The Authors
Martha Ackelsberg, PhD, is professor of government at Smith College where she teaches applied democracy and women's studies. She is the author of Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women as well as numerous articles on women's community activism, gender and public policy, and women in Judaism.
Rabbi Rebecca Alpert, PhD, is assistant professor of religion and women's studies at Temple University. She is the author of Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition, and the co-author of Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach.
Diane Balser, PhD, is the former executive director of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and is currently co-chair of Brit Tzedek's Advocacy and Public Policy Committee. She is also a professor of women's studies at Boston University.
Jeremy Benstein, PhD, is a founder and associate director of the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership. He is the author of The Way into Judaism and the Environment (Jewish Lights), and a regular contributor to the Jerusalem Report.
Rabbi Phyllis Berman is the founder (1979) and director of the Riverside Language Program in New York City for adult immigrants and refugees. She is the co-author of Tales of Tikkun: New Jewish Stories to Heal the Wounded World and A Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven: The Jewish Life-Spiral As A Spiritual Journey.
Ellen Bernstein founded Shomrei Adamah: Keepers of the Earth, the first national Jewish environmental organization, in 1988. She is author of The Splendor of Creation and other works exploring the relationship between Judaism and Ecology/Nature.
Marla Brettschneider, PhD, is associate professor of political science and women's studies at the University of New Hampshire, where she also coordinates the queer studies program. She served as the executive director of Jews For Racial and Economic Justice from 2002-2004. Her books include The Family Flamboyant: Race Politics, Queer Families, Jewish Lives; Democratic Theorizing from the Margins; and Cornerstones of Peace: Jewish Identity Politics and Democratic Theory.
Rabbi Sharon Brous is the founding rabbi of IKAR, an innovative spiritual community devoted to the integration of religious practice and social justice. She was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary and holds a master's degree in religion and human rights from Columbia University. Rabbi Brous was named one of the 50 most influential Jews of the year by the Forward newspaper in 2006 and 2007.
Aryeh Cohen, PhD, is associate professor of rabbinic literature at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He has taught at Hebrew Union College‚ Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and Brandeis University. Dr. Cohen is the author of Rereading Talmud: Gender, Law and the Poetics of Sugyot, and co-editor of Beginning/Again: Towards a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts. He is a founding member of Jews Against the War.
Stephen P. Cohen, PhD, is a leader in the practice and theory of unofficial diplomacy known as Track Two Diplomacy. Dr. Cohen founded the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development in 1979 and has served as its president ever since. He is the national scholar of the Israel Policy Forum and in the last years has served as a visiting professor at Princeton University and Lehigh University.
Aaron Dorfman is the director of Jewish education at the American Jewish World Service (AJWS). Before joining AJWS, Aaron completed the Wexner Graduate Fellowship with a master's degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a year of study at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Elliot Dorff, PhD, is the rector and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the American Jewish University. Rabbi Dorff is vice-chair of the Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. His many publications include: Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors to Our Descendants; Knowing God: Jewish Journeys to the Unknowable; Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics; To Do the Right and the Good: A Jewish Approach to Modern Social Ethics, winner of the National Jewish Book Award in Contemporary Jewish Life for 2003; and The Way Into Tikkun Olam (Jewish Lights).
Rabbi David Ellenson, PhD, is the president of Hebrew Union College‚ Jewish Institute of Religion, and the I.H. and Anna Grancell Professor of Jewish Religious Thought. He is also a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jerusalem, and a fellow and lecturer at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Rabbi Ellenson is the author of Tradition in Transition: Orthodoxy, Halakhah and the Boundaries of Modern Jewish History; Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modern Jewish Orthodoxy; and After Emancipation: Jewish Religious Responses to Modernity, winner of the 2005 National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought and Experience.
Jacob Feinspan is a senior policy associate at the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) and directs AJWS's advocacy programs on global HIV/AIDS, international debt cancellation, and Darfur in Washington, D.C. In addition to representing AJWS on Capitol Hill, he coordinates the grassroots advocacy of thousands of AJWS supporters around the country.
Rabbi Marla J. Feldman is the director of the Joint Commission on Social Action of the Union for Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis. She has co-founded several grassroots organizations including the Detroit Coalition for Literacy and the Hope and Help Center of Central Florida. Her writings have appeared in various publications, including From Tzedek to Tzedakah: Social and Economic Issues of Concern for Women and Children.
