Global Justice Fellowship for Los Angeles Leaders 2014–2015
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AMERICAN JEWISH WORLD SERVICE GLOBAL JUSTICE FELLOWSHIP FOR LOS ANGELES LEADERS 2014–2015 The AJWS Global Justice Fellowship is a selective, year-long program designed to inspire, educate and train key opinion leaders in the American Jewish community to become advocates in support of U.S. policies that will help improve the lives of people in the developing world. AJWS has launched the eighth Global Justice Fellowship program, in Los Angeles. The LA fellowship will take place from fall 2014 to fall 2015, and includes a 10-day trip to India, during which participants will learn from grassroots activists working to overcome poverty and injustice. The travel experience will be preceded and followed by innovative trainings that will prepare participants to mobilize and organize their communities and networks to advance AJWS’s campaigns and other efforts for global justice. The 18 Los Angeles Global Justice Fellows range in age from 26 to 72 and include educators, Jewish communal professionals, attorneys, social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders. Hailing from across the greater Los Angeles area, the fellows represent a broad array of leadership experience and communal engagement. All have a passion for advocating for human rights in the developing world. FELLOWS Rob Adler Peckerar is the executive Penina Alexander is a rabbi, educator, director of Yiddishkayt, the center for and perpetual student. She serves as European Jewish culture. For nearly Rabbi -in-Residence at Camp Ramah two decades, he has been dedicated to in California, where she teaches and promoting the art, culture, languages and mentors campers and staff, and organizes legacy of Eastern European Jewry and spiritual and social programming. the role these continue to play in our Recently, Penina taught Jewish studies communities today. As part of his work with Yiddishkayt, he throughout Los Angeles, in the classrooms of the New launched and directs the Helix Project, an intensive summer Community Jewish High School, Sinai Temple and IKAR. At program that brings university students and cultural activists IKAR, Penina also worked as a rabbinic intern. In addition to Europe to learn about European Jewish cultural history. to AJWS, she has been active with other social justice Previously, Rob was a professor of Jewish culture at the organizations such as Clergy and Laity United for Economic University of Colorado, Boulder. He also taught literature and Justice in Los Angeles and the Jewish Council on Urban Jewish languages at the University of California, Berkeley, Affairs in Chicago. She expects to complete her master’s in where he received his doctorate in comparative literature, Jewish education at the American Jewish and was the Yiddish Book Center’s director of education. Rob University this year. lives in Los Angeles with his partner, Naomi, and son, Tomaš. continues Gregg Alpert is a veteran Jewish educator Amy Grossman is a public health with a passion for teen and adult learning professional and women’s health advocate and educational technology. For the with more than 10 years of domestic and past 15 years, Gregg has served as the international nonprofit experience. She national director of eLearning at Hebrew serves as the executive director at The Union College, where he has developed Abundant Table, a grassroots food justice online, hybrid and cross-campus learning nonprofit organization, where she brings opportunities. Gregg also created many of the interactive communications, fundraising and program management electronic exhibits at the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles skills from previous work in places such as Mexico, Bolivia, and was one of the original designers of Milken Community Ethiopia and Nigeria. Previously, Amy was the director of High School’s ninth-grade Jewish studies curriculum. A communications and development at VSI, a global women’s passionate advocate for social justice, Gregg is blessed and health organization, where she launched the group’s brand proud to share his life’s work with and be inspired by his strategy and diversified funding, and published articles partner, Merrill, and their four daughters: Adina, Aaren, on maternal health. Amy’s passion for reproductive rights Alana and Sarra. began as a prevention educator and victim advocate at a rape crisis center and developed as a graduate researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned her Caryn Espo has been an attorney in Los master’s in public health. She is studying to be Angeles since 1976. After litigating various a nurse-midwife. kinds of cases for many years, she became a mediator in 1994. Since then, she has mediated mostly family law cases. She is Ronni Hendel is a leadership a member of Mediators Beyond Borders, development professional who works an organization of volunteers who teach with for-profit and not-for-profit leaders, mediation and mediate conflicts worldwide. In addition to especially social entrepreneurs, as a working at her practice in Los Angeles, she has traveled coach, facilitator and