Dr. Steven Bayme serves as the director of the Contemporary Jewish Life Department of the American Jewish Committee and of the Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations.  His responsibilities include Jewish family issues, Jewish education, Israel-Diaspora relations, Jewish identity and continuity and intra-Jewish relations.  He holds undergraduate degrees in history from Yeshiva University.  He has lectured widely across the country and taught at Yeshiva University and holds M.A. and Ph.D degrees in Jewish history from Columbia University. He is currently completing a volume of essays tentatively titled Jewish Arguments and Counter-Arguments.  He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, serves on the faculty of the Wexner Foundation, and has served frequently as a judge for the National Jewish Book Awards.   Dr. Bayme is married to the former Edith Weinberger, and they have three children.  The Baymes reside in Riverdale, New York.   

 

Dr. Jay Berkovitz is Professor of Jewish History at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  He earned his Ph.D. at Brandeis University and has held research fellowships at the Hebrew University, Harvard University, and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem.  In addition to working closely with students at the Hillel Foundation, he teaches in the Me’ah Program, an adult studies institute co-sponsored by the Hebrew College and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston.  Professor Berkovitz recently published his second book, Rites and Passages: The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Culture in France, 1650-1860 (Univ. of Penn.).  He is currently engaged in a new project that focuses on the adjudication of civil disputes in early modern rabbinic courts, and is also completing the requirements for rabbinic ordination in Israel.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Rabbi Saul J. Berman is a leading Orthodox teacher and thinker.  He was ordained at Yeshiva University, from which he also received his B.A. and his M.H.L. He completed a degree in law, a J.D., at New York University, and an M.A. in Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley.  He spent two years studying mishpat ivri in Israel at Hebrew University and at Tel Aviv University.  He is married to Shellee Berman, and they have four children, one son-in-law, one daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren in Israel.  Rabbi Berman served as the Rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley, California, from 1963 to 1969, and as the spiritual leader of the Young Israel in Brookline, Mass. from 1969-1971.  In 1971, he was appointed Chairman of the Department if Judaic Studies of Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University.  In 1984, Rabbi Berman accepted the position as Senior Rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan, where he served until 1990.  In 1990, he returned to academic life, as Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Stern College, and as an adjunct Professor at Columbia University School of Law, where he teaches a seminar in Jewish Law.  In 1997, Rabbi Berman became Director of Edah, a new organization devoted to the invigoration of modern Orthodox ideology and religious life. 

 

Rabbi Scot A. Berman is currently the Executive Director of the Kushner Foundation and was the Founding Principal of Kushner Yeshiva High School.  He received his s'mikha from Hebrew Theological College (Skokie Yeshiva), a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from Loyola University, Chicago, and he was a Jerusalem Fellow.  He has written a book and articles on Talmud study.  He has also written and developed numerous curricula on a broad range of topics.  Rabbi Berman is married and has four children. 

 

Rabbi Jack Bieler serves as Rabbi of the Kemp Mill Synagogue in Silver Spring, MD. He has been an administrator and faculty member of Yeshivat Ramaz and the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy for over thirty years. Rabbi Bieler has written and lectured extensively on Modern Orthodoxy in general, and the philosophy of education of Modern Orthdox Day Schools in particular. He is the author the Edah monograph, "Preserving Modern Orthodoxy in our Day Schools". Rabbi Bieler is married to Dr. Joan Glick Bieler, and they are the parents of four children.

 

Rabbi David Bigman is Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Ma’ale Gilboa.  He was the founding Rosh Yeshiva of one of Israel’s first Yeshivot for women to focus on Talmud, at Ein HaNetzviv, and also served as Rosh Yeshiva at EinTzurim.  A native of Detroit, he earned a BA in Economics from Wayne State University and studied at the Yeshiva of Detroit (Rabbi Leib Bakst, Rosh yeshiva) and Israel at Mercaz Ha Rav and Yeshivat Netzach Yisrael (Rabbi Yisrael Ze’ev Gustman, Rosh Yeshivah).  His teaching emphasizes critical study of Talmud and encourages independent thought in all areas.

 

Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, the Director of Organizational Development at CLAL, holds Ph.D. degrees in Philosophy and in Psychology. He has been a university professor, the director of an Orthodox High School and a practicing clinical and organizational psychologist. Tsvi has taught at Washington, Northwestern and Loyola Universities as well as the Drisha Institute for Women and the Wexner Heritage Foundation. He has appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and as a regular on Fox TV’s “Eye on Religion” His recent publications include the 2002 Riesman award winning  How to Think About Being Jewish in the Twenty-First Century: a New Model of Jewish Identity Construction as well as  “How Stories Heal”,  “ Creating Jewish Learning Communities: A Note on Educating for Communal Responsibility” and a book entitled Embracing Life, Facing Death: a Jewish Guide to Palliative Care.

 

Rabbi Dr. Alan Brill is Assistant Prof. of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University, Instructor in Jewish thought at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, co-Founder and Dean of Kavvanah: Center for Jewish Thought. He was ordained by RIETS and has his PhD from Fordham University. He also did graduate study at Hebrew University and Harvard University. He is the author of  Thinking God: The Mysticism of R. Zadok of Lublin and has a forthcoming volume on Judaism and Other Religions.

 

Rabbi Michael Broyde is a tenured Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law, and a core member in the Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory.  Michael Broyde is the founding rabbi of a vibrant congregation in Atlanta (the Young Israel in Atlanta) and a member (dayan) of the Beth Din of America, the largest Jewish law court in America.  He is also the founder and Rosh Kollel of the Atlanta Torah Mitzion Kollel in Atlanta, where is teaches a daily advanced Talmud class (in Hebrew) to Israeli Yeshiva graduates. Michael Broyde received his baccalaureate in biology from Yeshiva University and his juris doctor from New York University and published a note on the Law Review.  Michael Broyde was ordained as a rabbi by Yeshiva University. His first book, The Pursuit of Justice and Jewish Law was published by Yeshiva University Press and his second, Human Rights and Judaism by Aronson Publishing House. He is also the author of Marriage, Divorce, and the Abandoned Wife in Jewish Law: A Conceptual Understanding of the Aguna Problem in America (Ktav) and The Pursuit of Justice in Jewish Law: Halachic Perspectives on the Legal Profession  (Yeshiva University Press.)

 

Rabbi Shalom Carmy is Chair of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva College of Yeshiva University, where he teaches Jewish Studies and Philosophy, and is the Editor of Tradition magazine.

 

Rabbi Bob Carroll, Edah’s Program Director, is a graduate of Brandeis University.  He received his Smicha from Yeshiva University as well as Master’s in Jewish Philosophy from YU’s Revel Graduate School.  He has also completed Doctoral coursework in Kabbalah at NYU, and studied at Yeshivat haMivtar and Yeshivat David Shapell in Jerusalem.  Rabbi Carroll worked for four years as a Hillel director at several New York area campuses.  Prior to joining the staff at Edah, he worked as a corporate strategist and project manager, while serving as a respected mentor and teacher of Kabbalah and Rabbinic texts at several community based Adult Learning programs. He recently delivered a series of lectures entitled “Rav Kuk, Teshuva, and the Transparency of Existence” for Edah. With Rabbi Dr. Alan Brill, he is the co-Founder of Kavvanah: Center for Jewish Thought and is the compiler of the standard Academic bibliography of writings pertaining to Rav Kuk.

