An elusive figure, Vera Salomon, who belonged to the interconnected network of Anglo-Jewish families known as “the Cousinhood,” is best remembered for founding and funding the L.A. Mayer Museum of Islamic Art in Jerusalem. This was the culmination of a longstanding philanthropic commitment to Jewish life in what would become the State of Israel.

Billionaire philanthropist Lynn Schusterman changed the landscape of the American Jewish community through her advocacy for Israel, engagement with young Jews, and pioneering funding of inclusion and equality. As Chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, her bold vision and commitment to repairing the world extended from Tulsa, OK, across the American Jewish community, to Israel and the Former Soviet Union.

Zoya Cherkassky (b. 1976 in Kyiv, Ukraine) is a prominent Israeli artist. She works in a range of media and styles, synthesizing traditional painting techniques with vernacular tools and moving freely between allusions to the European canon and contemporary art. Her work is marked by humor, irony, and satire and at times has been controversial.

Anita Shapira is one of the most important and influential contemporary historians in the field of twentieth-century Jewish and Israeli history. She played important roles in laying the foundations of Israeli historiography and launching the research discipline known today as Israel Studies.

Miriam Katin is an award-winning comics artist best known for her Holocaust memoir We Are On Our Own. She was born in Hungary and now lives in New York City with her husband, Geoffrey Katin, a music educator.

Ladino or Judeo-Spanish Sephardic songs are primarily a women’s repertoire. The two main traditions are that of northern Morocco and the Eastern Mediterranean, primarily today’s Turkey, Greece, the Balkans.