Alison Leiby is a Brooklyn-based writer and comedian. She was a co-producer on Amazon's “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” She’s written for Comedy Central's "The President Show” and “The Opposition with Jordan Klepper,” and she also did punch-up on “Broad City.” She also executive-produced Ilana Glazer's “Comedy Time Capsule” and Ilana's Amazon stand-up special, “The Planet is Burning.” Other credits include Hulu's “Triumph Election Special” and Cartoon Network's “Teenage Euthanasia.” Alison's been published in McSweeney's, Vice, Cosmo, Marie Claire, and she's written several humor pieces for The New York Times. Alison also co-hosts Irony Point's popular podcast "Ruined," with Crooked Media's Halle Kiefer. Alison's twitter profile, which has over 25k followers, has also been featured in several publications.

Julie Matlof Kennedy is a Vice President of the NCJW, Inc. Board of Directors. She co-chairs the Platform Committee and serves on the Executive, Finance, and Personnel Practices committees. Since 2004, Julie has been teaching at Stanford Law School, as well as law firms, corporations, and nonprofit institutions. Her work focuses on negotiation, leadership, communications, and advocacy. Before becoming a teacher, she was a partner at a boutique litigation firm in San Francisco.

Washington Institute Conference Co-Chair NCJW Board Member NCJW MN Past President

Tema Smith is a diversity advocate, writer and Jewish community builder. She is currently the Director of Jewish Outreach & Partnerships for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and a contributing columnist at the Forward. Tema was previously the Director of Professional Development at 18Doors, before which, she spent seven years as a synagogue professional, most recently as Director of Community Engagement at Holy Blossom Temple, Toronto’s oldest synagogue.

A recipient of the 2022 JPro Young Professionals Award, Tema speaks and trains frequently on racial equity, diversity and antisemitism for synagogues, Jewish organizations, and community groups across North America. She is a member of the Nexus Task Force examining the issues at the nexus of Israel and Antisemitism in America and of the inaugural cohort of the Shalom Hartman Institute Seminar & Writers Workshop for Journalists. She was recently elected to the Union for Reform Judaism’s North American Board of Trustees.

I use she/her pronouns. Rabbi by training and ordination. Currently working on my second book, "Sources of Pride" an anthology on Identity: Gender and Sexuality, and Inclusivity, in Jewish Texts - From the Torah to Kabbalah, Hasidic Teachings, and Contemporary Sources, to be published in 2023. The rest of my work at the moment are focused on: a TV show (with Paramount) based on my first book, a theatrical production (with https://www.afcreativemedia.com/in-development) on stories of gender and transgender and the Hasidic community. I am also traveling the globe to teach and present, organize for social justice - and inspire to celebrate the LGBTQ community. Oh and for fun? I watch shows, write, and attend conferences :) Professional bio: https://www.mwlit.com/abby-stein

The Right Reverend Doctor John L. Selders, Jr. is an ordained minister serving in the United Church of Christ, the Organizing Pastor of Amistad United Church of Christ, Hartford, CT, former Associate College Chaplain and currently Assistant Dean of Students and Coordinator of Community Standards, Trinity College, Hartford, CT and one of the leaders of Moral Monday CT. For 15 years, he served Executive Director of Zezzo House (an 18-unit housing project) in Hartford, CT.

He is the loving spouse of Pamela and father of two, Alisia (daughter), Jay (son) and grand parent of one, Makenzie (granddaughter). Bishop Selders has done his academic and theological reflection attending Life Christian Bible College, Webster University, Eden Theological Seminary and Anglican Divinity School. In addition to being a talented award-winning songwriter, musician, and performer with local, national, and international credits, he is also the Bishop Presider of The Inter-Denominational Conference of Liberation Congregations and Ministries (ICLCM) and is the Co-Convening Bishop of The Sacred College of Progressive Episcopates (SCPE). Bishop Selders is co-founder of Moral Monday CT, a grassroots statewide organization committed to a wide range of social justice issues.

Bishop Selders has exhibited extraordinary commitment and dedication to a number of efforts that have afforded him the opportunity to travel across the country speaking, lecturing, and conducting workshops in the areas of race, oppression, and reproductive justice. He is a teacher, lecturer, workshop leader, an HIV/AIDS educator and activist with numerous citations for his work. +John worked for 12 years as a Lecturer at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, CT., was an Adjunct Faculty Member in the Field Education Department of Andover Newton Theological School, was the Dean of Urban Ministry Track for The Anglican Divinity School and was an adjunct faculty member for The Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education. Bishop serves as an Adjunct Faculty Member of Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry currently and is a faculty fellow for the Center for Hartford Engagement and Research at Trinity College. He serves on a number of boards currently serving as member of the board, an executive leadership team of the board and former national Vice President of the Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice while working with several organizations both locally and nationally whose work is ultimately concerned with the healing of humanity.

