Board of Directors
Officers
Adina Rosenbaum, President
Attorney, Public Citizen*
Michael Rubin, Treasurer
Director of Operations, Jewish Foundation for Group Homes*
Roberta Ritvo, Secretary
Senior Pro Bono Counsel, DLA Piper*
General Board Members
Rabbi Stephanie Bernstein
Teacher & Chaplain
Elissa Froman
Legislative Associate, National Council of Jewish Women*
Abigail Levine
Program & Development Manager, DC Vote*
David Mackoff
Staff, Tifereth Israel*
Shelley Moskowitz
Manager of Public Policy, UUSC*
Brianne Nadeau
Press Secretary, U.S. Congress*
Rabbi Jessica Oleon
Associate Rabbi, Temple Sinai*
Rabbi Bob Saks
Rabbi Emeritus, Bet Mishpachah*
*For identification purposes only
____________________________________________________________
Adina Rosenbaum, PresidentAdina Rosenbaum has been attorney at the Public Citizen Litigation Group, in Washington, D.C., since September 2004. She attended Harvard University and graduated from the New York University School of Law in 2003. Following law school, Adina clerked for the Honorable Martha Craig Daughtrey of the United States Court of Appeals for the sixth Circuit.
Adina’s practice areas include general appellate litigation, open government, consumer safety, and first amendment issues. Many of her cases involve access to records under the Freedom of Information Act. She also serves as the director of the Freedom of Information Clearinghouse. She has appeared on NPR and has been quoted in numerous publications including the Associated Press, Congressional Quarterly, and the Washington Post.
____________________________________________________________
Michael Rubin, TreasurerMichael Rubin is the Director of Operations for Jewish Foundation for Group Homes (JFGH) in Rockville, Maryland since 2006. His responsibilities include property management, information technology, office administration, and finance. Prior experience includes software development management in the private sector for Fidelity Investments and several software startups, as well as 7 years of program experience with JFGH.
Mike is active in a variety of interfaith activities in the Greater Washington area. Michael has a BA in History from the University of Maryland and an MBA in Nonprofit Management from the Heller School at Brandeis University.
____________________________________________________________
Roberta Ritvo, SecretaryRoberta (“Bert”) Ritvo is Senior Pro Bono Counsel at DLA Piper. While most of her time is spent matching lawyers with pro bono clients and managing the firm’s program, she also represents clients directly.
After graduating from Smith College, Bert moved to Houston to teach sixth grade with Teach for America. She then ran Summerbridge Houston (now Breakthrough Houston), an education nonprofit, for a year before moving to Austin to earn her JD and Master of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. During school, Bert interned at the International War Crimes Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. Bert likes watching and volunteering at figure skating competitions, all things chocolate, and living in Washington, DC.
____________________________________________________________
Rabbi Stephanie Bernstein is the DC area coordinator and teacher for the Union for Reform Judaism’s Introduction to Judaism classes, and is a chaplain with the Jewish Social Services Agency, serving patients in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. She is the Study Guide writer for The Torah: A Women’s Commentary. Rabbi Bernstein also serves on the boards of the Jewish Community Relations Council and Equality Maryland.
After growing up in Duluth, Minnesota, Rabbi Bernstein received her MSW from Catholic University, and worked as a clinical social worker in the DC area for over 20 years. She then changed paths, and entered rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and was ordained in May, 2009. She is one of very few rabbis who has also been a synagogue president - serving in that role at Temple Sinai in Washington, DC. Rabbi Bernstein was a student rabbi at Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation in Reston, VA. She is married to Henry Winokur and is the mother of Sara Bernstein and Joseph Bernstein.
____________________________________________________________
Elissa FromanElissa Froman is a senior legislative associate at the National Council of Jewish Women’s Washington office. Previously, Elissa worked as a legislative assistant at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and has taught and directed education programs at several DC area synagogues. She is a graduate of the George Washington University where she majored in Judaic Studies and Women’s Studies and then proved the naysayers wrong by actually finding jobs related to her majors. Elissa currently chairs the JUFJ planning committee.
