Our Educators

Hannah Kapnik Ashar (Bronfman Fellow ’04) is in her final year as a fellow in Hadar’s Advanced Kollel, where, this year, she is studying the laws of mourning, marriage, and conversion, alongside studies in midrash and prayer. She is a fellow in The Center for Rabbinic Innovation’s Fellowship for Rabbinic Entrepreneurs, through which Hannah is cultivating text- and spiritual practice-based Jewish women’s retreats. This will be Hannah’s fifth summer as a Faculty Member at The Bronfman Fellowship, where she previously was the Manager of Fellowship Year Experience.  Hannah served for five years as the Associate Spiritual Leader of Congregation Bonai Shalom, the Conservative synagogue in Boulder, Colorado. She graduated from Wellesley College cum laude and has studied at Hadar and Pardes. Hannah lives in Denver, Colorado and is married to Yoni, a neuroscientist and clinical psychologist who studies healing chronic pain. Their daughters are Zivi, Ayala, and Mira Tair.

Rabbi Megan GoldMarche is the Executive Director at Tribe 12, an organization that creates Jewish communities and connections for 20s and 30s in the Philadelphia area. Megan grew up in the Chicago suburbs where she found her voice as a Jewish leader at her Conservative youth group and Reform summer camp. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 with a B.A. in Psychology and Women’s Studies. Megan then went to work for the Hillel at Yale University where she discovered her passion for working with young people, and realized that rather than pursuing a PhD in Clinical psychology she wanted to use the Jewish tradition as a source of meaning to empower young adults to create their own rich Jewish identities and communities. Megan was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2014 and also received an MA in Jewish Gender and Women’s Studies and a certificate in Pastoral Care and Counseling. During and right after rabbinical school she worked as the Senior Jewish Educator at Columbia/Barnard Hillel.

Megan is an alumna of the Wexner graduate fellowship. Prior to joining Tribe 12, Megan served as Senior Base Rabbi at Metro Chicago Hillel where she spent six years leading and building the thriving Base network for Jews in their 20s and 30s. She also has a passion for travel and outdoor adventure- which has currently led her to forty-eight of the fifty states in the US.

Megan and her wife Paige, and their daughters Bri and Rori, live in Mt. Airy and love hosting Shabbat and holiday celebrations for friends, community members and neighbors!

Evan Parks is a lecturer in the Core Curriculum and fellow of the Department of Germanic Languages at Columbia University, where he received his PhD in 2021. Evan’s research focuses on modern German literature and culture, the entanglement of German and Jewish intellectual traditions, and the relationship between literature, philosophy, and other art forms. His work also treats correspondences between modern German and Hebrew literatures. He is completing a book project that explores how the post-Shoah poetry of Paul Celan interacts with the agendas of several 20th century thinkers. Evan was Bronfman Faculty in 2019 and 2021, and facilitated Bronfman alumni trips to Germany in conjunction with Germany Close Up in 2015 and 2018. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Evan was a Bronfman Fellow in 2005. He lives in Manhattan with his partner Eliana and daughter Selah.

Dr. Ariel Picard is a teacher and research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Ariel has a PhD in  philosophy from Bar-Ilan University and conducts research in contemporary Jewish law. He is a graduate of Yeshivat Har Etzion and was ordained as a Rabbi by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. He formerly served as the Rabbi of Kibbutz Shluchot. Ariel has published widely on issues of halakha, contemporary Judaism, and Israel. His latest book is In Human Language – Foundations for Jewish and Israeli Renewal (Hebrew; Carmel, 2019). He has also published  numerous articles, op-eds, and blog posts concerning these subjects. Ariel is married to Shelli, with whom he has children and grandchildren, and lives in Jerusalem.

Micha’el Rosenberg is a member of the faculty at Hadar, an organization committed to empowering Jews to create and sustain vibrant, practicing, egalitarian communities of Torah, Avodah, and Hesed. Previously, Micha’el was an associate professor of Rabbinics at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, and before that he served as the rabbi of the Fort Tryon Jewish Center. He is the author of Signs of Virginity: Testing Virgins and Making Men in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2018), and the co-author with Rabbi Ethan Tucker of Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law (Ktav, 2017). He has taught Bible, Talmud and halakhah in a variety of settings, including the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, the National Havurah Institute, and the Northwoods Kollel and Beit Midrash of Ramah Wisconsin. An alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program and Harvard College, he holds a doctorate in Talmud and Rabbinic literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary and rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

Yuval Nussan, a 2009 Amitei Bronfman alum, was raised in Hoshaya in the Galilee. In his gap year he volunteered at the Tzameret NGO, before studying at Har Etzion Yeshiva. Yuval served in the IDF combat forces as a commander. He has a Master’s degree in Hebrew Literature from Hebrew University as part of the Revivim, A Program of Excellence for the Training of Teachers in the Instruction of Jewish Studies. He also studied group management at Oranim College. Yuval has facilitated workshops and groups at the Gesher organization and at Amitei Bronfman as manche (counselor) in 2019-20, and teaches Humanities in a high school in Jerusalem. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife Elisheva and child Neta.