 

Rabbi Dr. Michael Chernick is an ordainee of RIETS (1969) and received his doctorate in Talmud from Bernard Revel Graduate School in 1978. His area of specialization is rabbinic legal interpetation of the Torah and the history of Jewish law on which he has written and spoken widely. He has taught rabbinic literature at HUC-JIR since 1974. He is also the Jewish Chairperson for the JCRC Muslim-Jewish Dialogue in Bergen County.

 

Dr. Gerald Cromer teaches in the Department of Criminology, Bar Ilan University.His major publications include  The Writing Was on the Wall: Constructing Political Deviance in Israel (Bar Ilan University Press, 1988), Narratives of Violence (Ashgate, 2001) and A War of Words: Political Violence and Public Debate in Israel (Frank Cass, 2004).He was a founding member of Kehilat Yedidya, a founding member and chairperson of Netivot Shalom, and is presently on the executive board of the New Israel Fund.

 

Rabbi Mark Dratch is an instructor of Jewish Studies at the Isaac Breuer College of Yeshiva University.  He serves as treasurer of the Rabbinical Council of America, Camp Rabbi of Camp Morasha, and as the OU’s Webbe Rebbe, answering “Ask the Rabbi” questions posed through the OU website.

 

Ami Eden is the national editor of the Forward, a national weekly newspaper dedicated to Jewish affairs. He previously served as the news editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Ha'aretz, The International Herald Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Toledo Blade, the Philadelphia City  Paper, Philadelphia Magazine and Jewish newspapers across the country. He received a bachelor's degree in 1995 from Brown University, after majoring in Judaic Studies and American  History and studying for a semester at Hebrew University.

 

Rabbi Dr. Yakov Elman  is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at Yeshiva University. He is the author of Authority and Tradition and The Living Prophets. He specializes in talmudic and rabbinic literature and is well known as an exciting teacher to both scholarly and lay audiences. He has published extensively in his field and in the allied fields of ancient and medieval Jewish thought.

 

Rabbi Dr. Seth Farber graduated from Yeshiva's Rabbi Isaac Elchanon Theological Seminary in 1991, received his Masters from the Bernard Revel School of Judaic Studies in 1995, and finally earned his doctorate from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2000. He is the founder of ITIM: The Jewish Life Information Center, an organization that aims to assist and educate secular Israelis about the various Jewish life cycles -- marriage, divorce, conversion, and death -- which are administrated by the ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Israel, a process that often leaves them bewildered, overwhelmed, and resentful. Rabbi Dr. Farber most recently published a new book on Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik entitled "An American Orthodox Dreamer: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Boston's Maimonides School."

 

Dr. Adam S. Ferziger serves as the Gwendolyn and Joseph Straus Fellow in Jewish Studies and lecturer in the Graduate Program in Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University.  His first book, Exclusion and Hierarchy: Orthodoxy, Nonobservance and the Emergence of Modern Jewish Identity will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2005.  In addition, he is the co-editor with Professor Avi Ravitsky and  Professor Yoseph Salmon of New Perspectives on the Study of Orthodoxy, which is being published by Hebrew University's Magnes Press.  In his capacity as a senior research fellow at Bar-Ilan's Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research, he authored a major study of the role of rabbis in confronting assimilation.  Prior to embarking on a full-time academic career, he served for seven years as founding director of Bar-Ilan's Mechina for New Immigrants and as rabbi of the Beit Binyamin Synagogue in Kfar-Sava. A native of Riverdale, New York, he attended the S.A.R. Academy, the Ramaz Upper School, Beit Midrash l'Torah (BMT) in Jerusalem, Yeshivat Har-Etzion (Gush), and received his B.A., M.A. and rabbinical ordination from Yeshiva University (YC, BRG and RIETS) and his Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan.  He and his wife Naomi, live with their six children in Kfar-Sava, Israel.

Sylvia Barack Fishman is Professor of Contemporary Jewish Life in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department at Brandeis University, and also co-director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. Her newest book, Double Or Nothing? Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage, (Brandeis University Press, 2004) has been the subject of lively discussion by scholars and Jewish communal professionals. Prof. Fishman is the author of numerous articles on Jewish education, the American Jewish family, changing roles of Jewish women, and American Jewish literature, film and popular culture, as well as three previous books: Follow My Footprints: Changing Images of Women in American Jewish Fiction; A Breath of Life: Feminism in the American Jewish Community; and Jewish Life and American Culture. Prof. Fishman received her BA from Stern College at Yeshiva University, which awarded the Samuel Belkin Prize for Distinguished Professional Achievement, and her Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, which awarded her a Danforth Graduate Fellowship. She is married to Dr. Phillip M. Fishman, a mathematician, has three children and six grandchildren, and lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

 

Ilana Fodiman-Silverman teaches Talmud and Jewish law in Berkeley including at the Graduate Theological Seminary and is the mother of a wonderful ten-month-old daughter.  She was both a member of the scholar's circle and on the faculty of the Drisha Institute in New York, and an Ira Marienhoff scholar at the Bernard Revel Graduate school of Yeshiva University in Medieval Jewish History.  Ilana is the past chair of Jewish studies at the Jewish community High School of the Bay.

 

Samuel G. Freedman  is an award-winning writer and professor. A former reporter for The New York Times, he is the author of the four acclaimed books, most recently Jew Versus Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry. His previous books are Small Victories: The Real World of a Teacher, Her Students and Their High School (1990); Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church (1993); and The Inheritance: How Three Families and America Moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond (1996). His newest book, Who She Was: My Search for My Mother’s Life, will be published in April 2005 by Simon & Schuster. Jew Vs. Jew won the National Jewish Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2001 and made the Publishers Weekly Religion Best-Sellers list. As a result of the book, Freedman was named one of the “Forward Fifty” most important American Jews in the year 2000 by the weekly Jewish newspaper The Forward. Small Victories was a finalist for the 1990 National Book Award and The Inheritance was a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize. Upon This Rock won the 1993 Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism. All four books of Freedman’s books have been listed among The New York Times’ Notable Books of the Year. Freedman was a staff reporter for The Times from 1981 through 1987 and currently writes the weekly column “On Education,” as well as frequent articles on culture. He is a member of the USA Today’s Board of Contributors and has contributed to numerous other publications and websites, including New York, Rolling Stone, Salon, and BeliefNet. In broadcast journalism, Freedman has served on occasion as a correspondent to Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on PBS. A tenured professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Freedman was named the nation's outstanding journalism educator in 1997 by the Society of Professional Journalists. His class in book-writing has developed more than 30 authors, editors, and agents, and it has been featured in Publishers Weekly and the Christian Science Monitor. He is a board member of Institute for American Values and the Jewish Book Council. He has spoken at the Smithsonian Institution, Yale University, and UCLA, among other venues, and has appeared on National Public Radio, CNN, and the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Freedman lives in Manhattan with his wife and children.

Rabbi Binyamin Freedman is an energetic teacher, erudite scholar, talented musician and Jewish leader bursting with optimism and zest for life. Trained in Israel’s elite Talmud study circles and ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, Rav Binny has a gift for synthesizing difficult, sophisticated material and text in a way that inspires both the scholar and the novice. His knowledge of Jewish History- both ancient and modern, coupled with his life experiences as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces and his skills as an educator, is what provides flavor to his weekly Internet ‘Parsha Bytes’ which have a loyal, weekly readership of 20,000 people. A survivor of Sbarro’s suicide bombing and a Company Commander in the IDF, Rav Binny has lived through some of the most terrifying and troubling experiences, yet always succeeds in responding with healing messages of hope. His genius for finding the positive aspect in every experience is one of his many unique gifts. His classes and teachings are leaving audiences across the country fulfilled, motivated, energized and inspired. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC and NBC commenting on Middle East politics, security and terrorism. Confronting his own mortality in some of the most terrifying battlefield engagements, Rav Binny has acquired an acute, real world perspective. As the Educational Director of Isralight, Rav Binny is dedicated to creating a renaissance of Jewish identity and inspiring Jews of all backgrounds to have a deeper relationship with their Judaism.

