Presenter Bios

Deena Aranoff is Faculty Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. She teaches rabbinic literature, medieval patterns of Jewish thought, and the broader question of continuity and change in Jewish history. Her recent publications engage with the subject of childcare, maternity and the making of Jewish culture.

Zohar Atkins is the Founder and Director of Etz Hasadeh and the author of Nineveh and Unframing Existence. A Rhodes Scholar and a poet, he writes a weekly Torah commentary newsletter at www.tinyletter.com/etzhasadeh.

Nathaniel Berman is the Rahel Varnhagen Professor in Brown University's Religious Studies Department. Most recently, his work has focused on the relationship between religion and legal and political discourse. Major projects in Judaic Studies emphasize the mythological strands of kabbalah's formative period in 12th and 13th century France and Spain. Pursuing his interest in "otherness," Berman has explored complex kabbalistic myths of the relationships between the divine and demonic realms. This scholarship has particularly focused on the "Sefer Ha-Zohar," the "Book of Splendor." In exploring these texts, Berman has used the methods of classical and modern rhetorical theory, as well as Freudian and poststructuralist psychoanalysis. A summa cum laude graduate of Yale College, Berman received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, and his PhD in Jewish Studies from University College London.

Edward Bleiberg is Curator Emeritus of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Brooklyn Museum. He graduated from Haverford College in Pennsylvania and received an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He is the author of several books and articles on ancient Egyptian economy, Egyptian coffins, and the Jewish minority in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome.

Marc Zvi Brettler is Bernice & Morton Lerner Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies at Duke University, and Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies (Emeritus) at Brandeis University. He is author, most recently, of How to Read the Jewish Bible, co-editor of The Jewish Study Bible and The Jewish Annotated New Testament (with Amy-Jill Levine), and co-author of The Bible and the Believer (with Peter Enns and Daniel J. Harrington), and The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (with Amy-Jill Levine). Brettler is cofounder of Project TABS (Torah and Biblical Scholarship) and of the web site TheTorah.com.

Hadar Cohen is a feminist multi-media artist, healer and educator originally from Jerusalem. Her Mizrahi Jewish roots influence her approach to justice, healing, and spirituality. Hadar is the founder of Feminism All Night, a project that designs communal immersive learning experiences about feminism, and is the creator of Jerusalem In Exile, a psychosomatic film on the political and spiritual reality of Jerusalem, and Prostrations, a High Holiday art show on embodied Jewish prayer. She teaches Jewish scripture and embodied practices through various platforms, including At The Well. Her artistic mediums include performance, movement, writing, weaving, sound and ritual. Hadar is currently a fellow at Abrahamic House, a multi-faith incubator for social change based in Los Angeles. You can see her work at hadarcohen.me.

Ayala Dekel is the coordinator of study groups and parenting groups at BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change, where she also serves as an instructor in the Secular Yeshiva. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Yachad.

Elka Deitsch is a curator of Jewish art and a consultant specializing in private collections. She has created numerous exhibitions and catalogues on a wide range of subjects related to Jewish history, art, and culture. She was the inaugural and senior curator at the Bernard Museum of Judaica at Temple Emanu-El in New York City for fifteen years. Her exhibitions include The Venice Ghetto and Beyond and BEZALEL: Art, Craft & Jewish National Identity. She received her M.A from the Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture and her B.A from Barnard College, Columbia University.

Leon Wiener Dow is head of the beit midrash at Kolot and teaches at BINA’s Secular Yeshiva in Tel Aviv. He received a BA from Princeton University, an MA in Jewish thought from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, private rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Professor David Hartman ז”ל, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Bar Ilan University. His book U’vlekhtekha Va’derekh (Hebrew) constructs an approach to halakha (Jewish law) based on the thought of Franz Rosenzweig. In his newest book, The Going, he offers a meditation on Jewish law.

Elli Fischer is an independent writer, translator, and rabbi. Previously, he was the JLIC rabbi and campus educator at the University of Maryland. He holds BA and MS degrees from Yeshiva University, rabbinical ordination from Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, and is working toward a doctorate in Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. He is a founding editor of The Lehrhaus, a web magazine of contemporary Jewish thought. His original writing has appeared in Commentary, Moment, Jewish Review of Books, Mosaic, the Journal of Halakha and Contemporary Society, and other print and online publications, and he often writes for the New York Jewish Week. He is the translator of By Faith Alone: The Story of Rabbi Yehuda Amital and the editor of Rabbi Eliezer Melamed’s Peninei Halakha series in English.