Deborah E. Lipstadt was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 30, 2022 as the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, with the rank of Ambassador. As Special Envoy, she leads efforts to advance U.S. foreign policy to counter antisemitism throughout the world.

Special Envoy Lipstadt has a storied career as a historian, academic, and author. At Emory University’s Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, which she helped to found, she served as the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies. She has also taught at the University of Washington, UCLA and Occidental College. Special Envoy Lipstadt also served as the director of the Brandeis-Bardin Institute and was a research fellow at the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Her numerous, award-winning books include: The Eichmann Trial; Denial: Holocaust History on Trial; Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory; and Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933-1945. She received the National Jewish Book Award three times, most recently in 2019 for Antisemitism: Here and Now. Her biographical study of Golda Meir will be published by Yale University Press in 2023.

Special Envoy Lipstadt is probably best known for having been sued for libel by David Irving, one of the world’s leading Holocaust deniers. The case, which lasted for six years and was heard in court in a twelve-week trial, resulted in Irving being declared by the court to be “a right wing polemicist,” who engages in antisemitism, racism, and misogyny. That trial was depicted in the 2016 film Denial, which was based on her book History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier.

Special Envoy Lipstadt was a historical consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, helping design the section of the Museum dedicated to the American Response to the Holocaust. She has held a Presidential appointment to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (from Presidents Clinton and Obama) and was asked by President George W. Bush to represent the White House at the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Special Envoy Lipstadt holds a BA from the City College of New York and an MA and PhD from Brandeis University.

Ms. Goss Graves, who has served in numerous roles at NWLC for more than a decade, has spent her career fighting to advance opportunities for women and girls. She has a distinguished track record working across a broad set of issues central to women’s lives, including income security, health and reproductive rights, education access, and workplace fairness. Ms. Goss Graves is among the co-founders of the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund.

Prior to becoming President, Ms. Goss Graves served as the Center’s Senior Vice President for Program, where she led the organization’s broad program agenda to advance progress and eliminate barriers in employment, education, health and reproductive rights and lift women and families out of poverty. Prior to that, as the Center’s Vice President for Education and Employment, she led the Center’s anti-discrimination initiatives, including work to promote equal pay, combat harassment and sexual assault at work and at school, and advance equal access to education programs, with a particular focus on outcomes for women and girls of color.

Ms. Goss Graves has authored many articles, including A Victory for Women’s Health Advocates, National Law Journal (2016) and We Must Deal with K-12 Sexual Assault, National Law Journal (2015), and reports, including Unlocking Opportunity for African American Girls: A Call to Action for Educational Equity (2014), Reality Check: Seventeen Million Reasons Low-Wage Workers Need Strong Protections from Harassment (2014), and 50 Years and Counting: The Unfinished Business of Achieving Fair Pay (2013).

Ms. Goss Graves received her B.A. from UCLA in 1998 and her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2001. She began her career as a litigator at the law firm of Mayer Brown LLP after clerking for the Honorable Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.  She currently serves as an advisor on the American Law Institute Project on Sexual and Gender-Based Misconduct on Campus and was on the EEOC Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace and a Ford Foundation Public Voices Fellow.

She is widely recognized for her effectiveness in the complex public policy arena at both the state and federal levels, regularly testifies before Congress and federal agencies, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and other public education forums. Ms. Goss Graves appears often in print and on air as a legal expert on issues core to women’s lives, including in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, AP, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. Follow Ms. Goss Graves on Twitter at @fgossgraves.

Naomi Adler joined Hadassah with more than 18 years’ experience leading large nonprofit organizations. As President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, she led a team that served the sixth-largest Jewish population in the United States. Prior to her tenure at the Philadelphia Federation, she was President and CEO of two United Way organizations in New York State for a total of 13 years.

After graduating from Mount Holyoke College and SUNY Buffalo School of Law, Naomi worked first in private practice and then as Assistant District Attorney for Monroe County, New York. Her reputation as a successful prosecutor in cases of violence against women and children, and later as a community advocate for families living in poverty, earned her several honors.

Naomi has testified as an expert on charitable giving, antisemitism and global public health in local and national legislative forums, including the Ways and Means Committee of the United States Congress. She was recognized by President Obama for her efforts during Hurricane Sandy and by FEMA for her service to the community during Hurricanes Irene and Lee.

