Rabbi Carole Balin, Board Chair

Rabbi Carole Balin is a Professor Emerita of History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, New York. Carole curated the national traveling exhibit “Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age” and wrote and narrated the animated short, “The Click Moment: Jewish Feminism 101.” She appears on PBS’ regularly-aired The Jewish People: A Story of Survival, blogs for the Huffington Post, and lectures at synagogues and universities throughout the world. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wellesley College, Carole is an ordained rabbi and earned a PhD in history at Columbia University. She has honed her spiritual practice in the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s two-year program for clergy. She made her “Broadway debut” on West 4th Street in a student production of The Vagina Monologues and lives in New York City with her husband, Michael Gertzman, and three children.

Barbara B. Dobkin, Founding Chair

Barbara Dobkin, former chair of the AJWS board of trustees and chair of the executive committee, is a funder, activist and leader in the social justice arena. With a particular focus on the advancement of women in all sectors of society, she is a preeminent and visionary creator of programs that serve women and girls and that encourage women of means to play a significant role as independent philanthropists. She was the co-founder of Mayan, the Jewish Women’s Project of the JCC in Manhattan, the founding chair of the Jewish Women’s Archive, the founding chair of the Hadassah Foundation and a founding board member of Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community. Barbara has served on the boards of the New Israel Fund, Lilith Magazine, the Women Donors Network, the Jewish Funders Network, the Women’s Funding Network, and American Friends of the Israel Women’s Network, among others. Presently, she chairs the board of the Dafna Israeli Fund in Israel. She has been recognized for her philanthropic work by several organizations including the Council on Foundations and the New York Women’s Foundation. In 2000, the Jewish Funders Network awarded her the Sidney Shapiro Tzedakah Award for her creative and innovative grant making.

See also:
JWA Founding Chair Barbara Dobkin Receives LEAD Award, April 28, 2010
Paean to a Troublemaker: Barbara Dobkin by Letty Cottin Pogrebin
About Barbara B. Dobkin, So Laugh a Little Honoree
A Few Words about Barbara Dobkin by Nicki Newman Tanner
A Letter about Barbara Dobkin from Gail T. Reimer

Aliza Abusch-Magder

Aliza Abusch-Magder (she/they) is a rising senior at Columbia University studying English and Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, who just returned from a semester abroad in Berlin. She was a member of the Rising Voices Fellowship in 2016-17. They served on the inaugural jGirls editorial board, where they led the art department for three years. In addition to being a barista and babysitter, Aliza is spending her summer working on a personal research project about the connection between Judaism and the advent of modern sexuality. Throughout college, they have taught Hebrew school at Park Avenue Synagogue, held leadership positions at Columbia’s Jewish food coop, and shared her work in several campus publications. Post-grad, Aliza plans to continue her work in special education and hopes to reside in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum

Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum is the Rabbi of Congregational Learning and Programming at Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, MA. She was ordained by Hebrew College in Newton, MA, where she also received a Master’s of Jewish Education. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in Educational Leadership at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. Rabbi Berenbaum previously served as senior rabbi and education director at Congregation Shir Hadash, in Milwaukee, WI, and at Temple Har Zion in Mt. Holly, NJ. She served on Governor Phil Murphy’s Interfaith Clergy Council in New Jersey and was invited to participate in a clergy blessing of Boston’s acting mayor, Kim Janey. In her multifaceted career, she has had a front seat at the intersection of race, gender and religion. She teaches, “None of us can control what happens in the world, but we each have the power to control how we respond. We need to access our spiritual core and fearlessly acknowledge our dark places, both as individuals and a society, in order to shift what we see going on around us. The shadows serve to remind us that there is also light." 