Neta Polizer (Amitei Bronfman ’05) served as the Amitim Faculty & Manager of Fellowship Year Experience until 2021. 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.

A social and educational activist residing in Be’er Sheva, Rabbi Hagit Sabag Israel is part of the faculty of the Jewish Studies department in Ono Academic College. She facilitates study in batei midrash in the Kolot and Bina organizations and has established a number of batei midrash in development towns around Israel.  Hagit serves as a consultant to different organizations on the topic of Israeli Judaism, provides spiritual guidance for families and individuals, and creates and leads Jewish life cycle ceremonies.  She is one of the founders of the Forum for Jewish Renewal in the Negev, which she currently chairs, and is also a member of an inter-religious initiative in the Negev.  Hagit’s research, study and action all aim at the development of a beit midrash language of study which will assist educators and therapists in their work, with regard to psychology and Judaism, Mizrahi feminism and the development of Jewish life cycle ceremonies.

Rabbanit Dr. Michal Tikochinsky is one of the leading women Talmud scholars and educators in the world today, a sought after lecturer in Talmud, Jewish law and women’s issues. She holds a Master’s Degree in Law and a Doctorate in Talmud from Bar Ilan University.

Through her scholarly and incisive articles Rabbanit Tikochinsky has had a profound influence on the Halakhic discourse regarding women’s issues. She has also established an umbrella organization for women Torah scholars in educational leadership positions, enabling greater collaboration and support between women Torah leaders and institutions, and facilitating the transformation of women’s Torah study into an organized movement.

At Beit Morasha, Rabbanit Tikochinsky is Director of the Moshe Green Beit Midrash for Women’s Leadership and the Women’s Halakha Program, which offers a select group of senior women Torah scholars the opportunity to study and take examinations that are parallel to the requirements for male rabbinical candidates in Israel. Rabbanit Tikochinsky was born and raised in Israel. She is married and resides with her husband and seven children in the community of Nof Ayalon.

Rabbi Adina Allen is co-founder and Creative Director of Jewish Studio Project (JSP), a nationally recognized Jewish learning organization that brings together practices from the beit midrash (house of Jewish study) with a powerful approach from the field of art therapy. Integrating a lifetime of experience in the expressive arts with her rabbinic training, Adina created JSP’s unique learning methodology as a practice for expanding empathy and resilience, supporting the work of dismantling oppression, and drawing forth from our sacred texts new and vital narratives, insights and images. She has taught at hundreds of Jewish institutions around the country and has helped thousands of Jewish educators, clergy, teens, young adults, professionals and lay leaders reclaim their creativity as a powerful, relevant, and transformative tool. A spiritual leader, writer, and educator, Adina was ordained in Hebrew College’s pluralistic training program in 2014 where she was a Wexner Graduate Fellow. A recipient of the Covenant Foundation’s 2018 Pomegranate Prize for emerging Jewish Educators, Adina is an alumna of the Open Dor Project for spiritual Jewish entrepreneurs and the Upstart fellowship for social innovators.

Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld has been an educator at The Bronfman Fellowship since 1993. She has also been the Dean of the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College since 2006. Prior to assuming this position, she served as an adjunct faculty member and Dean of Students at the Rabbinical School. Rabbi Sharon graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1990, and subsequently spent 15 years working in pluralistic settings as a Hillel rabbi at Tufts, Yale and Harvard. She is the co-editor of two volumes of women’s writings on Passover, The Women’s Seder Sourcebook and The Women’s Passover Companion.

Rabbi Andy Bachman is a rabbi and community leader in Brooklyn, New York, and now the Director of Jewish Content at the 92nd Street Y. He served for 8 years as the Senior Rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn. Andy was ordained in 1996 by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. In 1998 he became Executive Director of the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life: Hillel at New York University. In 2003, Andy and his wife, Rachel Altstein, along with several friends, founded Brooklyn Jews, an innovative outreach program for the many unaffiliated Jews who have made Brooklyn their home in the past decade. Rabbi Bachman was on the Newsweek and Forward 50 list. He blogs daily at www.andybachman.com.

Matan Barak is a senior Researcher and Developer for Avney Rosha, the Israel Institute for School Leadership. Matan holds an M.A. in Jewish Education from Hebrew University, and graduated from the Mandel School for Educational Leadership. From 2009 to 2012, Matan served as the Amitei Bronfman Director. He has worked as a Jewish Studies Teacher at SouthBank International School in London and at Thelma Yellin National Arts School, and as a lecturer at Hebrew University. Matan is married to Noa and has two children, Itamar and Nimrod.

