Leadership

Rebecca Voorwinde is Executive Director of The Bronfman Fellowship. Becky oversees the strategic planning for all aspects of the Fellowship in Israel and the US, including working closely with the global alumni community of over 1,200 and selects incoming Fellows. An alumna of the program, Becky served as a volunteer member of Bronfman’s Alumni Advisory Board before taking the full-time position of Director of Alumni Engagement in 2008. Becky’s professional experience includes work in the Corporate Responsibility Group at Ernst & Young LLP, where she led the roll-out of an employee volunteer program focused on increasing access to higher education for disadvantaged students, implemented a greening and socially conscious element into all of Ernst & Young’s meetings and conferences, and created a social enterprise track at the company’s annual Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. Previously she worked at a non-profit human resources consultancy, Diversity @ Work in Melbourne Australia. Becky graduated Summa Cum Laude from Barnard College with a B.A. in American Studies. Becky serves on the board of two professional development organizations in the Jewish community: Jpro & M2: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education. She is an Advisory Committee member for UJA-NY’s Brooklyn Initiative. Becky resides in Brooklyn with her husband Michael and two daughters.

Daphna has been active in the field of Hebrew culture and Jewish Renewal for many years. She has held leadership and educational positions at the Mandel Leadership Institute, the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, Gesher and the Zalman Shazar Center, and was senior community emissary in the MetroWest community in New Jersey. In her previous position, she was Director of Programs and acting Director of the Beit Tefila Israeli Community, in which she is still an active member. Daphna has a degree in Jewish Philosophy and Political Science from Tel Aviv University (Cum Laude), studied toward an MA in Hermeneutics at Bar Ilan University, is a graduate of both The Beit Midrash for Excellent Students in Jewish Sciences at the Hartman Institute, and The Program for Management of Cultural Institutions at Tel Aviv University. She edited the book “Georgia – Journey to Jewish Heritage” published by The Zalman Shazar Center, and co-edited a book with Dr. Daniel Marom on Hebrew culture for early childhood education, which will be published in Fall 2016 by The Mandel Leadership Institute.

Heather is the Director of Finance for the organization.  She manages all financial operations both in the US and Israel and has been with The Fellowship since 2001.  She holds degrees in both Accounting and Hotel and Restaurant Management and is a Notary Public licensed in New York State.  Outside of Bronfman, Heather assists various local small businesses with freelance bookkeeping help in the upstate NY area where she resides with her husband Tom.  Her hobbies include kayaking, reading, gardening and herbology.

Aaron Steinberg is the Deputy Director: North America at The Bronfman Fellowship, where he works closely with a global alumni community of nearly 1,200 Jewish leaders, innovators and community builders. He coordinates with staff throughout the organization to create greater efficiency and more quality programming. Although he spends much of his time behind the scenes, he loves the opportunity to learn with/from fellows at seminars.

Aaron grew up in Potomac, MD and got his start in Jewish communal leadership through the Bnei Akiva of New York youth movement serving as regional director in college and still involved today as head of the Finance Board. Aaron is a licensed Social Worker who earned his MSW from the Wurzweiler School of Social Work with a concentration in community organizing. His undergraduate degree in English Literature is from Yeshiva University and he spent a gap year in Israel studying classical Jewish texts at Yeshivat Sha’alvim.

Previously, Aaron has served as the Associate Director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance helping to promote and expand the role of women in Orthodox leadership and communal ritual. He served as a development professional at SAR Academy in Riverdale, NY – a stellar Jewish Day School where his wife is a middle school teacher and activities administrator. Before that Aaron served as Director of the Eimatai Leadership Development Project based out of Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future. He had the opportunity to train dozens of college students and hundreds of high school students in leadership strategies, program planning, and social justice activism.

Most importantly, Aaron lives in White Plains with his wife Adina and young children Dahlia, Judah and Noah. They are all very active in the Hebrew Institute of White Plains where they have found an inspiring, supportive, and friendly community.

Jake Marmer is the Education and Programming Director of The Bronfman Fellowship. Jake’s diverse teaching experience includes University of Pennsylvania and Adelphia University, Kehillat Hadar and the Pardes/Silicon Valley Beit Midrash, KlezKanada and KlezCalifornia. His poetry collections “The Neighbor Out of Sound” (2018) and “Jazz Talmud” (2012) were published by the Sheep Meadow Press. Jake’s klezmer-jazz-poetry record “Hermeneutic Stomp” was released by the Blue Fringe Music 2013. He is a Ph.D. candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Department of Comparative Literature. Jake is the contributing editor/poetry critic for Tablet Magazine, and his essays have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Jewish Review of Books, the Forward, and in various other publications. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife Shoshana and their two kids. He can be reached at jake@bronfman.org.

Stefanie Weisman is the Communications and Design Associate at The Bronfman Fellowship.  She received a B.A. in history from Columbia University and an M.A. in art history from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts.  Her first book, The Secrets of Top Students: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Acing High School and College, was published by Sourcebooks in 2013 and has since been translated into Chinese.  She writes fiction and nonfiction in her spare time.  A lifelong resident of Astoria, New York, Stefanie’s hobbies include reading, visiting museums, hiking, and traveling to as many countries as possible.

Adam Shapiro (Bronfman ‘09) is a journalist who’s worked as a producer on The Brian Lehrer Show and America on the Line at WNYC, the University of Virginia’s American history podcast BackStory and Bell Media Radio in Canada. He is the moderator of the BronfTalks discussion series. If you’d like to suggest topics for future talks, contact Adam at adam.shapiro@bronfman.org. 