Dorrit Corwin

Dorrit Corwin is a student at Brown University (2024), where she is double concentrating in Literary Arts and Modern Culture and Media. At Brown, Dorrit sings in the Jabberwocks a cappella group, reads student script submissions as a coordinator at Brown Motion Pictures and as a member of the Ivy Film Festival screenplay staff, writes for the Arts and Culture section of Post- Magazine, and serves as the Vice President of Brown Lecture Board. Dorrit is an alumna of Marlborough School in Los Angeles (2019), the Rising Voices Fellowship (2018), and Diller Teen Fellows (2018). She has interned in film and television development at The Gotham Group and in education at the Holocaust Museum Los Angeles, and she currently works as a Diller Network Campus Intern at Brown-RISD Hillel and as an assistant to Lori Gottlieb, a prominent psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author. Dorrit’s writing has appeared in the Jewish Journal, The College Hill Independent, and the Jewish Women’s Archive. She hopes to pursue screenwriting professionally.

Emily Dubinsky, Treasurer

Emily Dubinsky is the Founder and CEO of Emily Emmett, Inc., a jewelry design firm. She was previously a Private Wealth Advisor in the Investment Management Division of Goldman Sachs where she advised clients on asset allocation, portfolio management, and philanthropy. Prior to that, Emily spent five years with the Gemological Institute of America, where she served as Senior Manager of the Colored Stones Identification Group in their New York and Bangkok laboratories. In this role, she oversaw client services and research projects for colored gemstones. Emily holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, a Master’s Degree in Geological & Environmental Sciences from Stanford University, and a BA in Geology summa cum laude from Amherst College. She sits on the leadership council of the Greensward Circle, the young professionals’ network of the Central Park Conservancy.

Rabbi Laura Geller

Rabbi Laura Geller, Emerita Rabbi of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, was the first Reform woman rabbi to be selected as Senior Rabbi of a major metropolitan synagogue through a national search in 1994. She has been recognized with numerous awards and honors, including being named one of Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America for two years in a row, and receiving the California State Legislature’s Woman of the Year Award. In 2015, she was named one of the 33 most inspiring rabbis by The Forward. Prior to being chosen as Senior Rabbi in 1994, she served as the director of Hillel at the University of Southern California for 14 years and then as Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress, Pacific Southwest Region where she created the AJCongress Feminist Center, which became a model for other Jewish feminist projects around the county. Rabbi Geller was a Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University from where she graduated in 1971 and serves on the board of Encore.org. She was ordained by the Hebrew Union College in 1976, the third woman in the Reform Movement to become a rabbi. Along with her late husband Richard Siegel (z’l) she is the coauthor of Getting Good at Getting Older. She is the mother to Joshua and Elana Goldstein, the step mother to Ruth and Andy Siegel and the very proud savta of Avery and Levi Goldstein.

Karla Goldman

Karla Goldman is the Sol Drachler Professor of Social Work and Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Jewish Communal Leadership Program at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism (Harvard, 2000).  She served as Historian in Residence for the Jewish Women’s Archive from 2000-2008 where she spearheaded projects like This Week in History and JWA's celebration of the 350th anniversary of American Jewish community. Prior to her work at JWA, Karla taught American Jewish history at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati where she was the first female member of the tenure-track faculty.  Her research focuses on how American Jewish experience has reflected the social, gender, class, racial, and political identities available to Jews within broader American contexts like cities, social movements, and universities.

Abby Greensfelder

Abby Greensfelder is the founder and CEO of Everywoman Studios, a full-service media company with a mission to tell female-focused, female-driven stories creating positive cultural impact. The company’s first feature documentary, LFG, chronicles the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s fight for equal pay. In 2020, Greensfelder launched “Propelle” – an accelerator program for female creators which seeks to open doors for up-and-coming female creators who might not otherwise get the opportunity to share their important stories. She is also the co-founder of Half Yard Productions, an award-winning production company specializing in non-fiction series and documentaries, including the global hit franchise Say Yes to the Dress (TLC), How the States Got Their Shapes (History) and The Last Alaskans (Discovery). Prior to starting Half Yard, Greensfelder was senior vice president of programming and development for Discovery Channel. While at Discovery, she was named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s ‘Next Generation: 35 under 35’.