Eli Bareket is the director of of Memizrach Shemesh and deputy director of Kol Yisrael Chaverim. Founded in 2000 by the Avi Chai Foundation and Alliance Kol Yisrael Chaverim, Memizrach Shemesh, is a Beit Midrash (House of Study) and a Center for Jewish Social Activism and Leadership in Israel. During his tenure, Memizrach Shemesh has grown from working annually with 170 participants to more than 600 per year. He is one of the leaders and prominent voices of Mizrachi identity in Israel, both as a social activist and as a teacher.

Idit is a Bronfman alumna from 2001. After finishing high school, she went on a gap service year with Bronfman, and was later involved with establishing the alumni committee. During her undergraduate studies, Idit worked within various educational frameworks, mostly with the Israeli and International Movement for Progressive and Reform Judaism. Pursuing her love for the written word, Idit completed her degree and became the production coordinator for Jerusalem’s international book fair. Idit is currently a PhD student of history at Hebrew University. Her field of research is the history of money, and she spends much of her time contemplating issues which hover between culture and finance.

Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses is the Director of Life Long Learning at Romemu and is an educator and former Co-Director of the Bronfman Fellowship. She was the first woman from the Syrian Jewish community to be ordained as a Rabbi. She graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1995, where she was awarded several fellowships and a prize for academic excellence. Since that time she has served as an educator, scholar-in-residence, and administrator for multiple organizations in the Jewish world, including CLAL, the Bronfman Fellowship, The Curriculum Initiative and UJA Federation. In 2007 she was named one of fifty top rabbis by the Washington Post online.

Jessica Tamar Deutsch is a NY-based visual artist. Her work explores the pulse of ancient tradition within contemporary culture. She earned her BFA in illustration from Parsons School of Design, where she began her first published book, The Illustrated Pirkei Avot. Deutsch’s work is the response of following curiosities, and a longing for meaning to hold on to. Deutsch has participated in the Art Kibbutz residency program, the LABA fellowship at the 14th st Y, & was included in The Jewish Weeks 36 under 36 in 2018. Deutsch has experience working with young adults at the Brandeis Collegiate Institute, middle school students at The New Shul, & Jewish communities globally through Limmud festivals.

Rabbi James Diamond z”l first joined the BYFI faculty in 1997, and was an active part of the community until his passing in 2013. Jim was Executive Director at Princeton University’s Center for Jewish Life (Hillel) and served as a consultant to Hillel’s Schusterman International Center.

Rabbi Larry Edwards served from 2003-2013 as Rabbi of Congregation Or Chadash, a congregation founded in the 1970s by members of the Jewish GLBT community. Past positions include Hillel Director and Jewish Chaplain at Dartmouth College (1975-1981) and at Cornell University (1981-1997). Since returning to Chicago in 1997, he has held positions at KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation (Director of Education), Congregation B’nai Abraham in Beloit, WI (Rabbi), American Jewish Committee (Interreligious Affairs), and Congregation Kol Ami (Education Rabbi). Larry studied in Jerusalem in 1970-71, and has returned numerous times since, serving on the faculty of The Bronfman Fellowship, and staffing three trips for Christians. He received his A.B. degree in Humanities from the University of Chicago in 1970, and was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1975. He received a Ph.D. from Chicago Theological Seminary in 2005, writing on constructions of the Pharisees in New Testament, rabbinic literature, and modern scholarship. Larry teaches courses at University of Illinois at Chicago, DePaul University, and the Hebrew Seminary of the Deaf. His wife, Susan Boone, works at the University of Chicago. His daughter, Sara, lives in Brooklyn.

Rabbi Shimon Felix is the Executive Director Emeritus of the program. He was born in New York, and has lived in Jerusalem since 1973. Rabbi Felix has been associated with The Bronfman Fellowship since 1991. He received his rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Hamivtar, where he served as educational director. Rabbi Felix has worked in a wide variety of educational programs including Michelelet Bruria, the Israeli school system and Yakar. He headed The Jewish Agency’s Bureau for Cultural Services to Communities and also served as assistant to Dr. Jonathan Sachs, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain. He is the Director of Re: IL Regarding Israel.

Gila Fine is the editor in chief of Maggid Books (Koren Publishers Jerusalem). She is also a teacher of Aggada at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, exploring the stories of the Talmud through philosophy, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and pop-culture. Gila has previously taught at Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, and the London School of Jewish Studies. Haaretz has called her “a young woman who is on her way to becoming one of the more outstanding Jewish thinkers of the next generation.”