THE FIRST WOMAN RABBI to head a Jewish congregational union and a Jewish seminary, Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D., became president of Reconstructing Judaism in 2014. Since then, she has drawn on her training as a rabbi and historian to be the Reconstructionist movement’s leading voice in the public square. Under Rabbi Waxman’s leadership, Reconstructing Judaism has undertaken a number of major initiatives, while building even stronger relationships with affiliated congregational leadership and innovating Judaism for the 21st century. During her tenure, the organization has reimagined its rabbinical training curriculum, bolstered the movement’s ties to Israel, hosted the largest convention in the movement’s history, expanded Ritualwell’s influence as an online resource curating original, progressive Jewish rituals, and launched Evolve, an online forum which enables substantive Jewish learning, models nuanced and respectful discussion, and serves as an incubator for ideas that can positively transform Jewish life. Rabbi Waxman is creator and host of Hashivenu, a popular podcast about resilience and Judaism. Rabbi Waxman has taught courses on Reconstructionist Judaism and practical rabbinics since 2002 at the rabbinical college, where she is the Aaron and Marjorie Ziegelman Presidential Professor. Waxman is a cum laude graduate of Columbia College, Columbia University, and graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She earned a Ph.D. in American Jewish history from Temple University.

Rabbi Hara Person is the Chief Executive of Central Conference of American Rabbis. Previously, she was the CCAR’s Chief Strategy Officer. In that capacity, she oversaw the Communications Department and served as Publisher of CCAR Press, and worked with leadership on overall organizational strategy.

Rabbi Person was ordained in 1998 from HUC-JIR, after graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College (1986) and receiving an MA in Fine Arts from New York University/International Center of Photography (1992).

She served as Educator at the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue from 1990-1996, and was the Adjunct Rabbi there from 1998-2019. Since 1998, Rabbi Person has been the High Holy Day Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Olam, Fire Island Pines, NY.

Before coming to the CCAR, Rabbi Person was the Editor-in-Chief of URJ Books and Music, where she was responsible for the revision of The Torah: A Modern Commentary (2005) and the publication of many significant projects, including the Aleph Isn’t Tough adult Hebrew series and Mitkadem: Hebrew for Youth as well as several award-winning children’s books. While at URJ, she was also the Managing Editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, named the National Jewish Book Award Book of the Year in 2008.

Rabbi Person is also the co-author of Stories of Heaven and Earth: Bible Heroes in Contemporary Children’s Literature and as well as co-editor of That You May Live Long: Caring for Your Aging Parents, Caring for Yourself, and Editor of The Mitzvah of Healing. Her essays and poems have been published in various anthologies and journals, including Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal, upstreet, Encyclopedia of Jewish American Popular Culture, Women and Judaism, The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, and The Women’s Haftarah Commentary. Links to her many OpEds are listed below.

Rabbi Person lives in Brooklyn, NY, and is the mother of two young adults.

A union organizer, human rights activist, workforce policy expert and green energy entrepreneur, Congressman Andy Levin has spent his career fighting for an equitable and inclusive future for all people. He’s bringing that fight to Congress as the proud representative for Michigan’s 9th District.

Andy has been advocating for working families since the 1980s, when he organized hundreds of health care workers for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). After working with Haitian immigrant workers, Andy co-founded an organization to assist immigrants with challenges posed by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. 

Continuing his work to strengthen organized labor, Andy worked in Washington, D.C. as a staff attorney to the presidential Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations and also in the secretary’s office of the U.S. Department of Labor. Andy worked with unions and employers on legislation critical for workers’ rights including the National Labor Relations Act, the proposed TEAM Act, the Federal Transit’s Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. 

From 1995-2006, Andy served as Assistant Director of Organizing at the national AFL-CIO, where he created and ran Union Summer, helped many unions with collaborative organizing campaigns around the country, and created and led the Voice@Work Campaign, which organized the national movement to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

Andy took his advocacy work to the Michigan state government, where he created and ran the state’s No Work Left Behind initiative that helped more than 160,000 unemployed and underemployed Michiganders go back to school during the Great Recession. On a mission to unite sustainability and workforce development, Andy also helped create Michigan’s Green Jobs Initiative in 2008 and the Green Jobs Report in 2009. Andy went on to create the Michigan Academy for Green Mobility Alliance (MAGMA), which trained hundreds of unemployed and incumbent engineers to electrify cars. 

