S. Asher Gelman is a director, choreographer, actor, dancer, playwright, and producer. Through his production company, Midnight Theatricals, he produced and directed his first original play, Afterglow, which ran for 14 months Off-Broadway at the Davenport Theater. In 2019, Gelman’s second play, safeword., opened Off-Broadway in April, and he also produced the Off-Broadway musical, We Are The Tigers by Preston Max Allen. Most recently, Gelman directed, choreographed, and produced the short dance for film The Greatest City in the World. Originally from Chevy Chase, MD, Asher received his Bachelors Degree in Dance and Theater from Bard College in New York in 2006 and his Masters in Fine Arts in Dance from The George Washington University in Washington DC in 2012. From 2006 to 2016, Asher lived in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he became one of the founders of The Stage, Tel Aviv’s premier English language performing arts organization, serving as its first Artistic Director from 2013 to 2016. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Asher lives in New York City with his husband, Mati.
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 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, 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.
Oren Henry has been connected to the Jewish community his entire life. His grandfather a rabbi, his Israeli grandmother a Hebrew school principal, and his mother a Hebrew teacher, Oren’s synagogue in suburban Chicago was his second home while growing up, particularly once he became a Hebrew tutor and religious school aide there. While attending the University of Pennsylvania, Oren served as a lead intern for the Jewish Heritage Programs, an alternative to Hillel that aims to engage students in Jewish life, and he also interned at the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago. Most recently, Oren served on the recently formed UJAPride committee of the UJA-Federation of New York. After more than fifteen years on the East Coast (attending UPenn in Philadelphia and Georgetown University Law Center in DC and starting his legal career at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York City), Oren now resides in New Jersey with his husband.
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 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 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.
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.
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