Richard Elliott Friedman is the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia and is the Katzin Professor of Jewish Civilization Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He earned his Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible at Harvard University. His book Who Wrote the Bible? has sold over 250,000 copies and was the subject of a three-hour television special. His other books include The Disappearance of God (published in paperback as The Hidden Face of God), The Hidden Book in the Bible, Commentary on the Torah, The Bible with Sources Revealed, The Bible Now (co-authored with Shawna Dolansky). His most recent book is The Exodus: How It Happened and Why It Matters. He offers weekly lectures on the jewishLIVE program “Richard Elliott Friedman: Return to Torah.”

Elliot Vaisrub Glassenberg is an American-Canadian-Israeli queer Jewish educator and activist. Elliot is a senior educator at BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change and co-chair of Right Now: Advocates for Asylum Seekers in Israel.

Shira Hecht-Koller is Director of Education for 929 English. She has over fifteen years of experience teaching Jewish Studies and designing interdisciplinary curricula in the classroom and immersive learning environments. She has taught at North Shore Hebrew Academy, SARHS, and at Drisha Institute, where she directed the Dr. Beth Samuels Talmud Fellowship Program. Prior to her work in Jewish education she practiced corporate law at Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP. Her writing has appeared in Tablet, The Forward, The Lehrhaus, The Jewish Week, Times of Israel and ejewishphilanthropy and her photography illustrates The Jewish Journey Haggadah. She was a Paradigm Fellow at the Paideia Institute of Jewish Studies in Stockholm, and is currently a Fellow in the Jewish Pedagogies Circle at M²: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education. She holds a JD from Cardozo School of Law, and is a graduate of the Bruriah Scholars advanced Talmud program at Midreshet Lindenbaum. 

Zoe Fertik is Associate Director of Jewish Content at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto. Zoe’s work at the OFJCC is in partnership with BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change. Previously, Zoe founded an immersive Jewish learning program at BINA, called Beit Midrash TLV.

Emily Shapiro Katz is an educational consultant for Jewish schools in Milan and Copenhagen through the organization EFI, "Educating for Impact." She also runs a local Bat Mitzvah program and Parsha Art program in her hometown of Be'er Sheva. Some of her adventures in Torah and art can be found at: https://emilyshapirokatz.wixsite.com/yetzira

Yehuda Kurtzer is the President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, a pioneering research and educational center for the leadership of the North American Jewish community, and he teaches in its many platforms for rabbis, lay leaders, Jewish professionals, and leaders of other faith communities. He is the host of Hartman’s Identity/Crisis podcast which can be found at identitycrisispod.com. Yehuda Kurtzer received his doctorate in Jewish Studies from Harvard University and an MA in Religion from Brown University,. He served as faculty member at Brandeis University, where he held the inaugural Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation. He is the author of Shuva: The Future of the Jewish Past, which offers new thinking to contemporary Jews on navigating the tensions between history and memory; and the co-editor of The New Jewish Canon, a collection of the most significant Jewish ideas and debates of the past two generations.

Sara Labaton is the Director of Teaching and Learning at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. She has a PhD in medieval Jewish thought from NYU’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and has taught in various Jewish educational settings.  

Shaul Magid is the Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. From 2004-2018 he was a professor of religious studies and the Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Chair of Jewish Studies in Modern Judaism at Indiana University, as well as a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Before that he served from 1996-2004 as a professor of Jewish philosophy at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he was chair of the Department of Jewish Philosophy from 2000-2004. He is the author of American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society, and his book Piety and Rebellion: Essays in Hasidism was published in 2019.