Rabbi Laura Geller is a Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California. She was among the first women to be selected to lead a major metropolitan synagogue. Prior to being chosen for this position in 1994, she served as the Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress, Pacific Southwest Region. Among her accomplishments at AJCongress was the creation of the AJCongress Feminist Center, which became a model for other Jewish feminist projects around the county. She came to AJCongress in 1990 after fourteen years as the Director of Hillel at the University of Southern California. Rabbi Geller has been recognized with numerous awards and honors, including being named one of Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America and the California State Legislature’s Woman of the Year Award. She was featured in the PBS Documentary called “Jewish Americans.” Author of many articles in journals and books, she is a frequent contributor to the Jewish Journal, the Huffington Post and she served on the Editorial Board of The Torah: A Woman’s Commentary in which she has two essays. Her most recent book chapters are included in Chapters of the Heart, and Sacred Encounter. She is a Rabbinic Fellow of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and an alumna of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality Rabbinic program. She serves as a mentor for the Clergy Leadership Initiative, a project of CLAL. Rabbi Geller is a Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University from where she graduated in 1971. She was ordained by the Hebrew Union College in 1976, the third woman in the Reform Movement to become a rabbi. She is married to Richard A. Siegel, and she is the mother of Joshua and Elana Goldstein and the step-mother of Andy and Ruth Siegel.

Hadassa Goldvicht is a video and installation artist living in Jerusalem. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2004) and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York (2007). Her works have been exhibited in the Jewish Museum, NY; Museu Colecção Berardo, Lisboa; Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice; Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; The Jerusalem National Library, and The Tel Aviv museum.

Michael Grailsummer is a virtuoso violinist, composer, and singer-songwriter who has performed at prestigious festivals in France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, India, and the Caribbean, in addition to countless performances around Israel. In his music, Michael connects distant and diverse musical worlds, such as reggae, Irish folk music, rock, baroque works, French chanson, and Mediterranean rhythms. Michael has released three albums to date.

Dr. Sivan Har-Shefi has a doctorate from the Department of Hebrew Literature at Bar-Ilan University. She teaches literature and creative writing at Herzog College, and is one of the founders and leaders of the Beit Midrash “Zohar Hai”. An accomplished poet, Dr. Har-Shefi was the Prime Minister Prize laureate in 2012. She is the author of three books — Levithan’s Exile (2005), Psalm for a Day of Thunder (2010), and Sun Which Ecclesiastes Knew Not (2014), published by Rythmus KM Press — and is the editor of the Atar journal of literature and art. Dr. Har-Shefi is married to Avishar and is the mother of five. She lives in Tekoa.

Aaron Henne is the Artistic Director of theatre dybbuk, an arts and education organization whose work illuminates universal human experience from a Jewish perspective. In addition to his work with theatre dybbuk, Aaron teaches storytelling throughout the country and has presented workshops at Lucasfilm, Pixar, and Dreamworks. He was an American Jewish University Dream Lab Fellow and the Diane Luboff Scholar at the Cutter Colloquium at HUC-JIR.  Aaron has also served as a professional mentor at Otis College of Art and Design and as faculty for the Wexner Heritage Program, as well as for Georgetown University. He has worked as a consultant and facilitator for a wide variety of organizations including The Hive at Leichtag Commons, The Jewish Federation of North America’s Young Leadership Cabinet, and the Western Hillel Organization regional conference. Mr. Henne is a Pilot Wexner Field Fellow, a member of the ROI community, and the recipient of LA Weekly and SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for Playwriting.

Rabbi Dr. Rani Jaeger is a research fellow, faculty member, and head of the recently formed Ritual Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He was one of the founders of the Institute’s Be’eri Program for Pluralistic Jewish-Israeli Identity Education.

Rani received his doctorate at Bar-Ilan University on Jewish-Israeli culture as perceived by the poet Avraham Shlonsky. He was a participant in the first cohort of the Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis and received rabbinical ordination from the Shalom Hartman Institute and HaMidrasha at Oranim in September 2016.

Rani is one of the founders of Beit Tefilah Israeli, a secular synagogue in the heart of Tel Aviv.  He spent a year at Paideia, the European Institute of Jewish Studies in Stockholm, as scholar in residence.

Dr. Jelen, a 1987 Bronfman Fellow, is an assistant professor of English and Jewish Studies. Her field of specialization is modern Jewish literature and she teaches courses on American Jewish Literature, The Literature of the Holocaust, Modern Hebrew Literature, Gender and Jewish Literaure, as well as an Introduction to Jewish Literature. She is currently a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Advanced Jewish Studies where she is completing a book on the first modern Hebrew woman writer, entitled Intimations of Difference: The Hebrew Fiction of Dvora Baron.

Rabbi Claudia Kreiman was born and raised in Santiago de Chile. After spending many years in Israel, during which she received her ordination from Machon Shechter, the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical School, and served as the Rabbi of Camp Ramah Noam in Israel, she now lives in Boston, and is the Associate Rabbi at Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, MA.

Rabbi Dahlia Kronish is the Director of Jewish and Student Life at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York City. Dahlia has been working at the Heschel High School for over ten years. At Heschel, in addition to overseeing programming and the student experience outside the classroom, Dahlia teaches Talmud, Jewish Ethics, and Tanach. The daughter and granddaughter of rabbis, Dahlia grew up in Jerusalem in the TALI school system. Dahlia was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. For over ten summers, Dahlia worked at Camp Ramah in New England and before that at the Ramah-Noam sleep away camp and the Ramah Day Camp in Israel. Dahlia and her spouse Josh lived in Chicago where she worked at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Metropolitan Chicago. They now live in Riverdale New York together with their sons Roei Yehuda and Erez Nevo. Dahlia served on The Bronfman Fellowship Faculty in 2017.

