Professor Karla Goldman, Ph.D.

Sol Drachler Professor of Social Work, University of Michigan

she/her

Karla Goldman is Sol Drachler Professor of Social Work and Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan where she directs the Jewish Communal Leadership Program. She is a scholar whose work focuses on the history of American Jewish communities and the experience of American Jewish women. She served on the Keshet board from 2008-2017. She is currently a member of the Jewish Women’s Archive Board of Directors, which she co-chaired from 2016-2019. She is the author of “Beyond the Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism,” (Harvard University Press, 2000).

 

Daniel Heller

Daniel Heller

Global Logistics Business Operations Lead, Amazon

he/him

Daniel is the Global Logistics Business Operations Lead at Amazon. Previously, he was VP of Finance & Operations for Social Construct, a San Francisco-based construction technology startup that radically reduces construction costs to help the market provide high-quality urban apartments for the middle class. Prior to Social Construct, Daniel founded The Welcoming Committee, a venture-backed LGBTQ events and travel company. He has a background in product management (Amazon.com), strategy consulting (Infosys Consulting), and LGBTQ rights (Human Rights Campaign, Friendfactor). He is originally from Washington, DC, and has an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and a B.A. in economics from Wesleyan University.

 

 

Debbie Heller headshot.

Debbie Heller

Town of Somerset Council Member

she/her

Debbie Heller, a native of New York, is a graduate of Lehman College and holds graduate degrees from Michigan State University and Johns Hopkins University. She has worked as coordinator of student activities at the University of Detroit, director of student activities at Georgetown University and assistant director of the middle school at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day, but she considers her greatest and proudest job to be that of stay-at-home mom to her three sons, Adam, Daniel and Jacob. All of Heller’s jobs have involved creating inclusive and safe communities for students. At Smith Jewish Day School, she focused her efforts on combating bullying, which served as a segue to her advocacy work on behalf of the LGBTQ community. Heller was part of the volunteer team that created the Keshet Parent and Family Connection, which she continues to spearhead in the Washington, D.C., Metro area. She is on the board of directors of Kol Shalom, in Rockville, Md., where she focuses on programming. She also volunteers with Project Knitwell, a group that teaches knitting to children and adults who are in stressful situations. Heller and her husband, Jamie, live in Chevy Chase, Md.

Robert Holgate

Robert Holgate

Founder, Robert Holgate Design

he/him

Robert Holgate is an interior designer who has had his own design firm for nearly twenty years. A humanitarian as well as a designer, Robert is dedicated to critical social issues, with an emphasis on those affecting the LGBTQ community. With his hands-on approach to philanthropy and social justice, he supports the advancement of local and national social causes with both financial donations and design services. He has offered his design expertise to several San Francisco organizations, including the LGBT Center, Glide Memorial and New Conservatory Theatre Center. Robert has been on the New Conservatory Theatre Center board of directors since 2016, he was a co-chair of the annual major gift campaign of the National Center for Lesbian Rights for two consecutive years, and he consulted on fundraising strategies for the National AIDS Memorial Grove.

Patty Jacobson

Patty Jacobson

she/her

Patty Jacobson enjoyed a career of technology, product development, and problem solving before retiring in 2019. Her initial consulting practice helped small businesses improve operations and profitability. With a group of friends, she launched a Lotus Notes software development shop that was acquired before the dotcom bonfire. Patty took her business skills to the Jewish community, joining Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) as the VP of Marketing where she modernized marketing efforts, re-branded the organization, and built a social media presence before returning to the private sector. At IQVIA, a healthcare data and systems company, she launched a new patient big data asset and analytics platform. A curious and intrepid traveler, she enjoys far-flung adventures and wide open spaces. As a volunteer, Patty started the GLBT Team at CJP and continues to advocate for inclusion in the Jewish community. She holds an S.M. from the MIT Sloan School and a B.A. from Yale University.

Stuart Kurlander headshot.

Stuart S. Kurlander, Past Chair

Retired Partner, Latham & Watkins, LLP; Senior Advisor, Patient Square Capital

he/him

Stuart Kurlander is a Past President of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. He has previously served as Vice President for Financial Resource Development, Vice-President for Israel and Overseas, Vice President at Large, Co-Chair of the Campaign’s Philanthropic Leadership Group, and Co-Chair of Operation Promise, all for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. He also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Jewish Endowment Fund.  Mr. Kurlander serves on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). He currently serves on the JDC’s Legal and Resource Development Committees and is chair of the JDC’s Government Relations Committee   He is Board Chair of the American Committee for the Tel Aviv Foundation.  He is also a Trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.  And he also serves on the board of the Jewish Electorate Institute which is affiliated with the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA).

Stuart Kurlander is the Founder and past Chair of the Kurlander Program on Gay and Lesbian Outreach and Engagement (GLOE) at the District of Columbia Jewish Community Center, the first program of its type at a Jewish Community Center. In 2012 and 2014, GLOE was selected by Slingshot as one of the 50 most innovative nonprofits in North American Jewish Life. Stuart was also a funder and adviser for the Human Rights Campaign Jewish Organization Equality Index released in 2012. He was National Chair of the first UJC LGBT Pride Mission to Israel in 2005.  He  served as the National Chair of the 2016 JFNA LGBTQ Mission to Israel which brought to Israel more than a 100 LGBTQ persons from around the country.  In 2018, Stuart co founded with Rabbi Gil Steinlauf the Hineni Fellowship for LGBTQ Jewish Leadership.