Rabbi Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer is The Ethel and David Resnick Professor of Active Oxygen Chemistry and a Senior Research Associate at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.  He has published more than 115 scientific articles, review papers and books in the area of active oxygen chemistry.  Prof. Frimer graduated B.S. Summa Cum Laude from Brooklyn College in 1969.  At the same time he received his Rabbinical Ordination from Rabbi Yehudah Gershuni zt”l, Yeshivat Eretz Israel, Brooklyn N.Y.  While a graduate student in organic chemistry at Harvard University, Rabbi Frimer served as Assistant Hillel Director and Rabbi to the Harvard-Radcliffe Orthodox Minyan.  Upon completing his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1974, he made Aliyah becoming a Post-Doctoral Fellow at The Weizmann Institute of Science, before joining the faculty of Bar Ilan in 1975.  In addition to his scientific work, Rabbi Frimer has published close to 31 Torah articles and lectured internationally on various aspects of Jewish tradition and Halakha, but most prominently on Religious Zionism and the Status of Women in Jewish Law.

 

Rabbi Barry Gelman is Rabbi of United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston. Previously Rabbi Gelman served as Rabbi of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal, Canada as well as Assistant Rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, both in New York. He is the founding Director of MeORoT - Modern Orthodox Rabbinic Training, and Torat Miriam, both fellowships for those interested in Jewish communal service. Rabbi Gelman has taught at the Drisha Institute as well as at RAMAZ, a modern orthodox High School in New York.

 

Rebbetsin Nechama Glogower is a middle school teacher and sometimes writer.  She graduated from Brandeis University and has studied at Melton Centre at the Hebrew University.  Her interest in organ donation was sparked by the loss her brother, Noam, who was an organ donor.

 

Rabbi Rod Glogower has been on the staff of the University of Michigan Hillel for most of the past 23 years (including a three-year stint as rabbi of Kesher Israel, the Georgetown Synagogue).  In addition to his Hillel work, he is also a lecturer at the University of Michigan Law School, teaches adult Jewish education courses for the Detroit Federation and at the Jewish Academy of Metropolitan Detroit  Rabbi Glogower is a graduate of the Hebrew Theological College of Skokie and Loyola University of Chicago.  He holds masters degrees in Jewish philosophy from Yeshiva University and from Brandeis University.  His ordination is from the Midrasha of Machon Harry Fischel in Jerusalem.

 

Dr. Lewis Glinert is Professor of Hebraic Studies and Linguistics at Dartmouth College. He has held appointments at Haifa U and Bar-Ilan , the U of Chicago, and London University, where he chaired the Centre for Jewish Studies. His books include Hebrew in Ashkenaz: A Language in Exile (Oxford), The Grammar of Modern Hebrew (Cambridge) and The Joys of Hebrew (Oxford), in addition to many articles on language and discourse in Jewish life, thought and halacha. His BBC documentary "Tongue of Tongues" was a BBC 1992 nomination for a SONY award. His current research concerns the phenomenology of shemirat halashon and consumer risk communication.

 

Ari L. Goldman is a tenured professor and the Dean of Students of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Goldman came to Columbia in 1993 after spending 20 years at The New York Times, most of it as a religion writer. Goldman is author of three books: The Search for God at Harvard, Being Jewish and Living a Year of Kaddish. Goldman serves on the boards of several organizations, including the Covenant Foundation, the Columbia-Barnard Hillel, Brandeis University’s Gralla Journalism Program, and Congregation Ramath Orah, an Orthodox synagogue in Manhattan. Goldman was a Visiting Fulbright Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1997-98 and a Scholar-in-Residence at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University in 2002-03. In the spring of 2004, he was a Skirball Fellow at England’s Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He lives in New York City with his wife, Shira Dicker, and their three children, Adam, Emma and Judah

 

Rabbi Dr. Marc Gopin is a consultant in conflict analysis and diplomacy, specializing in the relationship between religion, culture, war, and conflict, particularly as it pertains to the Middle East. He is currently Director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University.  Dr. Gopin is the author of Between Eden and Armaggedon: The Future of World Religions, Conflict, and Peacemaking,  Healing the Heart of Conflict: 8 Crucial Steps to Making Peace with Yourself and Others and Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion can Bring Peace to the Middle East.He has lectured and trained in conflict resolution in Switzerland, Ireland, India, and Israel.  Dr. Gopin completed his undergraduate work at Columbia University in 1979. He then went on in 1993 to receive his Ph.D. in Ethics from Brandeis University and the Nachum Glatzer Prize for Excellence in Jewish Scholarship for his dissertation on Samuel David Luzzatto’s Moral Sense Theory. Dr. Gopin has also served as a chaplain in Hillel as well as a rabbi of several congregations in the American Jewish community. He received ordination from Yeshiva University in 1983.

 

Blu Greenberg, author and lecturer, holds a BA from Brooklyn College, a BRE from Yeshiva University’s Teacher Institute, an MS in Jewish History from the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University, and an MA in Clinical Psychology from City College.  She chaired the first two International Conferences on Feminism and Orthodoxy and serves on boards of several Jewish organizations, including Edah, the JWB Book Council, the Federation Commission on Synagogue Relations and the Advisory Board of the Jewish Women’s Resource Center.

 

Rabbi Dr. Irving (Yitz) Greenberg is the President of Jewish Life Network (JLN), a Judy and Michael Steinhardt Foundation.  He is President Emeritius and co-founder of CLAL – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.  He served as chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council from 2000-2002.  He was ordained at Beth Joseph Rabbinical Seminary (Novaredoker Yeshiva), Brooklyn, New York and received his PhD in History from Harvard University. He served as Rabbi of Riverdale Jewish Center (1965-1972) where he founded and served as Dean of SAR Academy.  More recently, with Michael Steinhardt and his son, JJ, zichrono livracha and other partners, Rabbi Greenberg played a founder’s role in the formation of Makor: A center for Jews in their 20s and 30s which reaches out to unaffiliated Jews through cutting-edge music and art, The Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE) which offers seed money and expertise to assist in the formation of new day schools and Birthright Israel, a worldwide program offering the gift of a ten-day educational trip to Israel to Jews between the ages of 18-26.  He serves on the Board of Edah.

 

Eric Grossman is the Head of Bible at the Jewish Academy of Metro Detroit.  He has studied in the department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, Yeshivat Ha-mivtar, and York University, where he received his B.A. with distinction in religion.  Mr. Grossman was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is a two-time recipient of the Hebrew University Bible Prize.  Mr. Grossman lectures widely at universities and synagogues in the United States and Canada, and taught for three years at the Gann Academy of Greater Boston.  He recently completed a book on biblical Hebrew grammar.

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bezalel Halivni studied for several years at Yeshivat Har Etzion and received Semikha from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. He also has a Ph.d in Talmud from Bar-Ilan University. Currently he works at the Academy of the Hebrew Language in Jerusalem. He has published several articles on Halakha, including a number dealing with women and Halakha.

 

Dr. Tova Hartman is a Lecturer at Hebrew University’s School of Education and is the author of Appropriately Subversive: Modern Mothers in Traditional Religions as well as numerous scholarly articles on gender, religion, and education.  She is also one of the founders of Jerusalem’s “Shira Chadasha” minyan and is the mother of three daughters.