Ilana Kurshan (BYFI ’95) is an alumna of the program. Ilana graduated from Harvard. After college, she spent a year in England studying British Romantic poetry at Cambridge and has been working in book publishing for the last eight years, first at Random House in New York. Ilana moved to Israel and began her current job at a literary agency, where she sells translation rights to publish books in Hebrew. In addition to her work as a literary agent, she also serves as the Books Editor for Lilith Magazine, a Jewish feminist quarterly; and she writes study guides about Israeli fiction for the Sochnut (the Jewish Agency).

Yehuda Kurtzer is President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He was Visiting Assistant Professor and the inaugural Chair of Jewish Communal Innovation at Brandeis University, where he taught courses in Jewish Studies for the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership and DeLeT programs.

Jon Levin is an international director, performer & puppeteer. Jon co-created and performed A Hunger Artist at the Connelly Theatre for which he was nominated for two Drama Desk awards: Outstanding Solo Performance and Outstanding Puppet design, and was awarded Summerhall’s Lustrum Award for Excellence at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. (It will be performed again Sept 2021 at the World Puppetry Festival in Charleville, France.) Jon is the co-artistic director of Sinking Ship Productions, where his directing credits include POWERHOUSE at the New Ohio Theatre (NYTimes Critics Pick), Flatland, an EST/Sloan commission, Ocean at Mabou Mines Suite and There Will Come Soft Rains at FringeNYC (Excellence Award for Outstanding Direction). In addition to his work with the Sinking Ship Productions, Jon is also a founding member of the Krumple Theatre company, with which he has co-directed and performed work throughout Norway and in NYC since 2014. As puppeteer Jon has worked extensively with Wakka Wakka: SAGA, Animal R.I.O.T., & The Immortal Jellyfish Girl. Jon is a graduate of the École Internationale de Théâtre de Jacques Lecoq and holds a BA in theater and neuroscience from Oberlin College. www.jon-levin.com.

Jon A. Levisohn is a professor of Jewish education at Brandeis University, where he directs the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education. An alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program, he holds graduate degrees from Stanford University and a BA from Harvard College. He began his career as a teacher in a Jewish day school in Marblehead, MA. He lives in Newton Centre, MA, with his wife Emily Beck, a public school teacher, and his two younger teenagers (his eldest child is a college sophomore). They are members of Congregation Shaarei Tefilah and of Minyan Yedid Nefesh.

Dan Libenson is the founder and president of Judaism Unbound, a digitally driven, radically open center for Jewish education, experimentation, and connection. Since 2016, he has co-hosted over 300 episodes of the Judaism Unbound Podcast, which have been listened to over 1.5 million times, and he also co-hosts the Oral Talmud videocast. Dan directs and teaches in Judaism Unbound’s UnYeshiva, a new online center for Jewish learning and unlearning that offers live and asynchronous classes and workshops on a wide variety of Jewish topics, aimed at empowering a new creative class of Jewish lay people. Dan is the translator of The Orchard by renowned Israeli novelist Yochi Brandes, which tells the story of early Rabbinic Judaism. He spent over a decade working with Jewish students on campus, at Harvard and at the University of Chicago, receiving numerous awards, including Hillel’s Exemplar of Excellence Award and an AVI CHAI Fellowship, and he has served on the faculty of a variety of Jewish institutions and programs. Dan is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and he was a law professor for five years.

Jake Marmer is passionate about sacred Jewish texts from across the millennia — the ancient ones, as well as those that continue to be written, now, everywhere. Jake’s diverse teaching experience includes University of Pennsylvania and Adelphia University, Kehillat Hadar and the Pardes/Silicon Valley Beit Midrash, KlezKanada and KlezCalifornia, among many others. As a poet, he is the author of three poetry collections: Cosmic Diaspora (Station Hill Press, 2020), The Neighbor Out of Sound (Sheep Meadow Press, Oct 2018), and Jazz Talmud (Sheep Meadow 2012). He also recorded two klezmer-jazz-poetry records: “Purple Tentacles of Thought and Desire” (2020) and “Hermeneutic Stomp” (2013). 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 Los Angeles with his wife Shoshana and their two kids. He can be reached at jake@bronfman.org.