Rebecca Kobrin

Rebecca Kobrin is the Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University and the Associate Director of Columbia's Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. Her areas of expertise include East European and American Jewish History, specializing in modern Jewish migration. She received her BA (1994) from Yale University and her PhD (2002) from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Columbia, she held Post-Doctoral Fellowships at Yale University (2002-2004) and New York University (2004-2006). Her first book Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (Indiana University Press, 2010), was a National Jewish Book Award finalist that focused on migrant Jews’ relationship to their former homes in Eastern Europe and to other Jewish immigrant outposts around the world. She is the editor of Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism (Rutgers University Press, 2012), and is co-editor with Adam Teller of Purchasing Power: The Economics of Jewish History (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). In 2015, she was awarded Columbia University’s Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award for her passion in the classroom and inspirational use of service learning in the classroom. She lives in New York City, with her three children.

Amy Oringel

Amy Oringel is the editor of Fig Tree Books, an independent publisher of literature that chronicles the American Jewish experience. Amy is also a frequent contributor to The Forward and a reviewer for the Jewish Book Council. Prior to joining Fig Tree, Amy spent a decade as a freelance writer about topics including women’s entrepreneurship and local politics. Her work appeared in The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Crain’s New York Business and Self Magazine. She started her career at Oxygen Media where she managed all content concerning women in the workplace. A serial volunteer, Amy has lent her time or served on the boards of the Bedford Free Library, the Foundation for Bedford Central Schools, Neighbor’s Link immigration services, Get Out The Vote and her alma mater, Cornell University. She lives in Bedford, NY with her husband and their two daughters.

Lisa Mednick Owen

Lisa Mednick Owen is, and has been, involved in initiating, leading and participating in several community based, educational and social justice organizations. She currently sits on the Board of Trustees of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in NYC and the Advisory Board of the Citizens Committee for Children. Lisa is also a docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she gives in-person and virtual tours to school groups. Lisa started her legal career practicing corporate law at the firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and then spent nine years as in-house counsel at Dow Jones & Company, Inc. She currently works as the Director of External Relations for LV Adhesive, a conversion services and specialty paper products supplier to the graphics arts industry. Originally from Los Angeles, Lisa received her B.A. in Political Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and her J.D. from George Washington University, and has also earned two professional certificates from the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies—one in Arts Administration and the other in Fundraising & Development. She lives with her husband, Steve Owen, in New York City and has two grown sons.

Sarah Richmond

Sarah Richmond is a partner at the Boston law firm Gesmer Updegrove. She focuses on corporate and transactional work and serves on the firm's Executive Committee. Sarah is co-chair of Combined Jewish Philanthropies' Caring Committee, sits on the Executive Board of its Women's Philanthropy division, and is a graduate of CJP's Acharai Leadership Program. Sarah serves on the Temple Emanuel Board of Trustees as well as its Nominating and Governance Committee. She is on the planning committee of The Good Fight, the Anti-Defamation League's forum on confronting anti-Semitism. Sarah is chair of the Attorneys Group of The Boston club women's leadership organization. Sarah lives in Newton, MA. She has two children, Abby (a proud alum of JWA's Rising Voices Fellowship), and Eli. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School cum laude and her B.A. in mathematics from Columbia University magna cum laude.

Terry Rosenberg

Terry Rosenberg has been a consultant and executive coach for senior executives and managers from major for-profit corporations, as well as non-profit Jewish organizations. Her particular area of focus is on leadership development, board governance, and transformational change. Long active as a volunteer in the Boston Jewish community, Terry has served on the boards of several local and national organizations, including Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, CJP, the JCC, Mayyim Hayyim, Hebrew College, Synagogue2000, and HUC-JIR’s Board of Governors. Since 2010 she has been actively engaged with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and is the immediate past chair of the board. In 2017, she was certified by HUC-JIR as a spiritual director. She is also a member of the advisory board of the Jewish Grandparents Network.