trainer. Before to Rwanda with Mediators Beyond Borders to assess how starting her own practice, Ronni was mediation could be used to help build peace there. She a senior manager in a training and speaks French fluently. Caryn lives in Los Angeles development company. Prior to her corporate career, Ronni with her husband. spent 10 years in Jewish education, where she established a network of non-formal high school programs in Northern California in the late 1980s that are still in existence today. Julie Flapan is the executive director of Ronni has a master’s in instructional technology and the Alliance for California Computing bachelor’s and post-graduate degrees in community work Education for Students and Schools, from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Ronni is active in where she advocates for girls and the Jewish community through the Shtibl Minyan and the students of color to gain equitable access AJWS Action Team. She and her husband live in Los Angeles, to computer science education. After and their two young-adult children live nearby. completing her doctorate in education at UCLA, Julie became the director of public engagement for UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access. Her Rachel Huennekens is a senior portfolio included research, policy analysis, coalition building, communications specialist for the Los communications and organizing strategies to ensure all Angeles Alliance for a New Economy students are prepared for democratic participation, college and the Jobs to Move America campaign. and meaningful careers. Julie served as a project director Huennekens has worked as a media for the Anti-Defamation League’s A World of Difference trainer, communications and message Institute, and she continues to facilitate school-based strategist, organizer and storyteller at the diversity workshops addressing issues of gender, race, religion Sierra Club, SEIU United Service Workers West and the AFL- and sexual orientation. Julie loves to share her passions for CIO. She is proud to have walked picket lines with immigrant teaching and learning, especially with her children, Ella, Ezra service workers, swung the vote in favor of progressive and Eytan, and her husband, candidates for elected office and marched with moms Rabbi Andy Feig. demanding health protections from fossil fuels. Additionally, she has volunteered with organizations promoting literacy, feminism and Jewish social action. She holds a bachelor’s in political communication from The George Washington University. Rachele lives in Los Angeles with her partner. continues David Lieberman currently works in Gamal Palmer is the senior director of the the corporate security field for a global Community Leadership Institute at the biomedical company. He is responsible Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, for physical security at its offices in the giving participants tools to be strategic and western U.S., Asia, Australia and Latin effective leaders for non-profit organizations. America, and addresses issues such as In 2013, he was a featured speaker at Ted workplace violence, high-risk terminations X “Reinventing the American Dream” at and domestic violence. Prior to working in corporate security, Occidental College. Gamal is the founder of an innovation and David was a police officer assigned to schools in South- leadership program for black-male entrepreneurs. He is also Central Los Angeles. During this time, he observed the abuse co-founder of a New York-based theater collective, Company inflicted on women and children, most of them girls, and Cypher, which engages educators, community leaders and developed his passion for education and empowerment. He artists in a conversation about prejudice to increase awareness graduated from California State University, Los Angeles, with of structural racism. He designed the first-ever academic a degree in broadcasting. He has a son and currently lives collaboration between the Yale University Schools of Divinity in Orange County. and Drama titled, “The Quest for Social Justice Through Music, Theater and Religion in Tanzania.” Gamal also co-developed and taught the course “Arts in Action: Theater and Public Health Shira Liff-Grieffdevelops strategic in Swaziland and South Africa.” He served as a post-graduate communication for nonprofit associate in a joint program between the Yale Schools of organizations. She currently works with Management and Drama after receiving his master’s in acting the USC Shoah Foundation and Echoes from Yale University in 2008. He began his professional journey & Reflections, a unique partnership at age 12 as a working actor. involving the Anti-Defamation League, USC Shoah Foundation and Yad Vashem. She has worked with women in factories Felicia Park-Rogers is a senior field in Cambodia and in a village for orphaned teenagers in representative for newly elected Los Rwanda. Shira formerly ran the membership department Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. at Temple Israel of Hollywood. She holds master’s degrees In this position, Felicia serves constituents in communication management from the University of from West LA to Hollywood.