Rabbi Dr. Ariel Evan Mayse joined the faculty of Stanford University in 2017 as an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies, after previously serving as the Director of Jewish Studies and Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern Jewish Thought at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts, and a research fellow at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Michigan. He is currently a fellow at the Kogod Research Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. Mayse holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from Harvard University and rabbinic ordination from Beit Midrash Har’el in Israel. Mayse’s research examines the role of language in Hasidism, manuscript theory and the formation of early Hasidic literature, the renaissance of Jewish mysticism in the nineteenth and twentieth century, the relationship between spirituality and law in Jewish legal writings, and the resources of Jewish thought and theology for constructing contemporary environmental ethics. He is the author of Speaking Infinities: God and Language in the Teachings of Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritsh (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020; Hebrew translation, forthcoming in 2021), and the two-volume A New Hasidism: Roots and A New Hasidism: Branches, with Arthur Green (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society and University of Nebraska Press, 2019). His newest book, As a Deep River Rises: Judaism, Ecology and Environmental Ethics is under contract with Brandeis University Press.

Adam W. McKinney is a former member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, and Milwaukee Ballet Company. He has led dance work with diverse populations across the U.S. and in Benin, Canada, England, Ghana, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Palestine, Poland, Serbia, Spain, and South Africa. He served as a U.S. Embassy Culture Connect Envoy to South Africa through the U.S. State Department. Other awards of note include a Mid-America Arts Alliance Interchange grant for Fort Worth Lynching Tour, an augmented reality bike tour and dance performance around Fort Worth to remember a history of lynching; the NYU President’s Service Award for dance work with populations who struggle with heroin addiction; grants from the U.S. Embassy in Budapest and The Trust for Mutual Understanding to work with Roma youth in Hungary; a Jerome Foundation grant for Emerging Choreographers; and a U.S. Embassy in Accra grant to lead a video oral history project with a Jewish community in Sefwi Wiawso, Ghana. He was a School of American Ballet’s National Visiting Teaching Fellow, an opportunity to engage in important conversations around diversity and inclusion in classical ballet. Named one of the most influential African Americans in Milwaukee, WI by St. Vincent DePaul, McKinney is the Co-Director of DNAWORKS, an arts and service organization committed to healing through the arts and dialogue. He serves as President for Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice, a Fort Worth-based social justice organization. He holds a BFA in Dance Performance with high honors from Butler University and an MA in Dance Studies with concentrations in Race and Trauma theories from NYU-Gallatin.

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum (Fellow 1993, Faculty 2003, 2004) is the Rabbi and Executive Director of the Kavana Cooperative, an independent Jewish community in Seattle. This will be Rachel’s third summer on faculty. Rachel was recently named to Newsweek Magazine’s list of “America’s Top 50 Influential Rabbis.”  In addition, she has been a recipient of the prestigious AVI CHAI Fellowship, the Joshua Venture Group Fellowship, and the Wexner Graduate Fellowship.  Her passions include teaching rabbinic texts, leading spirited and musical prayer services, and challenging people to see Judaism as a catalyst for change.  Rachel was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2004.  She lives in Queen Anne with her husband Noam Pianko and their two daughters Yona and Mia.

Vanessa L. Ochs is the author of The Passover Haggadah: A Biography, and Inventing Jewish Ritual (winner of a 2007 National Jewish Book Award).  Her other books include Sarah Laughed, The Jewish Dream Book (with Elizabeth Ochs), The Book of Jewish Sacred Practices (edited with Irwin Kula), Words on Fire and Safe and Sound. For her writing, she was awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. Rabbi Ochs is a professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies Program at the University of Virginia where she teaches courses in Judaism, anthropology of religion, religion and feminism and spiritual writing. Ochs earned her B.A. in Drama and French from Tufts University, an M.F.A. in Theater from Sarah Lawrence College, and Ph.D. in Anthropology of Religion from Drew University. She was ordained as a rabbi in 2012. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with her husband Peter. They are they are the parents of Juliana Ochs Dweck and Elizabeth Ochs.

Rabbi Michael Paley was the Bronfman Fellowship’s Founding Director, and is presently the Pearl and Ira Meyer Scholar in Residence at the Jewish Resource Center of UJA-Federation of New York. He also teaches at the Columbia School of Journalism, City College, and the Ivry Prozdor High School of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Newsweek magazine named him one of the 50 most influential rabbis in America.

Prof. Noam Pianko (BYFI Fellow 1990, BYFI Faculty 2003, 2004), Associate Professor and Samuel N. Stroum Chair of Jewish Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. In addition, he serves as the chair of the University of Washington Jewish Studies program. Noam is a historian of the Jewish people dedicated to rethinking deeply internalized assumptions about Jewish nationalism and its relationship to modern political, social, and cultural trends. His first book, Zionism and the Roads Not Taken: Rawidowicz, Kaplan, Kohn (Indiana University Press, 2010) explores overlooked formulations of early twentieth century Zionism. The Jewish People: Boundaries Beyond Borders, my current book project, broadens his earlier scholarship by investigating changing historical notions of Jewish collectivity and considering their lessons for contemporary debates about group identity in an era of transnational ties, demographic shifts, and global networks. Noam holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in 1995, a Doctorate from Yale University in 2004 and was Awarded a Wexner graduate fellowship.