Samuel Heilman holds the Harold Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center and is Distinguished  Professor of Sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York. He has also been Scheinbrun Visiting Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, visiting professor of social anthropology at Tel Aviv University, and a Fulbright visiting professor at the Universities of New South Wales and Melbourne in Australia. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Rutgers University, Harvard University, the University of Maryland, Carelton College, Sydney University, Spertus College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brandeis University, among others. In 1993 he gave the Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures at the University of Washington.  He is the author of numerous articles and reviews as well as eight books: Synagogue Life, The People of the Book, The Gate Behind the Wall, A Walker in Jerusalem, Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America (co-authored with Steven M. Cohen) Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry and most recently When a Jew Dies: The Ethnography of a Bereaved Son. His Stroum Lectures at the University of Washington have been published University's Press in 1996 as: Portrait of American Jewry: The Last Half of the 20th Century. A number of these books are recently reissued and all are currently in print. He also writes a monthly column on the sociology of Jewry for the New York Jewish Week and is a frequent contributor to a number of magazines and newspapers.  He is also Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Jewry. The Baltimore Sun wrote of Heilman "He is a poet: He has made the familiar seem strange, and the strange, familiar."

Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot is the Chair of the Departments of Tanakh and Jewish Thought at YCT Rabbinical School and Director of its Dept. of Continuing Education. He is the editor of the recently published volume Community, Covenant,and Commitment: Selected Letters and Communications of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Toras Horav Foundation/KTAV Publishing CO.). He serves as the co-editor of the Hebrew journal "Or-Hamizrach" published by the RZA and is on the steering committee of the Orthodox Forum and the plenum of the Orthodox Caucus.

 

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld is Rabbi of Ohev Sholom Talmud Torah--The National Synagogue, the oldest Orthodox synagogue in Washington, DC. His communal responsibilities include teaching classes, coordinating adult education, creating programs for the elderly, the youth, and the sick, ministering to the pastoral needs of the congregation, and teaching classes in the US Senate. He received rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary,
an affiliate of Yeshiva University, and a Masters in Jewish History from Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University.He is a frequent guest columnist in newspapers.He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife Rhanni, and children Lea, Roey, and Elai. He is National Vice-President of Coalition of Jewish Concerns—Amcha, and a co-founder of Lishmah.

 

Dr. Rick Hodes is the medical director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, working with Ethiopian immigrants to Israel. He is a native of Long Island. He graduated from Middlebury College and University of Rochester Medical School and trained in internal medicine in Baltimore. He has lived in Africa for over 16 years. He  has also worked with refugees in Rwanda, Zaire, Tanzania, Albania, and Somalia. In his free time, he works with the nuns at Mother Teresa's Mission in Addis Ababa, caring for sick destitutes. If you're in Ethiopia, you are invited for Shabbat with him and his family.

 

Dr. Gilbert N. Kahn received his AB degree from Columbia University and his PhD in Politics from New York University. He is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Kean University. His academic interests concentrate on American government decision-making, with an emphasis on executive-legislative relations in foreign policy, and a special focus on the Middle East. His most recent publication entitled American Guilt During the Holocaust: A Study of US Foreign Policy Makers' Attitudes Towards Israel, appeared in History, Religion, and Meaning: American Reflections on the Holocaust and Israel. He has been a frequent lecturer before academic and professional groups and has appeared as a commentator and analyst on network and public television.

 

Tobi Kahn is a painter and sculptor whose work has been shown in over 40 solo exhibitions and over 60 museum and group shows.  In paint, stone and bronze, he has explored the correspondence between the intimate and the monumental.  While his early works drew on the tradition of American Romantic landscape painting, his more recent pieces reflect his fascination with contemporary science, inspired by the micro-images of cell-formations and satellite photography.  In 1999, he initiated the Avoda project, an educational program that accompanies the Avoda: Objects of the Spirit exhibition as it travels for five years throughout the United States.  Kahn has also designed sets for The Public Theater, and for work by choreographers Muna Tseng and Gus Solomons.  In May 2003, an exhibition of his “Sky and Water” paintings opens at the Neuberger Museum in Purchase, New York.  For 17 years, Kahn has taught fine arts workshops at the School for Visual Arts in New York City.  He is also designing the curriculum for an arts-oriented high school in New York and a Masters Degree Program in arts and education for the Fine Arts Department of the University of Southern California.

 

Rabbi David Kalb is the Rabbi of the Beit Chaverim Synagogue of Westport/Norwalk, a synagogue which focuses on Outreach, Jewish Unity, Social Action, Jewish Learning, Woman’s Issues, Israel and Spirited Tefilah.  He has taught Modern Jewish History at Touro College and Bible at Norwalk Community College.  He is the National Vice President of AMCHA Coalition for Jewish Concerns.  He is a member of the Rabbinic Advisory Board of J.O.F.A (The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance). He is also a member of the Vaad Hakashrut of Fairfield County.  Rabbi Kalb was a member of the first class of the Meorot fellowship, an organization that analyzes issues of importance to the Modern Orthodox Community. Previous to his current position he was Outreach Director at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and did special youth programming for the Samuel Field YM/YWHA in Little Neck.  Rabbi Kalb attended Rabbinical School at Yeshiva University.  He has also studied at Hebrew University in Jeruslaem and Yishivat Hamivtar in Efrat.

 

Dr. Asa Kasher is the Laura Scwarz-Kipp Professor of Professional Ethics and Philosophy of Practice at Tel-Aviv University. He is also an Academic advisor for the IDF College of National Defense and has taught at the IDF College of National Defense and IDF College of Command and General Staff for 25 years. Dr. Kasher has held visiting positions in many universities, including UCLA, Oxford, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels and Calgary. He has written about 200 papers and books in various areas of philosophy, including: Military Ethics, a book that won the national prize for military literature, A Small Book of the Meaning of Life, which has been a best seller for many weeks and Judaism and Idolatry. Dr. Kasher wrote the first Code of Ethics of the IDF and others, including an IDF document on the Military Ethics of Fighting Terror (written together with Maj.Gan. Amos Yadlin).

Presently, he is working (with others) on the Code of Ethics of the Knesset, the parliament of Israel.  He has served as chair or member of numerous governmental and other public bodies, such as: Governmental Commission on National Mourning, which he chairs, Governmental National Bioethics Council Governmental Commission on Cloning, where he is a member, Governmental Commission on Euthanasia, where he was chair of philosophy and religion sub-committee, the Public Press Council, where he is a member of the presidium. For his contributions to Philosophy, he won the Prize of Israel, the highest national prize.

 

Rabbi Robert (Aryeh) Klapper is Orthodox Rabbinic Adviser, Associate Director for Education, and Israel Initiative Coordinator at Harvard Hillel.  He is also President of the Summer Beit Midrash (www.summerbeitmidrash.org), an innovative leadership training program which uses the process of psak Halakhah to train tomorrow's Orthodox leadership. Rabbi Klapper is also Instructor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Talmud Curriculum Project at Maimonides High School and a member of the Boston Beit Din.  He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with his wife Deborah, a graduate of the Drishah Scholar's Circle, and their children Tzipporah Machlah, Channah Leah, and Gershon Michael.

 

Rabbi Jeffrey Kobrin holds a BA and MA from Columbia University and Semicha from Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg and RIETS.  He is the Assistant Dean  at the Ramaz Upper School, where he teaches Halakha, Tanakh and English literature.  He lives in Riverdale with his wife, Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin, and their three daughters.

