Jewish federations, JCCs and synagogues to conduct feasibility studies, capital campaigns, planned giving programs, board development and strategic planning. He is the JCC Association’s national consultant for planned giving, capital campaigns, and annual appeals; and serves as the national planned giving consultant for both the Cabrini Mission Foundation and Ben Secours Health System, Inc. Valinsky served as associate executive director of the JCC in Columbus, and also has held executive development and marketing positions with the national Franciscan Sisters of the Poor Health System, Inc. As an adjunct consultant with the U.S. Agency for International Development, he played a key role in the capital campaign initiative for the Litewska Children’s Hospital in Warsaw, Poland; and helped to establish the Children and Family Society Foundation, one of the first philanthropic community foundations in Croatia. A Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy, Valinsky presented at the JCC Association Biennial and the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy’s 40th Annual International Educational Conference. The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide to Raising Money Through Bequests is his first book.

Jaime Walman is the vice president of organizational planning and development for JDub Records, helping JDub with strategic planning and financial resource development, and developing the label’s Los Angeles hub. Previously, she served two years as the Hillel Program Director at York University, then used a FEREP scholarship to complete an MA/MBA at Brandeis University. After graduation, she worked at the Jewish Agency for Israel, then as a development executive at UJA-Federation of New York’s Emerging Leaders and Philanthropists division.

Jessica Warren is the project coordinator and a founding member of the Slingshot Fund. The fund, an outgrowth of Slingshot: A Resource Guide to Jewish Innovation, aims to build capacity for creative Jewish organizations who often struggle for support from the organized community, to engage people in Jewish philanthropy who would otherwise not be engaged, and to create a new funding model for the Jewish community. She also serves as a board member at the Naomi and Martin Warren Family Foundation in Houston. Prior to her work in the philanthropic sector, Jessica was a manager at FreshDirect, a leader in the online grocery business, utilizing her Web knowledge and love of fine food to build business for the company. She is currently a Master’s Candidate in Public Administration with a focus in Nonprofit Management & Policy at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service.

Amy Warshaw is co-chair of United Jewish Communities’ National Young Leadership Department. In addition, she is a member of UJC’s Center for Jewish Philanthropy as well as UJC’s Campaign Training Department. Warshaw is also actively involved in UJA-Federation of New York through her roles as a member of the Executive Board and the Board of Trustees, as the chair of the Task Force on the Former Soviet Union and Europe, as a member of the Emerging Leaders and Philanthropists Strategic Council and as a member of the Marketing and Communication Task Force. She is also the committee co-chair for Freethesoldiers.org, a non-partisan national effort to raise awareness for Israel’s missing soldiers. In addition, Warshaw develops grassroots campaigns to raise awareness about health care-related concerns in the United States. To that end, she is organizer of “Soul to Sole,” an event to raise awareness of Multiple Sclerosis in the New York City area as well as “Exercise Your Vote,” an event to raise awareness for health care reform.

Larry Weinberg has more than 25 years experience in public relations, advertising, public affairs, economic development, government, event management and crisis communication. As EVP of ISRAEL21c, he is responsible for developing ISRAEL21c’s strategic direction, managing its operations and charting its innovative impact on the pro-Israel communications and advocacy. Before joining ISRAEL21c in 2002, he was the principal of a successful public relations firm with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. As marketing vice chair of the original board of birthright israel, Larry supervised the branding of birthright and the marketing of the first trips.

Jonathan S. Woocher is chief ideas officer of JESNA and heads its Lippman Kanfer Institute: An Action-oriented Think Tank for Innovation in Jewish Learning and Engagement. Before assuming his current position this year, he served for 20 years as JESNA’s CEO. Dr. Woocher is the primary author of the Lippman Kanfer Institute’s Working Paper, “Redesigning Jewish Education for the 21st Century,” which outlines key design principles to maximize Jewish education’s relevance and effectiveness in a rapidly changing world. Prior to coming to JESNA, Dr. Woocher served on the faculty of Carleton College in Minnesota and Brandeis University. Dr. Woocher is the author of Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews and numerous articles on Jewish education, community, and religious life.

Meyrav Wurmser is the director of the Center for Middle East Policy and Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. Wurmser, the former executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, is a leading scholar of the Arab world. Through her work at MEMRI, Wurmser helped to educate policymakers about the Palestinian Authority two-track approach to “negotiating peace” with Israel: calling for peace in the English press and with Western policymakers while inciting hatred and violence through official Arab language media. A recent BBC documentary noted that whereas almost every other Western and Israeli observer allowed their hopes for peace to cloud their judgment of the Oslo process, Wurmser’s acute knowledge of the Palestinian Authority’s tactics led her to realize that the Oslo process was doomed to failure from the outset. Wurmser has written numerous books and monographs on Israel, the Arab world, and Zionism, including Building Free Societies in Iraq and Afghanistan and The Schools of Ba'athism--a Study of Syrian Schoolbooks. Wurmser, who has taught political science at the Johns Hopkins University and the United States Naval Academy, has published articles in such publications as the Weekly Standard, the Middle East Quarterly, the Washington Times, the Middle East Journal and Middle East Insight.

Andrea R. Yablon is a vice-chairman of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. She is a member of the board of directors of the Chicago Center for Jewish Genetic Disorders. Yablon is a member of the Israel Advocacy Initiative of JCPA/UJC and chairs the UJC Disengagement Work Group (formerly a committee of the Israel/Overseas Pillar) of UJC.

Ezra Uzi Yemin is the president and CEO of Delek US Holdings, Inc., a diversified energy business focused on petroleum refining, wholesale sales of refined products and retail marketing. Yemin is also a director of the company, and previously served as treasurer and as secretary. Yemin leads the formulation of policies and direction, the oversight of top executives, and assumes overall responsibility for operation and performance. Earlier, Yemin was the CFO of Delek - The Israel Fuel Corporation, Ltd., a fuel corporation in Israel and one of the affiliated entities of Delek US Holdings, Inc. Additionally, he spent two years with CLAL Insurance Company Ltd., an insurance company in Israel and two years in the Insurance Commissioner’s Office of the Israel Ministry of Finance.

Toni Young is a vice chair of UJC’s Board of Trustees and chair of Global Operations: Israel and Overseas Coordinating Council. She previously served as national chair of Partnership 2000 and as member of the UJC consulting team. Young has been an active member of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, becoming its first female president. She also served as founding chair of Delaware’s committee for the partnership between Arad/Tamar and New Jersey-Delaware and in numerous other capacities. Young is a historian whose published books include: Becoming American, Remaining Jewish: the Story of Wilmington, Delaware's First Jewish Community 1879-1924 and The Grand Experience, A History of the Grand Opera House.

Ahava Zarembski is founder and president of the Yesod-Masad Initiative, providing real time strategic support on Jewish Peoplehood issues to policy makers and influencers. Prior to establishing this innovative model in 2006, Zarembski worked in some of the top think-tanks in Israel and the United States and with numerous other institutes and organizations, helping them sculpt policy on internal Jewish relations, particularly fostering a better understanding of the issues impacting religious-secular relations within Israel as well as Israel-Diaspora relations. She is the author of publications including Refracted Vision: An Analysis of Religious-Secular Tensions in Israel, The Religious-Secular Divide in the Eyes of Israel’s Leaders and Opinion Makers and is the principle author of the North America chapter in The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute Annual Assessment 2004-5: Between Thriving and Decline. Zarembski is the recipient of awards and is an invited lecturer for audiences both within Israel and abroad.