Beejhy Barhany

Beejhy Barhany- is a distinguished chef, author, and cultural bridge-builder who uses food as a universal language to connect communities worldwide.

She is the founder of the Beta Israel of North America Cultural Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering and celebrating the rich legacy of Ethiopian Jews, and proprietor of Tsion Café—an acclaimed Ethiopian-Israeli restaurant serving as a nurturing community hub in Harlem.

Her pioneering cookbook, Gursha: Timeless Recipes for Modern Kitchens from Ethiopia, Israel, Harlem and Beyond, made history as the first Ethiopian Jewish cookbook from a major American publisher and earned recognition among The New York Times' Best Cookbooks of 2025.

As a sought-after speaker, educator, and facilitator, Ms. Barhany conducts cooking demonstrations and cultural programming worldwide, fostering understanding and breaking barriers one meal at a time.

Ryan Dohrn

Ryan Dohrn is the owner of Niche Media Events and the founder of media sales training firm Brain Swell Media.  He has trained over 50,000 ad sales reps in 7 countries.  Ryan sells media every day and has been a part of over a BILLION dollars in media sales.  He is a graduate of the Cornell Executive Leadership Program and his 30-year media sales and marketing career includes leadership roles at Disney/ABC TV, Morris Publishing, PennWell Publishing, and The NY Times Company.  He is an Emmy Award winner, multiple business book author and has been featured in USA Today and on Forbes.com.  Ryan currently works monthly with over 50 media companies and their related sales and management teams.

Stephanie Ives

Since 2016, Stephanie Ives has joyfully served as Head of School at Beit Rabban Day School, driven by a passion for inspired education and purposeful Jewish community. During her tenure, she has spearheaded the founding of Beit Rabban's Middle School and led the moves to our permanent home at B'nai Jeshurun. Stephanie wears many hats at Beit Rabban (and many wigs), and while she loves all components equally, she loves arrival more equally.

Before joining Beit Rabban, Stephanie served as NY/Tri-State Director of the New Israel Fund and founded the Department of Education and Community Engagement at American Jewish World Service. She also consulted across the Jewish and non-profit sectors and, earlier in her career, practiced real estate law at Goulston & Storrs in Boston, where she also founded The Washington Square Minyan. Stephanie holds a J.D. from Boston University School of Law and clerked on the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Aharon Barak on the Supreme Court of Israel. She is a proud alum of Teach for America, Stern College for Women, and Midreshet Lindenbaum.

Stephanie and her husband, Yehuda, are the proud parents of Noah, Jesse, and Sally Ives-Kurtzer.

Sumner Lewis

Sumner Lewis (she/her) is a creative strategist based in Manhattan. Her work lives at the nexus of social media and Jewish organizations: finding ways to build community in this virtual world, connecting younger audiences to established Jewish programming, and creating pathways for meaningful interactions (both on and offline).

She has worked for organizations such as the URJ, Dayenu, Ammud: The Jews of Color Torah Academy, Hey Alma, Trybal Gatherings, Tiny Windows, and Upstart. Her background in community building and program management allows her to approach her work from the unique perspective of both the engager and the engaged to dial into the full end-to-end experience of Jewish programming.

Her pursuits outside the Jewish world include musical theatre, performing around New York City (and the world) at venues such as 54 Below and Green Room 42, and being a content creator in her own right.

Pamela Nadell

Professor Pamela Nadell holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History at American University. Her new book, Antisemitism, an American Tradition (W.W. Norton, October 2025), won the National Jewish Award in American Jewish Studies. The Wall Street Journal named it to its October list of “books to read.” Hadassah Magazine and Religion News Service named it to lists of the best books of 2025.

Nadell’s last book, America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today, (W.W. Norton, 2019), won the National Jewish Book Award’s Everett Family Foundation “Book of the Year” and was translated into Hebrew A past president of the Association for Jewish Studies, Nadell is a member of the Advisory Board planning the rebuild of Pittsburgh’s The Tree of Life. However, to her chagrin, she may best be known for testifying before Congress in the hearing with the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Hindy Poupko

Hindy Poupko is the Senior Vice President for Community Strategy and External Relations. This newly created position matches Hindy’s strengths in planning and organizational development with her commitment to promoting community relations. In this role, Hindy oversees an integrated and holistic model of programmatic investment and government relations around key priority areas- including UJA’s work to confront antisemitism.

Prior to this role, Hindy served as the Deputy Chief Planning Officer and Managing Director of UJA’s Commission on the Jewish People. Before coming to UJA, Hindy was the Managing Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. During her seven year tenure, Hindy led the agency's efforts to build broad-based support for Israel in New York, advocated for the needs of Jewish communities abroad, and, in an increasingly challenging campus environment, developed innovative programming to support New York-area Hillels. Hindy also led the growth of the agency's Council of Young Jewish Presidents, a leadership development program for young Jewish lay leaders.

Prior to joining JCRC-NY, Hindy worked at a political consulting firm and as a Yeshiva University

Presidential Fellow. She earned a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and a Master's Degree from the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. Hindy is a Wexner Graduate Fellow Alum and a Schusterman Fellow.

In November 2012, Hindy was named to the Forward’s list of the 50 most influential Jews in America.

Esther Chehebar

Esther Chehebar is the author of the children's book, I Share My Name, which celebrates the Sephardic Jewish custom of naming children after their living grandparents. Her debut novel, Sisters of Fortune, was named one of Hadassah Magazine's, "Best Jewish Books of 2025" and a PEOPLE's best books of July 2025. Sisters of Fortune received an honor for the 2026 Jewish Fiction Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries. Esther's writing regularly appears in Tablet Magazine, where she covers Syrian Jewish culture and tradition. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and three children.