Dr. Annie Polland is the Executive Director of the American Jewish Historical Society. She was formerly the Vice President for Programs & Education at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, where she oversaw exhibits and interpretation. She is the co-author, with Daniel Soyer, of Emerging Metropolis: New York Jews in the Age of Immigration, winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award. She received her Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and also served as Vice President of Education at the Museum at Eldridge Street, where she wrote Landmark of the Spirit (Yale University). She also teaches at New York University.

Rabbi James Ponet is the Jewish Chaplain at Yale University and Director of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.

Alicia Jo Rabins is an award-winning writer, musician, performer and Torah teacher. The New York Times calls her voice “gorgeous”; the San Francisco Chronicle calls her writing “a poetry page-turner, both sexy and humble.” She is the author of two poetry books, Divinity School (winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize) and Fruit Geode (a finalist for the Jewish Book Award). As a musician, Rabins is the creator and performer Girls in Trouble, an indie-folk song cycle about women in Torah with three albums and accompanying study guides. Most recently she is the creator, star and composer of A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff, an indie feature film based on her one-woman chamber-rock opera, currently on the film festival circuit, which The Atlantic calls “a blessing.” Visit her at www.aliciajo.com.

Rabbi Or Rose – Rabbi, writer and social activist, Or Rose is the founding director of the Center for Global Judaism at Boston’s Hebrew College, which provides educational programming and resources on issues of contemporary Jewish spirituality, Israel-Diaspora relations, religious pluralism and environmental responsibility. Originally from Winnipeg, Canada, his father a rabbi and mother a poet, Or later studied at Yeshiva University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Brandeis University, and for private rabbinic ordination with Rabbis Arthur Green and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. Or also serves as co-director of the Center for Interreligious and Community Leadership Education, a joint venture of Hebrew College and Andover Newton Theological School. Prior to taking this position, Rose was associate dean and director of informal education at the Hebrew College Rabbinical School, where he still teaches. He is co-editor of “Jewish Mysticism and the Spiritual Life: Classical Texts, Contemporary Reflections” (Jewish Lights, 2010), and “My Neighbor’s Faith: Stories of Interreligious Encounter, Growth and Transformation (Orbis, 2012).

Judith Rosenbaum (’90) is an educator, historian, and writer. She is Executive Director of the Jewish Women’s Archive, where she also served as Director of Public History for many years. A scholar of Jewish studies and women’s studies and recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, Judith holds a BA in History from Yale University and a PhD in American Studies from Brown University. She has taught at Brown, Boston University, Hebrew College, the Center for Adult Jewish Learning, and Gann Academy, and served as a Bronfman faculty member in 2013. Judith has published articles in academic and popular journals and anthologies, and is currently co-editing an anthology that explores contemporary redefinitions of the “Jewish mother.”

Rabbanit Dr. Jennie Rosenfeld is an educator, author, and spiritual leader. She is currently writing a book on singles and sexuality from a halakhic and ethical perspective with an Advanced Torah Fellowship from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and a grant from the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, while teaching and serving as a Mashgicha (spiritual advisor) at Midreshet TVA. Previously, she served for five years as the Manhiga Ruchanit (female spiritual leader) in Efrat, where she also directed the rabbinic court for financial matters. She completed the Susi Bradfield Women’s Institute for Halakhic Leadership program at Midreshet Lindenbaum and received permission to give halakhic rulings (“heter hora’ah”) from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and Rav Shuki Reich. She holds a PhD in English from the CUNY Graduate Center, where she wrote her dissertation on “Talmudic Re-readings: Toward a Modern Orthodox Sexual Ethic” as a Wexner Graduate Fellow. She co-authored Et Le’ehov: The Newlywed’s Guide to Physical Intimacy (Gefen 2011; Hebrew translation 2013). Rabbanit Jennie has taught Torah in high schools and adult education internationally and was named one of the “36 under 36” by the Jewish Week in 2008. She lives with her family in Katamonim.  

Dana Ruttenberg is an Israeli born dancer and choreographer. She holds a B.A. in Dance from Columbia University and an MFA in Dance from Hollins University. As artistic director of her NY based dance troupe between 2000-2003, The Red Hill Project, she has created works that showcased at various venues across the US and Canada. Since her return to Israel, she has been teaching, giving workshops and choreographing for the Batsheva Dance Ensemble, OtherDance Festival, IntimaDance Festival, International Exposure, Curtain Up Festival and Dance Arena festival, to name a few. She is the winner of the 2013 Minister of Culture Award and was awarded the distinguished 2012 Rosenblum Award for Promising Young Artist by the municipality of Tel Aviv.

Rabbi Yehuda Sarna serves as the Executive Director of the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at NYU and as the University Chaplain at New York University. Originally from Montreal, Canada, he studied at Yeshiva University and received his ordination from RIETS. Yehuda co-founded the Of Many Institute for Multifaith Leadership at NYU, where he is a Senior Fellow, and teaches Jewish Law and Multifaith Leadership in the Wagner School for Public Service. He is proud to have served on The Bronfman Fellowship faculty in 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2018.