Lori Rotskoff

Lori Rotskoff (she/her) is a cultural historian, author, educator, and public speaker. She earned a Ph.D. in American Studies at Yale, where she studied twentieth-century U.S. history and especially the history of women, gender, feminism, and family life. For the past 25 years, her career has flourished in the realm of Continuing Education for adults. Previously an educator at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, she now offers classes at the 92NY, the Scarsdale Adult School, and in private groups. She is the author of Love on the Rocks: Men, Women, and Alcohol in Post-World War II America and co-edited the anthology  When We Were Free to Be: Looking Back at a Children’s Classic and the Difference It Made. Lori lives in Larchmont, New York with her husband, Michael Canter; together they are proud parents of two young adult sons. As a member of Larchmont Temple, she served on the Oral History committee and co-facilitated a Mussar/Jewish values discussion group. She is a former Board member of the Brooklyn-based non-profit Cool Culture and the women’s philanthropy collective Impact-100 Westchester. Currently, she serves on the Board of Directors of LEAP, which provides educational arts programs for students in NYC schools; and the Advisory Board of La Femme Theatre Productions, an inclusive theater company that explores varieties of the female experience onstage. 

Madisen Siegel

Madisen Siegel is a consulting analyst at Accenture. She graduated from Columbia University in 2022, with a double major in Applied Mathematics and East Asian Languages & Cultures. She is a 2017 graduate of Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where she led the Jewish Student Alliance, co-founded the Deerfield Feminism Club, and was a three-sport athlete (cross country, swimming, water polo). Madisen was part of the 2016-17 cohort of JWA’s Rising Voices Fellowship, and currently works with other alumnae as part of the Jewish Feminist Alumnae Network (JFAN). At Columbia, she was Co-President of the Women’s Water Polo team and a Consulting Member of TAMID’s Columbia chapter. Madisen interned with the Business Council for International Understanding, and was a Consulting Summer Analyst with Accenture. Madisen was a member of the U.S swimming team at the 2015 Pan-American Maccabi Games, where she earned 6 medals. She lived in Beijing during her gap year prior to starting at Columbia, and studied Mandarin at Beijing Language & Culture University. Madisen is a Glen Rock, NJ native, and currently resides in New York City.

Lizzie Skurnick

Lizzie Skurnick’s most recent work is Pretty Bitches: On Being Called Crazy, Angry, Bossy, Frumpy, Feisty, and All the Other Words That Are Used to Undermine Women. She is the author of That Should Be a Word: A Much-Needed Lexicon for the Modern Era, and Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We’ll Never Stop Reading. As the founding editor of Lizzie Skurnick Books, she has reissued dozens of YA classics. She’s a frequent contributor to The New York Times, NPR, PBS, Elle, Jezebel, and many other publications. In another life, she wrote for the Sweet Valley High series. Lizzie lives in Jersey City and teaches at NYU.

Anne Spar

Anne Spar spent her early career in a variety of marketing positions at New York Telephone, NYNEX, and Verizon. Her most recent position was the Chief Operating Officer for The Social Investment Consultancy, a consulting firm that specializes in corporate responsibility consulting. She is currently working on her first novel. Anne serves on the Board of The Alliance for Middle East Peace, the West Coast Advisory Committee of Sharsheret, and the Board of Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles, where she is also president of the Sisterhood. Anne graduated from Vassar with a degree in Philosophy in 1986, spent her junior year abroad at Hebrew University, and received her MBA from New York University in 1991. Anne and her family divide their time between Beverly Hills, California and Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

Mimi Zieman

Mimi Zieman (she/her) is a board-certified gynecologist, mother of three, women’s health advocate, and writer living in Atlanta. Her first play, The Post-Roe Monologues, is being developed in a NYC theater. Her forthcoming memoir, Tap Dancing on Everest, connects her childhood as the daughter of Jewish immigrants and a father who was the sole survivor of the Holocaust from his family, with being the doctor and only woman on a historic Everest climb in Tibet. Mimi spent her early career as an academic at Emory University School of Medicine. She was a founding member of the scientific Society of Family Planning, and a member of CDC committees that wrote guidelines on U.S. contraceptive care. She left the structured world of academia to work as an independent consultant and entrepreneur, founding her company, SageMed LLC. She is a passionate advocate for women’s rights and has testified before the Georgia Legislature several times against bills that have no basis in science. She writes a free newsletter combining medical news and inspiration from art and nature.