Sandra M. Fox, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker in private practice. She also serves as chair of the Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare, is an organizer for Healthcare-NOW, and chair of the Single-Payer Health Care Task Force of the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network.
Julia Greenberg is the director of grants at the American Jewish World Service (AJWS). A graduate of Wesleyan University, Julia spearheaded AJWS' HIV/AIDS program in Africa.
Mark Hanis is the founder and executive director of the Genocide Intervention Network, an organization created to empower citizens with the tools to prevent and stop genocide. He is a Draper Richards fellow and an Echoing Green fellow.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the director of education for the Jewish Funds for Justice. Her writings have appeared in magazines, journals and websites, including Conservative Judaism; Tikkun; The Reconstructionist; Lilith; the Forward; Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal; and MyJewishLearning.com. Rabbi Jacobs was named one of the 50 most influential Jews of the year by the Forward newspaper in 2007.
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, PhD, is the senior editor at Zeek and former senior and managing editor at Tikkun. A graduate of Yale University, she holds a doctorate in American Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, and is the author of a number of essays on contemporary politics. She is currently writing a book tentatively entitled New Judaism.
Rabbi Jane Kanarek, PhD, is assistant professor of rabbinics at Hebrew College, where she teaches Talmud and Jewish law. She received rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and a doctorate from the University of Chicago. Rabbi Kanarek is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship.
Margie Klein is a third-year student at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, and the founder and leader of Moishe House Boston: Kavod Jewish Social Justice House. A graduate of Yale University, Margie founded and directed Project Democracy, a youth voting project that mobilized 97,000 college students to vote in the 2004 election.
Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla was ordained at Hebrew Union College in 2006. Currently a fellow in clinical pastoral education at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center, he previously served as the rabbi of the Danforth Jewish Circle in Toronto. Rabbi Kukla is the author of several articles on Judaism and social justice.
Joshua Seth Ladon is a master's student in Jewish philosophy at the Tel Aviv University and a Melamdim Teaching Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.
Arieh Leibowitz is the communications director at the Jewish Labor Committee and co-editor of Archives of the Holocaust, Volume 14: Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University‚ Records of the Jewish Labor Committee.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, PhD, is the editor of Tikkun, rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco and Berkeley, national chair of the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives, and author of 11 books, including Jewish Renewal and most recently, The Left Hand of God: Healing America's Political and Spiritual Crisis.
Shaul Magid, PhD, is the Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Professor of Modern Judaism at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author of Hasidism on the Margin. His latest book, From Metaphysics to Midrash: History, Myth, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala, will appear in 2008 with Indiana University Press. Dr. Magid is a founding member of Jews Against the War.
Rabbi Natan Margalit, PhD, is the director of the Oraita Institute for Continuing Rabbinic Education of Hebrew College, and assistant professor of rabbinics at Hebrew College. His writings on rabbinic literature and on Judaism and the environment have appeared in several academic and popular journals.
Ruth Messinger is the president and executive director of the American Jewish World Service (AJWS). Prior to assuming this role in 1998, Messinger was in public service in New York City for 20 years, including having served as Manhattan Borough President. In 1997, she was the first woman to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for mayor. Messinger is currently a visiting professor at Hunter College, teaching urban policy and politics. For the past four years, Messinger has been named one of the 50 most influential Jews of the year by the Forward newspaper.
Jay Michaelson is the founder and executive director of Nehirim, an organization that builds spiritual and cultural community for LGBT Jews. Jay is also chief editor of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture, a columnist for the Forward, a Ph.D. candidate in Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and author of God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights).
Rabbi Micha Odenheimer is a contributing editor for the Jerusalem Report. The founding director of the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews, he currently runs Tevel B'tzedek, a service and advocacy program for Israelis traveling in Southeast Asia. Micha's articles have been published widely in newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and Israel.
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner is the founding director of Just Congregations. As a congregational rabbi at Temple Israel in Boston, he developed the award winning 'Ohel Tzedek / Tent of Justice' social action initiative. He is a leader in the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, and serves on the Task Force on Congregation-Based Community Organizing of the Jewish Funds for Justice.
Judith Plaskow, PhD, is a Jewish feminist theologian and professor of religious studies at Manhattan College. In addition to co-founding the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, she has written and edited several significant books in the field, including one of the first feminist dissertations in religious studies, Sex, Sin, and Grace: Women's Experience and the Theologies of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. Plaskow also wrote the first full-length Jewish feminist theology, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective. Her collection of essays, The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics: 1972-2003, appeared in 2005. Dr. Plaskow is past president of the American Academy of Religion.
