Individual Category: Advisory Committee

Joshua Boettiger is a Jewish Chaplain Rabbi at Bard. Previously he served a congregation in Ashland, Oregon, where he taught Jewish Meditation and led Mussar groups at the synagogue.                  

Ambassador Frederic Hof is an author, veteran, ambassador, and Diplomat in Residence at Bard College. He served as special coordinator for regional affairs in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace under Special Envoy George Mitchell and numerous

Susannah Heschel is an author, scholar, and the Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. In addition, she has received four honorary doctorates from universities in the United States, Canada, and Germany.                  

Reverend Mary Grace Williams is Chaplain, Dean of Community Life, and Vicar of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church at Bard College.                  

Jeffrey Wilkinson is a facilitator, focusing on issues of equity, social justice and inclusive education. His current work concerns the psycho-social causes of intractable conflicts, researching not only how these conflicts are formed, but also how they may be undone over time. Wilkinson’s PhD dissertation

Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He is a weekly columnist for Bloomberg and The National (UAE) and is also a regular contributor to many other U.S. and Middle Eastern publications. He has made thousands of radio and television appearances and was the Washington,

Raja is a prominent community leader, social entrepreneur and human rights advocate. His active work in equity projects over the past 20 years, including intercultural outreach, ten years as commissioner at the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and advocacy leadership with Human Rights Watch – all

Steven Windmueller is the Emeritus Professor of Jewish Communal Studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles and is a leading expert about Jewish politics and the author of several articles, publications and books, which includes The Quest for Power, a Study in

Varun Soni is a professor, author, producer, speaker, and Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California. He is also currently a University Fellow at USC Annenberg’s Center on Public Diplomacy and an Adjunct Professor at the USC School of Religion.    

Ruth H. Sohn is a rabbi, teacher, and writer. She is Director of the Leona Aronoff Rabbinic Mentoring Program at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, where she also serves as Rabbi of the Lainer Beit Midrash.      

Bruce Phillips is an author, researcher, and Professor of Sociology & Jewish Communal Service at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles and Senior Research Fellow at the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture.            

Steve Rabinowitz is a political image maker, media strategist, publicist, and event planner who works for progressive, Democratic, and Jewish causes. A former Clinton White House press aide, he founded Bluelight Strategies, a Washington public affairs firm, in 2014 with Aaron Keyak, the Biden campaign

Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on U.S. foreign policy. Previously he served at the State Department as a Middle East historian, analyst, negotiator, and advisor to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. He has written

Burton L. Visotzky is a scholar, author, lecturer, and rabbi. He serves as Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at The Jewish Theological Seminary. Professor Visotzky participated in interreligious engagement worldwide and was the winner of the 2012 Goldziher Prize, awarded by Merrimack College

Rabbi Joel Thal Simonds is the founding executive director of the Jewish Center for Justice, where he envisioned the need for a Jewish justice organization to reach the unaffiliated and expand the breadth and scope of the wider Jewish community. Previously, he was the West

Daniel Kurtzer, a professor of Middle East policy at Princeton University since 2006, was the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt and to Israel during a 29-year career in the Foreign Service. He is the co-author and editor of three books on the Middle East peace process.

Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller is a faculty member at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He is also director emeritus of the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA, where he was executive director for more than 40 years. In 2014, Chaim initiated

Rabbi John L. Rosove is senior rabbi emeritus of Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles, is a national co-chair of the Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet of J Street, the immediate past national chairman of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, and is a

Rabbi Joy Levitt is the CEO of the JCC of Manhattan. She also was a congregational rabbi on Long Island and in New Jersey. She is the founder of the Jewish Journey Project, an initiative designed to revolutionize afternoon Jewish education for children and the

Hannah Rosenthal served as United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism in the Obama administration and has been a commissioner of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. As special envoy, Rosenthal and her staff established a mandatory 90-minute course on antisemitism at

Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the executive director of T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, which mobilizes more than 2,000 rabbis and their communities across the U.S. and Canada to protect and advance human rights in those countries and in Israel and the occupied Palestinian

Jeremy Ben-Ami is the president of J Street, which organizes pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans to promote U.S. policies that secure Israel and embody Jewish and Democratic values. In the mid-1990s he served as the deputy domestic policy advisor to President Clinton and later started a consulting

Dr. John Ruskay is executive vice president emeritus of UJA-Federation of New York and a senior partner of JRB Consulting Services. Dr. Ruskay served on the U.S.Commission on International Religious Freedom under President Obama. He has also served in a range of community volunteer roles,

Sarah Bunin Benor is an author, editor, and Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles and an Adjunct Professor in the University of Southern California Linguistics Department.                

Michael Berenbaum is the Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust and a Professor of Jewish Studies at the American Jewish University. He was Project Director overseeing the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and

Rabbi Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR,which launched in 2004 with the goal of reinvigorating Jewish tradition and practice and inspiring people of faith to reclaim a moral and prophetic voice. IKAR, one of the fastest growing and most influential Jewish

Geoffrey Cowan is a lawyer, government official, best-selling author, distinguished professor, nonprofit executive, and Emmy Award-winning producer. He was the 22nd Director of the Voice of America and is now the inaugural holder of the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership and Director of USC

Reuven Firestone is a scholar, author, and the Regenstein Professor in Medieval Judaism and Islam at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, and Affiliate Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California.              

Rabbi Laura Geller is rabbi emerita of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, CA. She was twice named one of Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America, and was named by PBS Next Avenue as one of the 502017 Influencers in Aging. Prior to becoming one

Father James Lewis Heft, an ordained priest in the Society of Mary, is an academic and theologian. He is president of the Institute of Advanced Catholic Studies and the Alton M. Brooks Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California.        

Dove Kent has two decades of experience in grassroots organizing, political education, and movement building. She served as the director of Jews for Racial & Economic Justice from 2011 to 2017, and is the co-founder of Tzedek Lab, a network of organizers, political educators and