 

Rabbi Dr. Eugene Korn is a scholar in the areas of Jewish philosophy, Jewish and modern ethics, interfaith relations and Israel. He was ordained by the Israeli Rabbinate and earned a doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University. Dr. Korn is presently Adjunct Professor of Jewish Thought at Seton Hall University and editor of The Edah Journal. He was previously the National Director of Interfaith Affairs of the Anti-Defamation League, Judaic Scholar at the Jewish Federation of MetroWest (NJ), and Director of Leadership Education and Development at the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jerusalem. Prior to those positions he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute. Dr. Korn has edited two books on Jewish-Christian relations and Israel, and is currently writing a book on the significance of Tzelem Elokim (Image of God) in Jewish tradition. He has published scholarly articles on Jewish thought and ethics, democratic Israel and religious tradition, pluralism, religious extremism and Jewish values, Jewish-Christian relations, Jewish attitudes toward non‑Jewish culture, and business ethics. He writes book reviews and op-ed essays on Jewish life that appear frequently in Sh’ma, The (NY) Jewish Week, Religion News Service, the Bergen Record, The NJ Jewish News, and The Bergen Jewish Standard.  At ADL Dr. Korn was responsible for relations with the top ecclesiastical leaders of national churches. He has also directed the publication of a number of scholarly monographs regarding Israel and Jewish-Christian relations.

 

Francesca Lunzer Kritz is a healthcare writer whose work frequently appears in the Washington Post, MSNBC.com and the New York Jewish Week. She has also recently written a report for the Senate Committee on Aging on age discrimination in health care and a report for the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health on changing trends in prenatal testing. Mrs. Kritz has served on the boards of Dorot, The West Side Institutional Synagogue and the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy. She is currently a member of the Orthodox Caucus and last year completed the Leadership Training Institute of the Federation of Greater Washington.

Mrs. Kritz lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her husband, Neil Kritz who is the director or the Rule of Law program at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

 

Rabbi Ezra Labaton is currently the Rabbi of Congregation Magen David of West Deal, NJ.  He has studied at Yeshiva University where he received his semicha.  He is also working on completing his Ph.D from Brandeis University.

 

Rabbi Menachem Leibtag is one of pioneers of Torah Education via the internet. His weekly essays on Parshat Ha'shavua, read by literally thousands of subscribers world wide, introduce a vibrant analytical approach to thematic study of the Bible and reflect over twenty years of experience as a student and teacher at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Israel. He was the founder of the Yeshiva's Virtual Bet Midrash [www.vbm-torah.org] and more recently founded the Tanach Study Center [www.tanach.org] which contains a full archive of his lectures in various formats. In addition to his educational responsibilities at Har Etzion, Rabbi Leibtag also lectures at Midreshet Lindenbaum,  MMY, and Orot College for Women. He, his wife Thea, and their six children reside in Alon Shevut, Gush Etzion.

 

Dr. Brian Leggiere received his Ph.D. from New School University. He ran the Ohel Children's Home Sexual Abuse Treatment Program and has a special interest and expertise in working with sexual behavior disorders, as well as survivors of sexual abuse, particularly male sexual abuse victims. He maintains a private practice on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

 

Dr. Gila Leiter is currently an Assistant Clinical Professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and an assistant attending in the OB/GYN Department at Mount Sinai Hospital.  She also has her own OB/GYN private practice in New York Gila received her BA Magna cum Laude from Yeshiva University in 1978 and was awarded the Merit Scholarship from the Department of Social Medicine, Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem in 1979.  From 1979 - 1983, she attended the Albert Einstein Medical School and received her medical degree. Gila completed her residency in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

 

Marcie Lenk, a doctoral candidate in Early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism at Harvard University, teaches Rabbinics in Boston Hebrew College’s Meah Program.  She has taught at Ma’ayan in Boston, and at Drisha Institute in NY.  After making aliyah in 1988, Marcie taught at Midreshet Lindenbaum and at Pardes, as well as in a number of Christian seminaries in Jerusalem.  Marcie has an MS in Bible and a BA in Judaic Studies and Mathematics from Yeshiva University, as well as an MTS from Harvard Divinity School.

 

Rachel Levmore has been an active Rabbinical Court Advocate since 1995,  specializing in cases of Iggun (being locked into a marriage) and Get-Refusal heard by the Israeli Rabbinical Courts. In January 2000 she became the first woman to join the “Agunot Unit” in the Directorate of the Israeli Rabbinical Courts. She is the Coordinator for Matters of Iggun And Get-Refusal, a joint project of the Council of Young Israel Rabbis in Israel and the Jewish Agency for Israel. Rachel is one of a team that developed a Prenuptial Agreement for the Prevention of Get-Refusal, which relates to problems peculiar to Israeli society, while still valid for world-wide application. Her extensive research in the subject has been documented in her Master’s thesis. Through her lectures and discussion groups held in Israel and abroad, she raises the awareness of the Jewish world regarding the subject of women’s status and self-actualization in Judaism, specifically addressing the complexity of Jewish divorce today. Rachel is a Mozes S. Schupf Doctoral Fellow in the Talmud Department of Bar Ilan University. The subject of her research for her doctoral dissertation is Iggun.

 

Rabbi Dr. B. Barry Levy received his BA, BRE and MA from Yeshiva University, ordination from RIETS, and his PhD from New York University.  He has held positions at YU, Brown and McGill University, where he is Professor of Biblical Studies and Dean the Faculty of Religious Studies.  Dr. Levy received a Harry Starr Fellowship in Judaica from Harvard.  His book, Fixing God’s Torah was the subject of a session at the first Edah conference.

 

Mrs. Frances (Cooki) Levy received her B.A. in Sociology and her Teaching Diploma from Barnard College of Columbia University and her M. Ed. in Educational Administration from McGill University.  She also studied at the Teachers’ Institute for Women of Yeshiva University.  An experienced elementary and secondary teacher, Mrs. Levy was the first person in North America to teach a course on the Holocaust in high school (1969).  She also regularly and successfully integrated secular and Judaic studies in unique courses she designed for high school students. A past president of the Association of Principals of Jewish Schools of Montreal, she has spent the past 17 years as principal of the Akiva School.  During her tenure, the school has doubled in size, has undergone a major renovation, and been recognized by the Quebec government as a “Lead School” in the province. Akiva School is in the process of receiving accreditation from the Canadian Educational Standards Institute, an organization for which Mrs. Levy has served as a school evaluator. Mrs. Levy regularly teaches in the Education Faculty of McGill University and sits on the English Education Advisory Board of the Ministry of Education of Quebec.  She is also on the board of the Association of Jewish Day Schools.  Actively involved in the Bronfman Jewish Education Centre, an agency of Montreal’s Federation CJA, Mrs. Levy has served on community task forces related to excellence in education, integration of immigrant families, and providing services to special needs students. Mrs. Levy is the proud mother of three sons and the grandmother of four. 

 

Rabbi Dov Linzer is the Rosh HaYeshiva and Head of Academics of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah - The Open Orthodox Rabbinical School.  He is also the Rosh HaYeshiva of the Yeshivat Chovevei Torah University Program.  A recipient of both the Javits and Wexner Graduate fellowships, Rabbi Linzer has done graduate work in philosophy and is now pursuing a doctorate in Religion at Columbia University.  Rabbi Linzer has published in Torah journals and lectures widely at synagogues and conferences on topics relating to Halakha, Orthodoxy, and modernity.