Teklit Michael is the Maryland Delegate at Refugee Congress, Co-Chair of Right Now: Advocates for Asylum Seekers in Israel, and a former asylum seeker from Eritrea. After spending more than a decade advocating for refugee rights as an asylum seeker in Israel, Teklit now resides in Silver Spring, MD. In Tel Aviv, he served as a vocal activist and community organizer through such organizations as the Eritrean Women's Community Center and the Union of Eritreans Initiative for Social Justice. Teklit also served in the St. Mary's Eritrean Orthodox Church in Tel Aviv to provide further emotional and spiritual support for survivors of displacement and human trafficking. Teklit also served on the board of directors for the African Refugee Development Center.

Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg is a historian of Early Modern Jewry. She studies the history of knowledge, focusing on halakha (Jewish law) in sixteenth-century Europe. Tamara's dissertation showed how material, social, and cultural changes in the sixteenth century, such as technological innovation, new forms of organization, and communal rupture profoundly transformed the world of halakha. Her work explores how scholars interact with knowledge, transmit it, understand it, and create it, and how the forms that texts take profoundly impact our ways of understanding them. She teaches and lectures widely in academic and Jewish contexts. Tamara received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.

Daniel Reifman teaches Talmud in the Pardes Kollel and the Intensive Talmud Skills course, which is co-sponsored by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, and he is the director of the Drisha Summer Kollel at NYU. He holds a B.A. in biology from Columbia University, rabbinic ordination and an M.A. in Tanakh from Yeshiva University, and a Ph.D in hermeneutics from Bar-Ilan University. He has taught at Midreshet Lindenbaum and Midreshet AMIT in Jerusalem, at the BINA Secular Yeshiva in Tel Aviv, and at the Drisha Institute and Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in New York. He has published and lectured widely on topics in philosophy of halakhah and Jewish medical ethics.

Jeffrey Saks is the founding director of ATID – The Academy for Torah Initiatives and Directions in Jewish Education, in Jerusalem, and its WebYeshiva.org program. He also serves as the Editor of the journal Tradition, Series Editor of The S.Y. Agnon Library at The Toby Press, and Director of Research at the Agnon House in Jerusalem, and a consulting editor of The Lehrhaus. A three-time graduate of Yeshiva University (BA, MA, Semicha), he was a Jerusalem Fellow at the Mandel Leadership Institute.

Devorah Schoenfeld teaches Judaism at Loyola University Chicago.  She received her PhD from the Graduate Theological Union in 2007, and received ordination from Yeshivat Maharat in 2019.  She has written on Jewish-Christian relations, medieval biblical interpretation, and comparative theology.  Her previous book Isaac on Jewish and Christian Altars (Fordham University Press 2012) compares Jewish and Christian medieval interpretations of Isaac’s near-sacrifice.  She is currently working on a book on the theological implications of the Song of Songs in medieval exegesis.

Chaim Seidler-Feller recently celebrated his fortieth year of working with students and faculty as the Executive Director of the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA; he is currently Director Emeritus.  Chaim received Rabbinic Ordination in 1971 at Yeshiva University, where he completed a Masters in Rabbinic Literature. Chaim has been a lecturer in the Departments of Sociology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA and in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is also a faculty member of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and the Wexner Heritage Foundation. He was the founding director of the Hartman Fellowship for Campus Professionals and a founding member of Americans for Peace Now. In 2014 he initiated a fact-finding mission for non-Jewish student leaders to Israel and the Palestine Authority that is now offered on sixty campuses across the country. 

Faustine Sigal is a Jewish educator based in Paris, working to empower young European Jews in growing their commitment to the local Jewish future through text and tradition. She currently serves as Moishe House's International Director of Jewish Education, supporting young adults around the world as they build Jewish communities for themselves and their peers. She has also taught biblical studies in schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris. Faustine holds an M.A. in Public Policy from Sciences Po Paris as well as an M.A. in Jewish Education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Anita Silvert is an experienced adult Jewish educator, facilitator, and a singer, actor, writer, and community builder. She was the Director of Enrollment at Spertus Institute, and the National Outreach Director for Chai Mitzvah. She had a monthly column in JUF News, and has a Torah blog called “Jewish Gems” She is a proud member of the Board of Limmud North America, and a founder of Limmud Chicago. Anita is a certified Bibliodramatist, and has facilitated groups for synagogues, retreats and conferences. She has pioneered applying Bibliodrama techniques to leadership and professional development.