Rabbi Or N. Rose is associate dean at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. He is the author of Abraham Joshua Heschel: Man of Spirit, Man of Action (a biography for children), and co-editor of God in All Moments: Spiritual and Practical Wisdom from the Hasidic Masters (Jewish Lights). Or is a contributing editor for Tikkun and is on the advisory board of Sh'ma. He is currently completing a doctorate in Jewish thought at Brandeis University.
Judith Rosenbaum, PhD, is the director of education at the Jewish Women's Archive and co-curator of the online exhibit Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution. Judith earned a B.A. in History from Yale University and a doctorate in American Civilization, with a specialty in women's history, from Brown University.
April Rosenblum is the author of the widely distributed pamphlet 'The Past Didn't Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Anti-Semitism Part of All of Our Movements,' and has written for Bridges, New Voices, and Afn Shvel, the journal of the League for Yiddish. She was named one of the 50 most influential Jews of the year by the Forward newspaper in 2007.
Adam Rubin, PhD, is assistant professor of Jewish history at Hebrew Union College‚ Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. He is currently writing a book on the Jewish community in Palestine during the period of the British Mandate, entitled "The People of the Book": Sacred Texts, Hebrew Culture, and the Making of a Jewish Nation in Palestine, 1924-1948. He is a founding member of 'Jews Against the War.'
Danya Ruttenberg is the editor of the anthology Yentl's Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism, and is a contributing editor to both Lilith magazine and Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal. She expects to receive rabbinic ordination from the American Jewish University in 2008.
Rabbi David Saperstein has served as the director of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism for over 30 years. He co-chairs the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty and serves on the boards of numerous national organizations, including the NAACP and People For the American Way. In 1999, Rabbi Saperstein was elected as the first chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Dara Silverman is the executive director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ). Prior to her work at JFREJ, Dara worked with United for a Fair Economy, and the Ruckus Society. Dara co-founded Tekiah: A Jewish Call to Action in Boston and co-authored The Love and Justice in Times of War Haggadah.
Joel Schalit is an Israeli-American writer and editor. The former co-director of the world's longest-running online periodical, Bad Subjects, he also served as the managing editor of Tikkun. The author of the memoir Jerusalem Calling, and the editor of The Anti-Capitalism Reader, Joel's Israel vs. Utopia is forthcoming in 2008 from Akashic.
Rabbi Sid Schwarz, PhD, is the founder and president of PANIM: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values, which promotes Jewish activism and social responsibility. A winner of a 2002 Covenant Award for his social entrepreneurship in Jewish education, he is the author of Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of Jews Can Transform the American Synagogue and Judaism and Justice: The Jewish Passion to Repair the World (both from Jewish Lights).
Martin I. Seltman, M.D., is Family Practice department chair at the Western Pennsylvania Hospital, residency director at the Forbes Family Practice, and a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for a National Health Program, and the Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare.
Daniel Sokatch is the executive director of Progressive Jewish Alliance, a California-based Jewish social justice organization. He was trained as an attorney and holds a master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Shana Starobin trained as a grassroots organizer with Green Corps and has since worked on several environmental campaigns throughout the country. A graduate of Harvard University and the Dorot Fellowship Program in Israel, Shana is currently a candidate for a joint master's degree in environmental management and public policy at Duke University.
Naomi Tucker is the co-founder and executive director of Shalom Bayit (Bay Area Jewish Women Working to End Domestic Violence). She is past chair of the Jewish Women's Caucus of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and currently serves as a national consultant on faith-based approaches to ending violence in the home.
Abby Uhrman is a doctoral student in education and Jewish studies at New York University and a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles. She serves as a language specialist at the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, PhD, is the director of The Shalom Center, which voices a new prophetic agenda in Jewish, multireligious, and American life. A co-author of The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Rabbi Waskow is also the author of Godwrestling‚ Round 2 and many other books on public policy and Jewish thought and practice.
Rabbi Melissa Weintraub is the co-founder and co-director of Encounter, an organization that provides Jewish diaspora leaders with exposure to Palestinian life. A graduate of Harvard University, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, Melissa has published several articles on human dignity, war ethics, and human rights.