____________________________________________________________
Abby Levine
As DC Vote's Program & Development Manager, Abby is primarily responsible for DC Vote's fundraising and development efforts. Before coming to DC in 2009, Abby served as a Field Director for America Votes, a coalition of progressive organizations that works together to coordinate electoral activity, Program Director for the Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA), a close partner with JUFJ in the Jewish social justice movement, and an organizer with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union. She also founded and directed JERICO, Jews for Equal Rights for Immigrant Communities, which merged with PJA in 2004.
Abby holds a BA in political science from Yale University and is a proud graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, a DC public school.
____________________________________________________________
Originally from Chicago, David Mackoff has a B.A. in history from Oberlin College and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management with a focus on urban economic development and non-profit management. Over the years David worked on projects with state, national and local governmental bodies, and consultant to non-profit organizations and businesses.
David currently works at Tifereth Israel Congregation and runs a job club there that helps people looking for work. This project was recently recognized by the US Department of Labor which invited him to speak at a national roundtable about the work. David has lived DC since 1997 and in DC’s Brightwood neighborhood since 2010.
____________________________________________________________
Shelley Moskowitz
Shelley Moskowitz is the manager of the Public Policy and Mobilization at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, a 70-year old human rights organization founded to do rescue work during the Holocaust. Shelley’s current focus is advancing policies to protect vulnerable populations from gender-based violence and advocating for access to safe affordable water as a human right.
Moskowitz has represented grassroots voices for justice on Capitol Hill since 1987. She began her career as a public-interest advocate working with Neighbor to Neighbor, a California-based national grassroots organization. During the Campaign to Stop Contra Aid in the 1980s, she lobbied congressional swing votes. Later, she helped build a bloc in Congress to support a negotiated peace in El Salvador. Moskowitz's focus shifted to domestic health-care justice issues during the 1990s where she played an important role in the grassroots movement for national health insurance.
____________________________________________________________
Brianne Kruger Nadeau works as Press Secretary to a Congressman on Capitol Hill and recently finished serving as an elected member of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 1B in the DC government.
She has lived in Washington, D.C. for the past nine years and in that time has been involved with various community organizations such as the Meridian Hill Neighborhood Association and the U Street Movie Series.
Brianne spent 4 years working for Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, where she developed international leadership trainings and curricula for Jewish college students. Following that experience she worked as the volunteer coordinator for a Congressional candidate in the 2006 campaign cycle, and has subsequently worked or volunteered on a campaign in every cycle.
She recently began serving as Co-chairperson of the 10th Anniversary Celebration of her prayer community DC Minyan and is a member of the Anti-Defamation League Glassman Leadership Institute class of 2011-12.
___________________________________________________________
Rabbi Jessica Oleon
Rabbi Oleon grew up in Oakland, CA, and has held a pulpit at Temple Sinai since 2007. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002, with a major in American Studies and a concentration in Urban Poverty, and was ordained in 2007 at the Los Angeles campus of HUC-JIR.
Rabbi Oleon served several congregations as a student, including the Jewish communities of Lubbock, Texas and the United States Military bases in Okinawa, Japan, as well as her internships at Temple Israel of Hollywood and University Synagogue in Los Angeles. At Temple Sinai, she works extensively with our Youth and Young Adult communities, leads social justice programs, and is a vibrant presence on the bimah and as an adult education teacher. She also sustains a deep passion for the city of New Orleans, and enjoys watching congregants puzzle out her license plate, “FIAT LUX.”
_____________________________________________________
Rabbi Bob Saks has been the rabbi of Congregation Bet Mishpachah and associate rabbi of the Columbia Jewish Congregation since 1991. Prior to that, for 21 years - 18 at the University of Maryland - he was a campus chaplain and Hillel Director. Throughout his adult life he has worked for social justice and peace, from working to desegregate off-campus housing in College Park, to encouraging the University dining hall to support Cesar Chavez' lettuce boycott, to testifying at local government hearings on GLBT rights.
Currently he is on the DC Workers' Rights Board and the local board of Interfaith Worker Justice. Rabbi Saks also serves on the Reform Movement's Committee to support South American Jewry. Rabbi Saks is married to Loretta. They are the parents of two grown children, and have two grandchildren.
____________________________________________________________