Gidi Grinstein

Gidi is an Israeli societal entrepreneur, who currently lives in New York City. He founded the Reut Institute, which currently focuses on the future of American Jewry through the AJ2054 conferences. Reut has been a strategy and leadership institute that focused on the legitimacy of Israel and Jewish communities, economic development and on strengthening relations among Israel and world Jewry.

In 2014, Gidi founded TOM, which is an Israeli-Jewish-American international humanitarian project designed to help millions of people by creating and disseminating affordable and accessible products addressing unmet needs of vulnerable populations. In 2017, TOM was recognized as the “next big idea of the Jewish People” and in 2019 TOM won the InnoDip Award for innovation in Israeli diplomacy. Since 10/7, TOM has helped hundreds of wounded soldiers and civilians. TOM currently operates in 57 campuses in Israel and the U.S.

Earlier in his career, Gidi was the secretary of Israel’s delegation for the Camp David negotiations (1999-2001) and founded the Israeli team that designed Birthright Israel. Gidi is the author of Flexigidity: The Secret of Jewish Adaptability and co-authored (In)Sights: Peacemaking in the Oslo Process.

Gidi has degrees in law, economics and government from Tel-Aviv University and Harvard Kennedy School. He enjoys long-distance running and is married to Betty. They have five children.

Audrey Klepser

Audrey Klepser is a fifth-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College. She has learned in a variety of settings, including Kalamazoo College, Pardes, and Hadar. She serves as a rabbinic intern at Columbia/Barnard Hillel, building a community where Jewish students know it matters when they show up. Outside of her studies, Audrey can be found reading novels, playing the flute, and meditating on the subway.

Howard Mittman

Howard Mittman is a high-impact C-Suite executive and board member with a career defined by scaling world-class brands at the intersection of sports, media, and technology. As the former CEO of Bleacher Report, he achieved record revenue growth and transformed the brand into a social media powerhouse.

Most recently, as President of 888 William Hill, Mittman spearheaded the launch and sale of the SI Sportsbook and Casino in partnership with Authentic Brands Group. He also directed 888’s B2B efforts, overseeing the World Series of Poker’s online rooms in partnership with Caesars. Previously, as Chief Business Officer at Condé Nast, he led digital transformations for GQ and WIRED.

A recognized industry leader, Mittman’s accolades include Advertising Age’s Publisher of the Year, Crain’s New York Business 40 under 40, and inductions into the AAF and MIN Halls of Fame. He currently serves as Founder of Record Scratch, advising firms like KKR and MaxPreps, and sits on the Board of Galactic Markets, overseeing the launch of the prediction market engine, Predictor.io.

Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer

Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer is President of the Shalom Hartman Institute and a leading thinker and author on the major challenges facing the Jewish people. He is the author of Shuva: The Future of the Jewish Past; the co-editor of The New Jewish Canon; and the host of the Identity/Crisis podcast. Under his leadership, the Shalom Hartman Institute has grown significantly as a leading think tank and educational center for the North American Jewish community, and Yehuda has become a trusted voice on how to navigate the complicated moral, spiritual, and political questions of the day with depth and sophistication. Prior to his time at Hartman, Yehuda received his doctorate at Harvard University in ancient Judaism and rabbinics and served as the inaugural Chair of Jewish Communal Innovation at Brandeis University. He lives in New York with his wife Stephanie Ives and their three children.

Abigail Pogrebin

Abigail Pogrebin is the author of My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew, which was a finalist for a 2017 National Jewish Book Award.  Her most recent book, It Takes Two to Torah, An Orthodox Rabbi and Reform Journalist Discuss and Debate Their Way Through the Five Books of Moses, won the 2025 Independent Press Award for Religion Non-Fiction and was co-authored with Rabbi Dov Linzer – President of YCT with a foreword by Mayim Bialik.  A former Emmy-nominated producer for Mike Wallace at 60 Minutes, her first book, Stars of David, featured interviews with Jewish luminaries from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Joan Rivers and was adapted for the Off-Broadway stage in NY.  Her second book for Random House, One and the Same covered every aspect of being a twin (Abby’s identical sister Robin covers art institutions for the New York Times.) Abby’s 2021 series for The Forward —  “Still Small Voice” — featured 18 conversations with clergy about their own faith and received recognition from The Religion News Association and the American Jewish Press Association.  Abby moderates her own interview series on the Jewish Broadcasting Service (JBS) and for The Streicker Center.  She sits on the board of the Shalom Hartman Institute and has written for the New York Times, The Atlantic, Tablet, Newsweek, New York Magazine and the Forward. She is a past president of Central Synagogue, which has 3000 families and a waiting list of 800. She has two children in their twenties and a husband from Skokie.

Geoff Schiller

Geoff Schiller is the Chief Revenue Officer at Vox Media, the leader in modern media, where he is responsible for helping the world’s leading advertisers reach Vox Media’s audiences across an unrivaled collection of pioneering brands and passionate voices that inform and entertain millions of people every day. In his role overseeing go-to-market strategies and award-winning advertising solutions, Schiller supports Vox Media's industry-leading capabilities including the in-house branded content studio Vox Creative, Integrated Marketing, Brand Marketing, Account Management, Ad Operations and Experiential Marketing and Production. 

With over 26 years of sales and management experience, Schiller most recently served as the EVP of global sales and commercial strategy at Vice Media Group, where he was responsible for the global commercial sales and strategy function with a focus on business transformation, developing new business partnerships and growing profitability for the commercial organization. Prior to Vice, Schiller served as the global chief revenue officer of Group Nine Media, which was acquired by Vox Media in March 2022. In addition, Schiller served as the first CRO at Evolve Media and was the chief sales officer at Hearst Magazines Digital Media, where he was responsible for national sales efforts.