He is a Wexner Heritage program alumni and a former member of the National Young Leadership Cabinet of United Jewish Communities. He is also an owner of WJW Group, which includes the Washington Jewish Week and The Baltimore Jewish Times. Stuart is a member of The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the distinguished Cosmos Club of Washington D.C.  He is a member of the Economic Club of Washington, DC.  Stuart Kurlander is a Health Care and Life Sciences Corporate and Litigation Partner in the Washington office of the international law firm Latham & Watkins LLP. He is the Founding Partner and former Chair of the Washington, DC Health Care and Life Sciences Practice Group (HLS) and is also former Global Co-Chair of the HLS Practice Group.  Mr. Kurlander is the Global Co-Chair of the Israel Practice.

Joy Ladin headshot.

Dr. Joy Ladin, Ph.D.

Writer, speaker, independent scholar

she/her

Dr. Joy Ladin has long worked at the tangled intersection of literature, Judaism, and transgender identity, publishing a memoir of gender transition, National Jewish Book Award finalist Through the Door of Life the first book-length work of Jewish trans theology, Lambda Literary and Triangle Award finalist, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective, and ten books of poetry, including Shekhinah Speaks (selva oscura 2022) and 2021 National Jewish Book Award winner The Book of Anna. She became a nationally recognized speaker on trans and Jewish identity after her transition at Yeshiva University made her the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution, and has been named to both the “Forward Fifty” list of influential or courageous Jews and to LGBTQ Nation’s Top 50 Transgender Americans list, and featured on a number of NPR programs, including an “On Being” with Krista Tippett interview that has been rebroadcast several times. Her writing has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, an American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship, and a Hadassah Brandeis Institute Research Fellowship, among other honors. Episodes of her online conversation series, “Containing Multitudes,” are available at JewishLive.org/multitudes; her writing is available at joyladin.wordpress.com.

Dr. Shawn Landres, Ph.D.

Co-founder, Jumpstart Labs

he/him

Connecting people, ideas, and resources, Dr. Shawn Landres has earned international recognition for his leadership in social innovation. He is co-founder of Jumpstart Labs, a philanthropic research and design consultancy. Shawn is a past three-term chair of the County of Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commissioner and a current City of Santa Monica Planning Commissioner, as well as a member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Financial Oversight Committee. A Senior Fellow at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and board member of the Santa Monica Bay Area Human Relations Council, he is a former chair of the City of Santa Monica Social Services Commission. Shawn served for six years on the advisory board of Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, where, as chair, he helped facilitate its merger with Keshet. A Southern California native, where he and his wife Zuzana are now being raised by their two daughters, Shawn holds degrees from Columbia, Oxford, and UC Santa Barbara, where he earned a doctorate in religious studies. He has co-edited four books and published award-winning articles and essays that advance intergroup understanding, and his achievements have earned extensive attention, from the Obama White House, which featured him as a “spotlight innovator,” to media including The Wall Street Journal, TIME, The New York Times, Ha’aretz, Chronicle of Philanthropy, GOOD.is, and FastCo.EXIST. In 2013, the Liberty Hill Foundation honored him with its NextGen Leadership Award. He was a 2015-16 California Connections Fellow of the Southern California Leadership Network, which in 2017 selected him as a 30th anniversary “30-in-30” alumni honoree. Shawn is an advisor to NEXUS and a member of the ROI Community and the Selah Leadership Network.

 

Betty Morningstar headshot.

Dr. Betty Morningstar

Psychotherapist, Private Practice

she/her

Dr. Betty Morningstar is a clinical social worker in private practice in Newton, MA. She is a former member of the Continuing Education faculty at Smith College School For Social Work, where she also received her MSW and PhD. Betty received a MA in Religious Studies at Andover Newton Theological School (now part of Yale Divinity School). She participated in CPE training at HebrewSeniorLife and has served as a pastoral counselor there. At HSL she ran poetry groups and worked individually with a religiously diverse clientele. Upon stepping down as president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, she and a group of colleagues formed the Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Change. This group has produced workshops and published articles on culturally-aware leadership. Betty is a writer, wife, and parent of an adult son and a senior dog.

Deborah Newbrun headshot.

Rabbi Deborah Newbrun

Rabbi, Founder/ED of Divorce and Discovery New Visions for Jewish Healing, Facilitator, Retreat Director (Tawonga, HMI, Modern Elder Academy)

she/her

Rabbi Deborah Newbrun’s career as a Jewish community leader (particularly in Jewish environmental education) spans thirty years, including working twenty-five years as Camp Tawonga’s Director, four years as Hazon’s Director in the Bay Area, and eight months as Keshet’s Interim Bay Area Director. Additionally, she serves on the faculty of multiple fellowships including Lekhu Lakhem and Hiddur for the Foundation for Jewish Camp. Before entering the Jewish not-for-profit world, Deborah was a National Park Service Ranger.

Deborah co-authored Spirit In Nature/Teaching Judaism and Ecology on the Trail. Recently she co-founded JOLT (Jewish Outdoor Leadership Training)–for staff working in Jewish summer camps across North America–which she directs for Hazon’s JOFEE Fellows. Deborah is known for being an engaging and creative Jewish educator and infusing deep spirit into her teachings. She is married to Sue Reinhold. They have four children and are about to become empty nesters.