Arielle Tonkin (they/she) is an artist, Spiritual Director, and scholar of art and Judaics (MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago) based on Ohlone land in so-called Berkeley, CA. Their artwork, rooted in painting, fibers and social practice, centers on ritual and healing. Recent exhibition highlights include: A Fence Around the Torah: Safety and Unsafety in Jewish Life (2021-2022) at the Jewish Museum of Maryland; Queering Jewish Diasporas (2019) at the Omni Commons, Oakland, CA; Orienting Action (2018) at the Rubin Frankel Gallery, Boston, MA; and Orienting Practice (2017) at the Sullivan Galleries, Chicago. As a Teaching Artist, Arielle facilitates classes and workshops at universities, museums, and organizations. As a Spiritual Director, Arielle facilitates life cycle ritual and Jewish and interfaith learning. A lay-hazzan and current SVARA Fellow in the Talmud Teaching Kollel, Arielle also received a yearlong Talmud fellowship from the Hadar Institute in NYC, and was the 2019 Senior Fellow at Atiq: Jewish Maker Institute in Berkeley, CA. Arielle’s arts and culture organizing centers around dismantling systems of oppression; Muslim-Jewish cross-textual arts exchange; and Mizrahi cultural flourishing in the diaspora. Arielle weaves relationships and materializes conversations: the Muslim-Jewish Arts Fellowship, the Arts Jam for Social Change, Tzedek Lab, Mitsui Collective, and Inside Out Wisdom in Action are among their networks of accountability, collective power, and care.

Darshanit Dr. Miriam Udel is associate professor of German Studies and Jewish Studies at Emory University, where her teaching focuses on Yiddish language, literature, and culture. She holds an AB in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University, as well as a PhD in Comparative Literature from the same institution. She was ordained in 2019 as part of the first cohort of the Executive Ordination Track at Yeshivat Maharat, a program designed to bring qualified mid-career women into the Orthodox rabbinate. Udel’s academic research interests include 20th-century Yiddish literature and culture, Jewish children’s literature, and American-Jewish literature. She is the author of Never Better!: The Modern Jewish Picaresque (University of Michigan Press), winner of the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought and Experience. Honey on the Page: A Treasury of Yiddish Children’s Literature appeared in October 2020 with New York University Press.

Rabbi Avi Weinstein, Executive Director Emeritus, has been associated with The Bronfman Fellowship since its inception in 1987, and is presently Head of Jewish Studies at the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy in Overland Park, KS.

Hadas has a B.A. in Jewish Studies and an M.A. in Hebrew Literature, and is originally from Kfar- Saba. She served as the Jewish Agency’s shlicha (emissary) in Australia where she ran various programs. She participated in the summer seminar of the Tikvah Fund for Jewish leadership at Princeton University and is now a fellow in the full-time program in New York City. She is returning to Israel to teach and work as the Mancha of the Amitim group.

Shiran is originally from Degania Bet. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Jewish Studies and is finishing up his Master’s in Hebrew Linguistics. Shiran teaches in “Beit Chinuch” in Jerusalem and at the Rothberg International School at Hebrew University. In the past four years, he has guided groups of teens, soldiers, police officers and teachers about issues surrounding Jewish- Israeli identity through the “Gesher”organization. He currently works at the non- profit organization “New Spirit” (“Ruach Chadasha”) in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Mishael Zion is an educator for The Bronfman Fellowship, and a former Co-Director. He is Director of the Mandel Program for Leadership in Jewish Culture. Mishael grew up in Jerusalem, served in the Israel Defense Forces, studied at Yeshivat Maale Gilboa, and graduated summa cum laude from Hebrew University. He is the author of the celebrated A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices (English, 2007) and the Israeli best-seller HaLaila HaZeh: Haggadah Yisraelit (Hebrew, 2004). Ordained by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, an open Orthodox rabbinical school in New York, Mishael was named in 2013 by the Newsweek/Daily Beast Top Rabbis List as a “Rabbi to Watch”.

Previously, Mishael has served on the faculty of the Hartman Institute, the Skirball Center and Yeshivat Hadar, and was a Scholar at NYU School of Law’s Tikvah Center.  He has also served as Director and National Coach of the Israeli Debating Society, and worked for Israeli TV’s popular Channel Two (on an unpopular cultural TV show…). He has been featured as a scholar-in-residence in diverse North American and Israeli communities, publishes frequently in both English in Hebrew, and blogs about Jewish texts and issues at Text and the City.

Mishael and his wife Elana, a neuroscientist, are committed to furthering inclusivity and broadening women’s roles in the Orthodox community. They have played an active role in partnership minyanim in Jerusalem, New York and Melbourne, and currently live in Jerusalem where they are raising their three daughters.