In 2011, Andy founded Levin Energy Partners LLC as an entrepreneurial force to help shape Michigan’s and America’s energy future. Andy created and ran a statewide market to finance clean energy building improvements called Lean & Green Michigan, which has become one of the most innovative Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs in the US.  In 2018, Andy’s program helped a wide variety of building owners initiate $17,900,000 in clean energy projects. 

Andy has worked on human rights for decades, including doing legal work for asylum seekers in the US and investigating and reporting on human rights abuses in Haiti, China and Tibet.

Born in Detroit and raised in Berkley, MI, Andy is an honors graduate of Williams College and Harvard Law School and holds a Masters Degree from the University of Michigan in Asian Languages and Cultures, where he was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities. 

Andy has long been active in the spiritual and social justice life of the Jewish community.  Until his election to Congress, he served as president of a Reconstructionist Jewish synagogue, Congregation T’chiyah, and  as chair of the steering committee of Detroit Jews for Justice, an organization he helped create to fight for racial and economic justice in Detroit.

Andy married his high school sweetheart Mary Freeman in 1991.  They have four children — Koby, Saul, Ben, and Molly — and live in Bloomfield Township. 

Andy learned and worked in Haitian Creole and Tibetan and also studied French, Sanskrit, and Hindi. He remains an avid ice hockey player and enjoys yoga, mountain biking, canoeing, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and other wilderness adventures. 

Congresswoman Jackie Speier (pronounced SPEAR) is a fearless fighter for women’s equality, LGBTQ rights and the disenfranchised who has dedicated her life to eliminating government corruption while working to strengthen America’s national and economic security. She was named to Newsweek’s list of 150 “Fearless Women” in the world and one of “Politico's 50” most influential people in American politics for bringing the Me Too reckoning to Congress.

She proudly represents California’s 14th Congressional District, stretching from the southern portion of San Francisco through San Mateo County to East Palo Alto. Speier serves on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), where she is the Chair of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, and on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where also she serves as Chair of the Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research (STAR) Subcommittee and serves on the Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation (C3) Subcommittee. Additionally, she serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, where she serves on the Subcommittees on National Security and Economic and Consumer Policy. Speier is also Co-Chair of the Democratic Women's Caucus (DWC), the Congressional Armenian Caucus, the Bipartisan Task Force To End Sexual Violence, and the Gunviolence Prevention Task Force.

Founding Director: Consult4good: consulting, training, and storytelling for social change. Senior Fellow, the Kiverstein Institute, Co-Facilitator, NCJW’s Connecting for Impact Hamutal is a cultural critic, lecturer, consultant, and storyteller for social change. She holds a BA in English Literature and Inter-disciplinary Studies, and an MA (Cum Laude) in Cultural Studies from the Hebrew University. Hamutal served as Executive Director of the Dafna Fund, Israel's first and only feminist fund. She continues to serve as a consultant to foundations as an expert on funding with a gender lens. Her areas of expertise include organizational, program, resource, and leadership development; gender audits and mainstreaming; diversity, inclusion, and intersectional approach to social transformation. She teaches a course on Gender, Leadership and Action in Civil Society Organizations in the MA track in non-profit management at the Rothberg International School at the Hebrew U. A passionate storyteller and performer, she develops training modules and materials on storytelling for social transformation and writes a blog, in Hebrew and English: consult4good.wordpress.com A seasoned facilitator and trainer, Hamutal holds a Diploma in Group Facilitation from the Megid Institute at Hebrew University, and in Team Facilitation and Management from the Martin Buber Institute at Hebrew University.

Orit Sulitzeanu is the Executive Director of The Association of Rape Crisis Centers (ARCCI), the leading NGO in Israel working on combating sexual violence. Before joining the ARCCI in 2013, she served as Head of Communications at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where she also chaired the Gender Equality Committee. She was the Spokesperson for the Israel Women’s` Network (IWN), Israel’s leading women advocacy group. She appears extensively at the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

Paloma Z. Arroyo  is the Deputy Director of National Campaigns at Supermajority. She focuses her efforts on exploring new ways to expand the progressive women’s voting bloc and fostering a community of leaders prepared to make the Majority Rules a reality in our lifetime. In 2020, she led Supermajority’s organizing efforts in the battleground state of Arizona, mobilizing volunteers across the Southwest and West coast. Prior to joining Supermajority, Paloma worked on the Public Policy team at Planned Parenthood of Illinois where she developed a Latinx organizing program and led various statewide campaigns, including Census and voter registration outreach. She has worked in the nonprofit, political and government sectors for more than 7 years and in 2020 was recognized for her work as one Crain’s Chicago Business’ 20 in their 20s. Paloma was born and raised in the Chicagoland area and is a graduate of The Ohio State University.