About the Authors
Rabbi Dr. Brad Shavit Artson (www.bradartson.com) holds the Abner and Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and is Vice President of American Jewish University in Los Angeles. Rabbi Artson is the author of 12 books and over 250 articles, most recently Renewing the Process of Creation: A Jewish Integration of Science and Spirit. Married to Elana Artson, they are the proud parents of twins, Jacob and Shira.
Bradley Burston is a U.S.-born Haaretz columnist and has lived in Israel since 1976. He helped found Kibbutz Gezer and served in the IDF as a combat medic, before turning to journalism. He covered the first Palestinian uprising as Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, and was the paper’s military correspondent in the 1991 Gulf War. In the mid-1990s he covered Israeli-Arab peace talks for Reuters. In 2006, he received the Eliav-Sartawi Award for Mideast Journalism, presented at the United Nations.
Noah Efron hosts “The Promised Podcast” on TLV1. He is a founder and leader of Israel’s Green Party and served on the Tel Aviv-Jaffa City Council. He has written three books and many essays on the tricky intertwines of Judaism, science, technology and politics. He chairs the Program on Science Technology & Society at Bar Ilan University. His biggest regret is that he is not Nora Ephron.
Sarina Elenbogen-Siegel (she/her) is a second-year cantorial student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and was born and raised in Evanston, IL.
Rafi Ellenson is a literary translator and rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Newton Centre, MA. He works as the Rabbinic Intern at the Bronfman Fellowship, a mentor at the Dignity Project of the Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership, and as a freelance educator specializing in Hebrew-language learning and poetry. A graduate of Goddard College and a past recipient of the Dorot Fellowship in Israel, Rafi lived and worked in Israel between 2017 and 2020 and now lives in Somerville, MA.
Don Futterman is the Director of The Moriah Fund in Israel and the founding Executive Director of The Israel Center for Educational Innovation (ICEI). Don can be heard on TLV1’s “The Promised Podcast,” a weekly review of politics and society in Israel, and on a second podcast of autobiographical theater monologues, Futterman’s One-Man Show. Don has been a columnist for Haaretz, has written for The Daily Beast and is the author of Yaniv’s Treasure – האוצר של יניב – a children’s book published by Yedioth Books. Don is married with three children and has lived in Israel since 1994.
Cantor Evan Kent lives in Israel and is currently on the faculty of Hebrew Union College and the Levinsky College of Education in Tel Aviv. Previous to making Aliyah, Evan was the cantor at Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles for 25 years. He is a co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic & Cantorial Cabinet.
Rabbi Sandra Lawson is the Inaugural Director of Racial Diversity Equity and Inclusion for Reconstructing Judaism. She works with senior staff, lay leaders, clergy, rabbinical students, and Reconstructionist communities to help Reconstructing Judaism realize its deeply held aspiration of becoming an anti-racist organization and movement.
Rabbi Andrea C. London is the Senior Rabbi of Beth Emet The Free Synagogue in Evanston, IL and a co-chair of J Street’s Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet. Rabbi London works to build bridges between Chicago-area Jews, Christians, and Muslims. She chairs the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs’ Jewish-Muslim Community-Building Initiative. Rabbi London holds several national leadership positions within the Reform Movement.
Rabbi Michael Marmur is the Chair of Rabbis for Human Rights. He teaches Jewish theology at the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem.
Max Antman is a third-year Rabbinical Student at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. Previously, Max worked as a community organizer and activist at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and United Nations Foundation in Washington D.C. Max also served as a T’ruah Israel Fellow and currently sits on the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism (CSA).
Jessica Montell has been a leading figure in Israeli civil society for two decades. She is now Executive Director of the human rights organization HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual.
Rabbi John L. Rosove is Senior Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles having served as Senior Rabbi from 1988 to 2019, is a co-chair of the Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet of J Street, the immediate past national chairman of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), and a member of the Union for Reform Judaism’s Israel and Reform Zionism Committee. He is the author of Why Judaism Matters — Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to his Children and the Millennial Generation (publ. Jewish Lights, 2017) and Why Israel [and its Future] Matters — Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to his Children and the Millennial Generation (publ. Ben Yehuda Press, 2019).
Chemi Shalev is an analyst specializing in the U.S. and Israel. He has served as political and diplomatic correspondent for major Israeli newspapers, most recently as chief U.S. editor and commentator for Haaretz.
Sam Sussman is co-founder and executive director of Extend, an NGO that introduces American Jews to Israeli and Palestinian human rights leaders. He has degrees in philosophy and politics from Swarthmore and Oxford.
Rabbi David Teutsch is a co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet. He is the Wiener Professor Emeritus of Contemporary Jewish Civilization at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and he previously served there as president and founding director of its Center for Jewish Ethics. He is the author of a three-volume Guide to Jewish Practice and editor of the multi-volume Kol Haneshamah prayer book series.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer was raised in Venice Beach on Civil Rights anthems and Yiddish lullabies. She now lives in Jerusalem in a small apartment with big windows overlooking the desert. Sarah is the author of Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered, and she hopes to finish her upcoming book of essays, Taxi Driver Stories from the Holy Land, by the end of 5782. Sarah speaks before audiences left, right, and center through the Jewish Speakers Bureau, asking them to wrestle with important questions while celebrating their willingness to do so.