Deena Aranoff is assistant professor of medieval Jewish studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. Her interests include rabbinic literature, medieval patterns of Jewish thought and the broader question of continuity and change in Jewish history. Deena is also a community educator and teaches Bible, rabbinics, and Jewish mysticism in a variety of adult education programs. Deena is also a recently certified yoga instructor and teaches yoga in San Francisco.

Rachel Brodie is co-founder of Jewish Milestones, and served as executive director at Jewish Milestones for over seven years. Rachel has taught Jewish literature, history, and ethics at a wide variety of Bay Area institutions, and she specializes in adult and family education. She holds an M.A. in Midrash from The Jewish Theological Seminary of America and a B.A. in Literature and History from Brown University. She is currently the CJO (Chief Jewish Officer) at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

Reuven Firestone is professor of medieval Judaism and Islam at Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles, Senior Fellow of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, and founder and co-director of the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement in Los Angeles. Rabbi Firestone has lived in Israel and Egypt and lectured at universities in Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East as well as throughout North America. He is author of seven books and over eighty scholarly articles on Judaism, Islam, their relationship with one another and with Christianity, and phenomenology of religion. His books include Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims; An Introduction to Islam for Jews; Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam; Who are the Real Chosen People: The Meaning of “Chosenness” in Judaism, Christianity and Islam; and Holy War in Judaism: the Fall and Rise of a Controversial Idea.

Jeremy Gillick has an MA from UC Davis in modern Jewish and Middle Eastern History, with a focus on the Jewish radical right. He has written for a variety of Jewish publications, including The Forward, Tablet Magazine, Moment, and London's The Jewish Chronicle.

Jehon Grist, Ph.D., is Executive Director of Lehrhaus Judaica. He earned his doctorate in Near Eastern Studies from UC Berkeley, where he was a Regents' Fellow. He has conducted field research in Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the Valley of the Queens in southern Egypt.

Donny Inbar is the Director of Arts and Culture at the Israel Center of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community federation. He received his PhD (in Yiddish theater) from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkley. He has worked as a newspaper editor, a theater director and translator of prose, poetry and drama, and served as the Cultural Attaché at the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco. Donny Inbar is also a certified chef, having graduated from the California Culinary Academy.

Eran Kaplan is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor in Israel Studies at San Francisco State University. A native of Israel, he has a BA in history and philosophy from Tel Aviv University and a Ph.D. in comparative history from Brandeis University. Kaplan is the author of The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy and The Origins of Israel, 1882-1948: A Documentary History, with Derek Penslar.

Yael Karmi has an MA in Art History from San Jose State University and a BA in Literature and Philosophy from Tel Aviv University. She is teaching Art History at De Anza and Evergreen colleges, and lectures about Jewish art and the Old Testament in art in various institutions.

Rabbi Sheldon Lewis was educated at the University Of Chicago and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City where he was ordained as a rabbi. He was a student of Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel and has been active in civil and human rights causes, especially the movement to free Soviet Jewry. For 33 years, he was rabbi of congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto. He is now rabbi emeritus. He has had an abiding interest in reconciliation efforts in the Middle East as a supporter of the Open House in Ramle, the Al Amal School near Bethlehem, and Rabbis For Human Rights. He is currently at work on a book on peaceful conflict resolution within Jewish sources entitled: The Torah Of Reconciliation. He studied Kabbalah at Yeshivat HaChayim V’HaShalom, a kabbalah yeshiva in Jerusalem. Kabbalah and Hasidut remain great sources of inspiration for him.

Fred Rosenbaum, founding director of Lehrhaus Judaica, has written four books on Bay Area Jewish history and three books on the Holocaust. He has taught numerous courses on the history of contemporary Israel at Lehrhaus and the University of San Francisco. He has been awarded the S.Y. Agnon Gold Medal for Intellectual Excellence by the Scopus Society of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Covenant Award for Exceptional Jewish Educators, as well as the Anne and Robert Cowan Writers’ Award for making an exceptional impact on the Bay Area by writing on Jewish themes.

Prof. Naomi Seidman is Koret Professor of Jewish Culture and Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Her first book, A Marriage Made in Heaven: The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and Yiddish, appeared in 1997. Her second, Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation, was published in 2006.

Howard A. Simon is Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel at DNA2.0, Inc., a synthetic biology and protein engineering company located in Menlo Park, California, where his responsibilities include business operations, legal matters (including biosecurity), and human resources. In addition to his professional life in biotechnology, Mr. Simon has long been a leader in the Bay Area Jewish community, with service as a board member and/or officer at the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley, the Berkeley Hillel Foundation, the San Francisco Jewish Community Center, Brandeis Hillel Day School and Congregation Ner Tamid. He currently sits on the board of Lehrhaus Judaica. Mr. Simon also is a frequent teacher and lecturer in Jewish studies and ethics. Mr. Simon holds an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, a law degree from the Boalt Hall School of Law (UC Berkeley), a Master's Degree from the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley, and an MBA from Babson College. He also is a certified Senior Human Resources Professional and Corporate Compliance and Ethics Professional.

Bernie Steinberg, Vice President of Shalom Institute of North America, formerly served as Director of Harvard Hillel, President of Harvard Chaplains, and taught at the Kennedy School of Government. A founding fellow of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and teacher at the Pardes Institute, he has served on the faculty of the Wexner Heritage Foundation for many years. He is the recipient of the Covenant Award for excellence in Jewish education and received a PhD in Jewish philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Rabbi Melissa Weintraub is an educator, facilitator, and trainer working to transform conflict in the face of polarized, entrenched divisions. Melissa is the founding director of Encounter, an organization dedicated to strengthening the capacity of the Jewish people to be agents of change in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A Conservative Rabbi and noted speaker, Melissa has lectured and taught on four continents and is the author of several articles treating the ethics of war and peace in Jewish sources.

Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan is the Senior Educator of Lehrhaus Judaica. Since 1975, he has been a Jewish educator in the San Francisco Bay Area, learning with children, teens, families, and adults. He has been active in informal education, tours, community development, and congregational life. In 2002, he was awarded the Covenant Award as “An Exceptional Jewish Educator who has had a significant impact on others, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the transmission of Jewish knowledge, values, and identity.”