Elizabeth Ochs (Bronfman ’01) coordinates the Bronfman US Alumni mentoring programs. Elizabeth runs a consulting practice based in Providence, RI that focuses on educational program design, nonprofit leadership, and communications. She concentrated in Urban Studies at Brown University and received a Master’s in Education from Antioch University.

Neta Polizer (Amitei Bronfman ’05) is the Amitim Faculty & Manager of Fellowship Year Experience. Born and raised in a small communal settlement in the Galilee, Neta studied Arabic literature and comparative literature at Hebrew University, focusing on poetry and novels on the border between east and west. He has extensive experience in the fields of education and Israeli-Jewish identity. In addition to his work for Bronfman, Neta also works for a local non-profit organization, managing educational programs for gap year volunteers.

Shira is an Amitei Bronfman alumna from 2010. After growing up in Jerusalem she moved to Kfar Adumim, and has since returned to live in Jerusalem. She studied at the Beth Israel pre-military program and served in the IDF as a soldier-teacher at Kfar Etzion field school. After being discharged, she studied and later counseled at the Lindenbaum Midrasha and with hiking groups. She is currently an undergraduate student in social work at the Hebrew University; she also serves as coordinator of the ‘Maayan’ Beit Midrash at Oriya Ulpana in Gush Etzion, and writes a history column for children in ‘Otiyot’ magazine.

Nava was born in France and, after making Aliyah with her family at the age of 4, was raised and educated in Jerusalem. She attended the Emuna Arts High School for girls, where she majored in theater. During her national service she worked on a horse farm which specializes in therapeutic riding and treats people with special needs. She completed a BA in Management and Media & Communications at the College of Management, with a specialization in advertising and marketing. Nava lives with her husband in the Har Gilo settlement which is located a few kilometers south of Jerusalem.

Zer Vaknin was a 2013 Amitei Bronfman Fellow and served as Coordinator in 2018.

Yuval Nussan was a 2009 Amitei Bronfman Fellow.

Dana Raucher is President of the Board of Directors. A Bronfman alumna from ’89, she is the Executive Director of The Samuel Bronfman Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, Dana worked at the Israeli law firm Shiboleth, Yisraeli, Roberts, Zisman & Co. in Tel Aviv.  Ms. Raucher is a graduate of Columbia University and the Buchmann Law School at Tel Aviv University, and is a member of the Israel Bar Association. Born in Israel, she currently lives in New York with her husband, Yossi, and their sons.

Ned Foss was instrumental in the inception of The Bronfman Fellowship and played a number of key roles in its staffing and administration. Today he is the Vice President and Treasurer of the Board of Directors. He has helped to organize and administer not-for-profits that are supported by The Samuel Bronfman Foundation in Canada, New York City, Russia, and Israel. A graduate of Yale and Wharton, Ned lives with his wife, Margaret, near Albany.

Jonathan Wachter (Bronfman ’96), Secretary of the Board, is a director in the chief investment office and global treasury of JPMorgan Chase. He helps manage liquidity strategy for the firm. Before joining JPMorgan, Jonathan was a consultant in the banking practice of McKinsey & Co. and a private equity analyst at the Blackstone Group. Jonathan earned a BA in Applied Math and an MBA from Harvard. Jonathan grew up in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where his parents, sister and four nephews still live. Jonathan is a long-time resident of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where he is an active member of Darkhei Noam, a lay-led minyan which counts several other Bronfman alumni as members.

He is also a member of the Bronfman Alumni Advisory Board.

Noam Lockshin (Bronfman ’01) is a partner at Kimmeridge, an investment firm in New York focused on the energy sector. He previously worked as Senior Research Associate at Sanford C. Bernstein on the #1-ranked E&P research team.  Noam is a native of Toronto and earned a BA in math from Canada’s York University. Before that, he also studied for two years at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Israel. Noam currently serves on the Board of Advisors for Hillel International’s Office of Innovation. He also organizes shabbat services for tots at his shul on the Upper West Side, the neighborhood where he lives with his wife and three daughters. Bronfman has been a big part of his life since he was a fellow in 2001.

Alisa Mall (Bronfman ’94) is the Carnegie Corporation’s director of investments, primarily responsible for the management of the Corporation’s real estate and natural resources portfolios, which represent ~15% of the philanthropic foundation’s $3.6 billion endowment.  She also works on absolute return and inflation-linked strategies.

Prior to joining the Corporation, she was a director in the Equity Capital Markets group at Tishman Speyer, working with institutional and private investors in connection with its real estate funds. Previously, Alisa, an attorney, was with the San Francisco office of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, with a general real estate and real estate finance practice. She serves on the board of Breakthrough New York and the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA).  Alisa also currently serves on the PREA Institutional Investor Council and the Advisory Board Declaration Partners, a family office.  She is a member of WX and the New York Private Equity Network–Real Estate Women’s Committee. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale College with an honors degree in political science and received her JD from Stanford Law School.

Ryder Kessler (Bronfman ’03) currently lives in Portland, Maine, where he is the Voter Protection Director for the Maine Democratic Party. Before working in politics, he founded and was the CEO of DipJar – a startup working to enable cashless generosity through facilitation of credit and debit card donations – and pursued (but did not complete!) a PhD in English literature. Ryder grew up in New York City.