 

Naomi Mark is a psychotherapist in private practice where she specializes in working with couples and families.  Ms. Mark was trained at the Ackerman Institute for Marital and Family Therapy in New York City and at Columbia University School of Social Work.  Ms. Mark was a faculty member at the Institute of Psychosocial Oncology and student educational coordinator at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and an adjunct clinical professor of social work at Columbia University School of Social Work.   She appeared on Good Day New York (channel 5, New York City) in a segment on “The Myth of the Evil Stepmother” and is featured in the award winning commercially released film Trembling Before G-d, a documentary portraying the struggle facing gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews. Ms. Mark is the book review editor for the academic journal Social Work Forum, and has published articles in professional journals.

 

Rabbi Jay Miller studied Talmud in Yeshivat Rabbenu Yitzchak Elchanan in New York and various yeshivot in Israel where he received his Smicha.  He is a graduate of Yeshiva College and the  Wurzweiler School of Social Work. He studied Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah at Hebrew university in Jerusalem, and psychoanalysis at M.P.A.P. (N.Y.). He was formally the associate director of the Hartman Institute in Israel. He has taught institutionally in Israel and the United States on High School, College and Graduate Levels. At present Rabbi Miller practices psychotherapy privately and has a private teaching service specializing in teaching Jewish Studies to students with unique needs/disabilities.

 

Rabbi Adam Mintz  is the president of the New York Board of Rabbis. He has served previously as Associate Rabbi at Kehilat Jeshurn and the Rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue. He has also been a visiting lecturer in Jewish History at Rutgers University. He presently teaches at the Drisha Institute.

 

Rabbi Francis Nataf is the Educational Director of the David Cardozo Acadey in Jerusalem. He is a well-respected educator who has held many senior educational positions in Israel and the United States. Rabbi Nataf was ordained at Yeshiva University and  holds degrees in Jewish history and international affairs. He has written numerous articles for a variety of important Jewish periodicals and websites.  The Cardozo Academy aims to promote a radical reevaluation of Jewish Education through its innovative teachers' training program. 

 

Rabbi Micha Odenheimer is a rabbi, journalist and social activist living in Jerusalem, Israel. He is a graduate of Yale University, a  musmach of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ztz”l and was a close talmid of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach ztz”l. His writing has appeared in such newspapers and magazines as the Washington Post, the London Times, The Guardian and Foreign Policy Magazine, Haaretz and  Eretz Acheret, where he is a member of the editorial board. Micha has an abiding interest in the consequences of globalization on the third world poor, and has reported from such countries as Ethiopia, Somalia, Haiti, Burma, Nepal, Iraq and Indonesia. He has been researching the Torah's stance on issues of economic justice for a number of years, and is the founding director and current chairman of the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews.

 

Dr. Moses L. Pava is Professor of Accounting and holds the Alvin Einbender Chair in Business Ethics at the Sy Syms School of Business, Yeshiva University. Dr. Pava has authored and edited 11 books including Leading With Meaning, The Search For Meaning in Organizations, and Business Ethics: A Jewish Perspective. Dr. Pava is an internationally-known speaker and has taught at New York University's Stern School of Business, Hebrew University, and Hunter College. He has been an active academic leader at Yeshiva University where he has served as chairperson of the undergraduate faculty, is a member of the steering committee of the Orthodox Forum (a think tank devoted to issues confronting the centrist orthodox community), and also served on the presidential search committee.

Dr. Robert Pollack has been a Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia since 1978; Director of the Center for the Study of Science and Religion since 1999; and Lecturer at the Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research since 1998; adjunct Professor for Science and Religion at Union Theological Seminary since 2002; and adjunct professor of Religion since 2002. Books he has written to date include Signs of Life: the Language and Meanings of DNA and The Faith of Biology and the Biology of Faith: order, meaning and free will in modern science.  He is currently collaborating with his wife Amy on a children’s book, The Grand Prince. He serves on advisory boards of  Columbia/Barnard Hillel,  the Program in Religion and Ecology of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, and as a Senior Consultant for the Director, Program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  He is a Fellow of the AAAS, and the World Economic forum in Davos; and a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Yossi Prager is the Executive Director for North America of The AVI CHAI Foundation.  AVI CHAI is a private foundation with the dual goal of encouraging Jews to become more deeply involved with Jewish learning and observance, and promoting mutual understanding and sensitivity among Jews of different religious backgrounds.  Yossi has been AVI CHAI’s North American director since 1994.  Under his leadership, AVI CHAI has developed a wide variety of programs to benefit the Jewish day school field, with a focus on enhancing the quality of the formal and informal Jewish Studies programs and helping schools to expand their enrollments. A graduate of Yeshiva College and Yale Law School, Yossi practiced law at Debevoise & Plimpton in Manhattan before joining AVI CHAI.  In addition to Yossi’s work at AVI CHAI, he sits on the board of his synagogue and his children’s day school and has served in a lay capacity in other Jewish communal activities.  Yossi writes and lectures on Judaism, Jewish education and philanthropy.

Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Riskin is the Chief Rabbi of Efrat in Israel and is the President of Ohr Torah Stone Colleges and Graduate Programs. He graduated valedictorian, summa cum laude from Yeshiva University in 1960, where he majored in Greek, Latin, and English Literature, and received Semicha (Rabbinic ordination) from Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, his teacher and mentor, three years later. He holds a Masters Degree is in Jewish history, and in 1982 he was awarded his Ph.D. from New York University's department of Near Eastern Languages and Literature. Rabbi Riskin is the founding rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue in New York, internationally renowned for its outreach, educational and social action programs. Rabbi Riskin early on became a major spokesperson for Modern Orthodoxy through early activism on behalf of Soviet Jewry, and by pioneering the first women's Advanced Talmud Study Program (Kollelet) as well as the first Synagogue service conducted for women by women, in 1971.   Ohr Torah Stone has active development offices in New York, London, Toronto and Munich. He is also an innovative interpreter of Judaism, having authored a number of books, seminal articles and monographs, including The Rebellious Wife: Women and Jewish Divorce and The New Passover Haggadah. Rabbi Riskin has been married to Victoria since 1963; they have four married children and twelve grand-children, all of whom live in Efrat.

Gary Rosenblatt has been editor and publisher of The Jewish Week of New York, the largest Jewish newspaper in the U.S., since 1993. Prior to that he was editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times for 19 years. He has won numerous journalism awards and is founder of the Jewish Investigative Journalism Fund, and Write On For Israel, an advocacy journalims program for high school students.

 

Dr. Jacob Joshua Ross is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He received his PhD from Cambridge University in Engand and is also a graduate of Ponevez Yeshiva, Bnei Brak.  He is spending this year as visiting scholar at Yale university's philosophy dept. and also teaching a course at Touro College's New York graduate division.  He has published three books and many articles in scholarly journals on topics in Jewish and general philosophy.

 

Rabbi Dr. Naftali Rothenberg is the town Rabbi of Har Adar. He is a senior fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, where he co-chairs the Framework on Contemporary Jewish Thought and Identity, and chairs the Center for Tolerance Education. Rabbi Rothenberg is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Rutgers University in New Jersey, and the IDF College for Staff and Command, The Kamenitz Yeshiva-Theological Seminary of Jerusalem and the Negev Yeshiva in southern Israel. He holds several Rabbinical Ordination degrees including Israeli Chief Rabbinate Ordination, B.A, M.A and Ph.D. in Philosophy. The book Jewish Identity in Modern Israel, co-edited with professor Eliezer Schweid (in English) was recently published in Jerusalem. Rabbi Naftali Rothenberg and his family make their home in the Jerusalem suburb of Har Adar, where he serves as the town’s Rabbi and spiritual leader.

