Rabbi Dr. Rachel Sabath Beit Halachmi is an American-Israeli leader, author, and public speaker, and the inaugural senior rabbi at Har Sinai-Oheb Shalom Congregation in Baltimore. Ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewishn Institute of Religion in New York, Rabbi Sabath also holds a doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary. She teaches Jewish leaders around the world through the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood. 

Steve Brand is an Emmy Award-winning producer and editor. His documentary Kaddish, about growing up as the child of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, featuring Yossi Klein Halevi, won a Special Jury Award at Sundance and has been shown theatrically throughout the U.S. and abroad. The film’s 4K Restoration, funded by the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and Sundance, had its World Premiere at the NY Jewish Film Festival in 2022.

Dr. Galeet Dardashti is an Anthropologist, vocalist, composer, and advocate for Middle Eastern and North African Jewish culture.  Her scholarly publications examine Israeli music/media and Mizrahi cultural politics in Israel and the US; she has held postdoctoral fellowships at NYU and Rutgers, Assistant Professor positions at JTS and NYU and she will be a Fellow at University of Pennsylvania’s Katz Center in 2024. She is widely known as leader/founder of the all-woman Sephardi/Mizrahi ensemble Divahn, and through her multi-disciplinary commission, The Naming; her upcoming release, Monajat, (supported by Indiana University,  MFJC, and FJC) comes out in September.

Professor Danny Fainstein is the Dean and a professor of Jewish Studies at the Universidad Hebraica in Mexico City. He is also a member of the MFJC Board of Trustees.

Dr. Laura Shaw Frank is the National Director of the William Petschek Contemporary Jewish Life Department at American Jewish Committee (AJC). She holds a PhD in Jewish history from the University of Maryland, College Park, and undergraduate and law degrees from Columbia University, USA. She is also a member of the MFJC Board of Trustees.

Dr. Eric Goldman is a film historian and educator who lectures and writes on Jewish, Yiddish, and Israeli cinema. He is adjunct professor of cinema at Yeshiva University and instructor at the Streicker Academy for Adult Jewish Learning in New York City. He hosts “Jewish Cinematheque” on the Jewish Broadcasting Service, telecast in the U.S. and live streamed across the globe on jbstv.org.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where he co-directs the Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, as well as Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist, At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden and Like Dreamers, which won the Jewish Book Council’s Everett Book of the Year Award.

Rabbi Dr. Samuel Lebens is a professor in the Philosophy department at the University of Haifa., and a dynamic Jewish educator. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from Birkbeck College (University of London) and has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Notre Dame and Rutgers.

David Moss is a Mitzvah Beautifier. Best known for his revival of the art of the hand-made Ketubah, his Haggadah, and the Tree of Life Shtender with Noah Greenberg, he also works in diverse media, including calligraphy, illumination, papercuts, sculpture, wood, prints, artist books, architecture, pottery, drama, educational programming, and others. He is one of the co-founders of Kol HaOt- a Jerusalem based organization dedicated to Jewish Education through the arts, where he serves as senior mentor as well. He is also the Senior Director of the Legacy Heritage Teachers Institute for the Arts.

Dr. Channa Pinchasi is a research fellow at the Kogod Research Center for Contemporary Jewish Thought at the Shalom Hartman Institute. In addition, Channa leads and facilitates think tanks at the “Center for Judaism and State Policy.” She initiated and directs “Cheder Mishelach 0.2”, a leadership program for religious feminists.

Elyssa Moss Rabinowitz is co-founder and Executive Director of Kol HaOt — Illuminating Jewish Life through Art, a Jerusalem-based organization dedicated to weaving the magic of the arts into Jewish educational experiences. The Kol HaOt Center hosts workshops, gallery exhibits, performing arts, and an artist-in-residence program. She also serves as the director of their flagship program, the Legacy Heritage Teacher Institute for the Arts, a year-long professional development program for North American Day School teachers.

Adam Waddell is an Israeli tour guide with degrees in Ocean Engineering and Marine and Environmental Sciences.

Dr. 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 on the subject of Jewish politics and the author of several articles, publications, and books, which includes The Quest for Power, a Study in Jewish Political Behavior and Practice published in 2014