Erin Leib Smokler is editor of Torah in a Time of Plague. She is Director of Spiritual Development and Dean of Students at Yeshivat Maharat Rabbinical School, where she teaches Hasidism and Pastoral Theology. She is also a Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. She earned both her PhD and MA from the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and her BA from Harvard University. Erin Leib Smokler previously served as Assistant Literary Editor of the New Republic, and her writing has appeared there, as well as in other publications. She is currently at work on a book, Torah of the Night: Pastoral Insights from the Weekly Portion.

Esther Sperber is the founder of Studio ST Architects in New York, writes and lectures about architecture, psychoanalysis, and culture. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Lilith, The Jewish Week, and several academic journals.

Tamara Mann Tweel is Director of Civic Initiatives at the Teagle Foundation. Previously, she served as the Director of Strategic Development for Hillel International’s Office of Innovation, where she founded and directed Civic Spirit, a multi-faith civic education initiative. She currently teaches in the American Studies Program at Columbia University, the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and serves on the Advisory Council of The Princeton University Office of Religious Life.  Dr. Tweel received a master’s degree in theological studies from the Harvard Divinity School and a doctorate in history from Columbia University. In 2009, she received the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award from the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Her work has been published in numerous academic and popular journals, magazines, and newspapers, including The Washington Post, The Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Journal of World History and Inside Higher Ed.

Steven Zeitchik is a staff writer at The Washington Post. He has written on film and television for more than 15 years, covering realms as diverse as the cultural reverberations of the Arab Spring in Cairo; the Ukrainians who used a film festival to provide small relief during a brutal war; and, in a tableaux that can seem most foreign of all, the latest indie-film trends at Sundance. He spent several years studying Biblical history and literature.

More Information about the Partners Behind the Akedah Project

About 929 English

929 is the number of chapters in Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, the formative text of the Jewish heritage. 929 English is a cutting-edge project dedicated to creating a global Jewish conversation around issues that unite and divide us, but always anchored in or inspired by Tanakh. 929 invites Jews everywhere to read Tanakh, one chapter a day, together with a website with creative readings and pluralistic interpretations, including audio and video, by a wide range of writers, artists, rabbis, educators, scholars, students and more. As an outgrowth of the web-based platform, 929 English also offers a diverse selection of classes, lectures and live events across North America. For more information, please visit 929.org.il/.

About BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change

BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change designs and implements cultural, social and educational programs for Israelis and Jews from all over the world, with the goal of enhancing Jewish and Israeli identity, particularly among non-orthodox Israelis, empowering individuals and groups to make a difference in their own lives, in their community and throughout Israeli society and beyond. For more information, visit bina.org.il/en/. 

About JewishLIVE and Judaism Unbound

JewishLIVE and Judaism Unbound are projects of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future, a US-based non-profit organization whose work happens primarily online and is not limited by geography. Judaism Unbound is best known for producing one of the most-listened-to Jewish podcasts, now with well over one million downloads, which explores ideas at the cutting edge of Jewish life today. The Institute launched jewishLIVE in March of 2020 as an entry portal to the “digital Jewish wilderness” in which most Jews suddenly found themselves as the COVID-19 crisis began. jewishLIVE offers a stage to world-class innovators, thinkers, artists, musicians and ritualists to showcase their creativity and expertise. For more information, visit www.jewishlive.org and www.judaismunbound.com.

About the Oshman Family JCC

The Oshman Family Jewish Community Center (OFJCC) is a community-supported nonprofit on the Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life which serves the South Peninsula through educational, social, cultural, fitness, sports and other programs. The OFJCC provides a common ground for Jewish institutions, other local groups, organizations and individuals to work, learn and play together for the betterment of the whole community. The OFJCC's registered trademarks are Live Fully® and Architects of the Jewish Future®. For more information, visit paloaltojcc.org or call (650) 223-8700.

About the Office of Innovation (OOI)

OOI (The Office of Innovation) is a lab for stewards of the Jewish covenant. We invest in extraordinary people to build new approaches to advance Jewish life and catalyze the same with like-minded partners. We share our learnings freely and widely. Torah in a Time of Plague (Ben Yehudah Press, Spring 2020), edited by Erin Leib Smokler, is a project of the OOI.