 

Rabbi Benjamin J. Samuels is Rabbi of Congregation Shaarei Tefillah in Newton Centre, Massachusetts.  Rabbi Samuels is a Genesis Scholar at Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston and a Master Teacher at Maayan: Torah Initiatives for Jewish Women, as well as a Meah Instructor and a curriculum developer and instructor of Ikkarim. Rabbi Samuels is a member of several national and local Jewish organizational Boards of Directors and is an officer of the Vaad HaRabonim of Massachusetts and a member of its Beit Din.

 

Dr. Shmuel Sandler  is currently the Sara and Simha Lainer Professor in Democracy and Civility at Bar-Ilan University and has been a Faculty Member in the Department of Political Science at the university since 1977. He is also an Associate at The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. Dr. Sandler is the author of many publications including Israel, the Palestinians and the West Bank: A Study in Intercommunal Conflict with Hillel Frisch and “Ben-Gurion’s Attitude Toward the Soviet Union” which appeared in the Jewish Journal of Sociology.  His areas of interest include International Politics and Comparative government, The Arab-Israeli Conflict and Israeli Politics and Foreign Policy. He lives in Israel and is married with four children.

 

Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller is in his thirtieth year at UCLA Hillel as director.  He previously served as Hillel Director at Ohio State and as Rabbi of Congregation Ahavat Achim, New Bedford, Massachusetts.  He was ordained in 1971 at Yeshiva University where he also earned a Masters Degree in Rabbinic Literature. Rabbi Seidler-Feller is a lecturer in the Departments of Sociology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA where he teaches courses on the “Jewish Experience in Contemporary America”, on the “Social, Cultural, and Religious Institutions of Judaism” and on “Philosophers and Mystics”.  He has taught Kabbalah and Talmud at the University of Judaism and is a Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.  He serves on the Governing Council of the Progressive Jewish Alliance, on the Advisory Council of EDAH,  and is a founding member of Americans for Peace Now.  He has authored articles on Judaism and feminism, and the conflict between Blacks and Jews as well as an article “The Land of Israel: Sacred Space or Sanctified Matter” in Three Faiths: One God (ed. Hicks &Meltzer.)  He was the editor of the UCLA Hillel Shabbat Siddur, and is a member of the editorial board of Tikkun magazine.  He has written an article that was included in an American Jewish Committee monograph in memory of Yitzhak Rabin entitled:  “The End of Illusion.” He is married to Dr. Doreen Seidler-Feller and is the father of Shulie and Shaul.

 

Dr. Amnon Shapira is a member of Kibbutz Tirat Zvi, and a Senior Lecturer at Bar Ilan University in Bible. He is the author of hundreds of articles on religious-zionist issues, and also author of two books: Jacob and Esau: A Polyvalent Reading (the Ambiguous Reading of the Biblical Text) and  Utopian (Positive) Anarchism in the Bible: Ancient Religious Roots of Modern Anarchy. He also  lectures at various public forums on issues of religion and state, Jewish law and reality, the development of Jewish law, the conflict between judaism and democracy and modern orthodoxy. Among his national activities, Dr. Shapira is the General secretary of Beni Akiva (Youth Movement) in Israel; Initiator and member of steering-committee of the “Lavi Convention” for Religious Zionism and Modern Orthodoxy, in cooperation with the Religious Kibbutz Movement, Bar Ilan University, and Beit Morasha in Jerusalem. He initiated and organized the Rome Conference: an interfaith meeting, in order to advance the Church’s attitude towards Judaism and the State of Israel, with participation of Chief Rabbis from Europe and Israel, and some Cardinals from the Vatican. He is the  Emissary of the Ministry of Religion for cultural activity in the former Soviet Union and he organized the first  Russian Conference for traditional Jewish youth in Russia. Dr. Shapira is also a member of the managing directorate, on behalf of the government and the Jewish Agency, of institutes for Jewish studies (towards Giyur): the Ne’eman commission.

 

Rabbi Yair Silverman is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley, CA. He and his wife are the grateful parents of a joyous ten-month-old daughter, Hadar. Ordained by the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University, he also holds a Bachelors in Philosophy and Masters in Jewish Philosophy from Yeshiva University.

 

Rabbi Charles Sheer is Director/Jewish Chaplain Emeritus of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, where he served for 34 years.   He has taught and lectured widely on various aspects of Jewish law, Tanakh, and the interface between Jewish Tradition and modernity.   He currently teaches Bible at CCNY. He received his BA, MA and Ordination from Yeshiva University.   He lives in Riverdale with his wife, Judy Adler Sheer.   

 

Chana Sperber, a marriage and family counselor, received her B.A. from Wellesley College, a Fulbright Travel Grant for post-graduate studies in Jerusalem, and her professional certification from Midreshet Emunah and the Department of Adult Education in the Ministry of Education in Israel. She presently specializes in work with couples striving to cope constructively with their feelings concerning a son or daughter being gay, or a child’s rejection of their commitment to traditional Judaism. She lives with her husband Daniel in the Old City of Jerusalem. They are parents of ten children. 

 

Rabbi Dr.  Daniel Sperber is the author of the 8-volume Minhagei Yisrael on the history of Jewish customs, as well as tens of books and hundreds of monographs dealing with a wide range of halakhic, linguistic and historical subject. He was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize in 1992 and has taught at Bar-Ilan University in the Departments of Jewish History and Talmud since 1968. He serves as president of the Kollel and Midrasha at Bar-Ilan University, which enrolls over 900 women and 300 men in daily half-day study of Jewish texts (in addition to their university coursework), many of whom continue on to the rabbinate or graduate work, as well as the rabbi of Congregation Menachem Tzion in the Old City of Jersalem. He studied at Yeshivat Kol-Torah in Israel (1958-59) and Hevron (1959-62). Prof. Sperber received his doctorate from University College London in the Departments of Ancient History and Hebrew Studies, studying under Prof. A. Momigliano and S. Stein.  He founded and headed the Bar-Ilan University Press from its inception in the 1970s until 1990.  Since 1994, he has served as Chairman of the Committee on Zionist Religious Education at the Ministry of Education. Daniel and his wife Chana are parents of ten children.

 

Rabbi Aryeh Spero hosts a radio show, “Talking Sense”, on WWDJ in the New York tri-state area. He also has hosted his own programs on WSNR and WEVD in the New York metropolitan region and currently a program on Radio Free Republic. He has been interviewed on WABC, WLIR and WEVD in New York as well as in Cleveland, Las Vegas, Boulder, Indianapolis and Washington, DC. On television, Aryeh Spero has appeared on CBS, C-SPAN, WOR, NET (American Family, Paul Weyrich, Capital Watch) and MSNBC. He has spoken in front of the National Press Club, testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee and has addressed The Heritage Foundation.  He is an acclaimed public speaker in from of diverse audiences.  Aryeh Spero’s articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, National Review, New York Sun, Human Events, Policy Review, American Conservative Union, Christian American, Fundamentalist Journal, Judaism, Tradition, Midstream, Response, Sh’ma, Jewish Spectator, Jewish Week, Post and Opinion, Viewpoint, Jewish Press, Free Congress Foundation and he has contributed a chapter to Cultural Conservatism. He is also a contributor to Jewish World Review.  He has been invited to inform policy-makers, candidates and elected officials and has led a conservative think-tank. During his career he has led congregations in the Midwest, South and North east.

 

Rabbi Eliyahu Stern is a founder and President of Lishmah: A Day of Jewish Learning. He received rabbinic ordination and an MA in Talmud from Yeshiva Univeristy. His articles have appeared in The Jewish Week, Jerusalem Report and First Things. Currently, he is a Koret Fellow in Judaic Studies at U.C. Berkeley.

 

Dr. Daniel Statman is a full Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Haifa. His primary interests are in moral and legal philosophy, philosophy of halakha and modern Jewish philosophy. He is author of Moral Dilemmas (1995), and co-author of Religion and Morality (1995) and of Judaism: Between Religion and Morality (1999). He has recently began a project on the religious beliefs of modern orthodoxy.

 

Linda Levi Tarlow is Assistant Executive Vice President of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, where she oversees JDC’s services to Jews in need in 56 countries around the world.  In fulfilling JDC’s mission of Rescue, Relief, and Reconstruction, she has traveled extensively: to strengthen social services in Israel, to enhance Jewish renewal in the Former Soviet Union, to assist Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia.  Ms. Levi, who received her MA from Brandeis University’s Hornstein Program in Jewish Communal Service, is active in many areas of Jewish communal life. She is a Vice President of Edah. She is married to Steve Tarlow.  They reside in Teaneck, New Jersey.

 

Rabbi Dr. Daniel Tropper is the Founder and President of Gesher. Danny received his ordination from Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik and his Ph.D. from Yeshiva University (1970). In 1978, he was appointed Special Advisor for Jewish Education by Education Minister, Zevulun Hammer and established the Department for Jewish Identity, serving as its director as well. He is one of the founders of the "Joint Program for Jewish Education" of the State of Israel and the Jewish Agency, serving as its first Director, from 1981-1984. However, his primary activity since his founding of GESHER in 1970 has been promoting GESHER's advancement as a major force in the development of mutual understanding and tolerance between the religious and secular communities in Israel and in the intensification of Jewish identity among the students of the State of Israel's public school system. Dr. Tropper has received numerous awards, among them Yaakov Agrast Award for the Furtherance of Jewish Education and the prestigious Avi-Chai Prize for "his significant contribution toward increasing mutual understanding and sensitivity among Jews of different backgrounds and commitments to religious observance in Israel." In May of 2000, he received a special Award of Distinction from the Speaker of the Knesset and the Minister of Social and Diaspora Affairs for a lifetime's work of 30 years in the field of dialogue. Rabbi Tropper has published both scientific and popular articles in the Jewish Quarterly Review, Tradition, Petachim, The Jerusalem Report, Maariv and The Jerusalem Post. He lectures extensively in schools, army bases and public forums throughout Israel and abroad.

Moshe Tur-Paz is chairman of  Israel’s Ne’emanei Tora Va’Avoda, (Torah and Labor Faithful) which promotes values of openness in the religious and traditionalist sectors of Israeli society. He has worked for the last seven years in the Pelech High School in Jerusalem, where he was the head of Jewish Studies and a Board Member. He is currently completing his his doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the field of Halacha in the Second Temple Era. He also serves in the Parachute Reserves as a Major. Moshe lives in Jerusalem with his wife and two children.

Dr. Jacob Ukeles, Ph.D is the President of Ukeles Associates Inc (UAI), a New York-based planning, policy research, and management consulting firm.  He is also the senior consultant for organizational development to the Joint Distribution Committee. He was a Fulbright Fellow in India, and earned his Master's in City Planning and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.  Dr. Ukeles was a student of the renowned scholar, Rabbi Yehuda Gershuni, Z”T”L. A former National Treasurer of the Orthodox Union, he is a member of the EDAH Advisory Council.  He is married to Mierle Laderman Ukeles, an artist, and is the father of Yael, Raquel and Meir, and the father-in-law of Pamela Laufer-Ukeles.

 

Mierle Laderman Ukeles has been artist-in-residence for the New York City Department of Sanitation since 1978. One of her bigger projects involved the Fresh Kills Landfill near New York City. She created her first projects about garbage in the late 1960s. "The design of garbage should become the great public design of our age," says Ukeles. "I am talking about the whole picture: recycling facilities, transfer stations, trucks, landfills, receptacles, water treatment plants, rivers. They will be the giant clocks and thermometers of our age that tell the time and the health of the air, the earth, and the water. They will be utterly ambitious -- our public cathedrals. For if we are to survive, they will be our symbols for survival."  She is married to Dr. Jacob Ukeles and is the mother of Yael, Raquel, and Meir.

Rabbi Avi Weiss is the senior rabbi of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, an 800 family modern orthodox congregation in New York.  He is the founder and dean of the newly established Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the open orthodox rabbinical school in New York.  Rabbi Weiss is the president of the MEOROT Institute, whose mission is to inspire and train men and women to enter professionally into Jewish religious leadership.  He is also the national president of the Coalition for Jewish Concerns-Amcha.  He is the author of Women at Prayer: A Halakhic Analysis of Women’s Prayer Groups.  His new book, Principles of Spiritual Activism, was released in January 2002.  Ktav published both books.

Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey R. Woolf, a native of Boston, is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Talmud at Bar-Ilan, where he specializes in the History of Jewish Law and Jewish Intellectual History, and the History of Medieval Ashkenazic and Renaissance Italian Jewry. He received his doctorate in medieval Jewish History from Harvard University in 1991. Prior to making Aliyah in 1993, he spent two years as a post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale University. Rabbi Dr. Woolf studied for over nine years with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and received semikha from him at RIETS in 1982. He had previously received semikha, and received training in applied Halakhah, from the noted Poseq, Rabbi Gedaliah Felder zt’l, the chief rabbi of Toronto. For the past two years, he has pursued studies toward Dayyanut at Kollel Eretz Hemdah in Jerusalem. He is the author of over twenty-five scholarly monographs, as well as a large number of op-ed articles in the Israeli Press. He is presently at work on a book on the central legal and psychological categories of medieval Ashkenazic culture, which will be published by Brill Academic Press in Leiden as part of its distinguished Études sur la Judaïsme Mediévale series. Recently, he was appointed to the editorial board supervising the rewriting of the Encyclopedia Judaica. Rabbi Woolf was the founding Chairman of the Israel Branch of the Orthodox Forum of Yeshiva University and has been active in advancing dialogue between the orthodox and non-orthodox sectors of Israeli society. He is the immediate past commander of the rapid deployment unit of the Civil Guard in Efrat. He is happily married to Toby (née Bergstein). They are blessed with five children.

 

Rabbi Dr. Alan Yuter received his BA from Temple University and his MA from Hunter College. His BHL came from Gratz College and his MHL from JTSA. Rabbi Yuter went to New York University to study for his PhD in Hebrew Literature and to Yeshiva University for his Orthodox ordination.  His current positions involve teaching Judaic studies and a Masters joint program with FDU/UTJ.

 

Dr. Efraim Zuroff is the Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Israel Office and the Coordinator of Nazi War Crimes Research, SWC.  Born in New York, Efraim moved to Israel in 1970 after completing his undergraduate degree in history (with honors) at Yeshiva University. He obtained a M.A. degree in Holocaust studies at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University, where he also completed his Ph.D., which chronicles the response of Orthodox Jewry in the United States to the Holocaust and focuses on the rescue attempts launched by the Vaad ha-Hatzala rescue committee.  In recent years, Zuroff has lectured extensively to audiences all over the world regarding the efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. His publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Yad Vashem Studies, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, and American Jewish History, as well as in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Jerusalem Post, Tikkun, Jerusalem Report, Ma’ariv, Ha-Aretz, Yediot Achronot, Jewish Chronicle and other publications and have been translated into eleven languages.