Join us in saying:
DAYENU: WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH!
BUT WE ALSO HAVE ENOUGH. WE HAVE WHAT WE NEED TO TRANSFORM OUR WORLD.
To secure a just, livable and sustainable world for all people for generations to come by building a multi-generational Jewish movement that confronts the climate crisis with spiritual audacity and bold political action.
Dayenu is building a dynamic, multi-generational movement of American Jews courageously confronting the climate crisis. We are adults, and we are teenagers. We are professionals, and we are students. We are parents, and we are retirees. We are long time climate activists, and we are people increasingly concerned and wondering what we can do about the climate crisis. Some of us draw strength from Jewish teachings and our spiritual roots. Some of us are simply seeking meaningful ways to act.
Grassroots leadership is the engine that drives our work. Through a growing network of Dayenu Circles across the country, we’re gathering, training, and taking action to advance bold solutions to the climate crisis. Learn more about Dayenu Circles here →
Dayenu partners closely with other organizations and efforts — within and beyond the Jewish community — to help bring the full strength and voice of the American Jewish community to national and global movements. We also work arm in arm with communities that are directly impacted by, and most vulnerable to, the climate crisis.
Rabbi Jennie Rosenn is the Founder & CEO of Dayenu, a new organization mobilizing the American Jewish community to confront the climate crisis with spiritual audacity and bold political action. Rabbi Rosenn has spent more than two decades leading Jewish non-profit organizations, advocating for social change and creating dynamic new initiatives at the heart of the Jewish social justice movement. Before founding Dayenu, she served as vice president for community engagement at HIAS, where she built a robust Jewish movement responding to the global refugee crisis.
Prior to serving at HIAS, Rabbi Rosenn spent nearly a decade growing the Jewish social justice movement as the director of the Jewish Life and Values Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation. There she built the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and the Selah Leadership Training Program, while spearheading initiatives to cultivate the environmental movement and women as agents of change in Israel.
Rabbi Rosenn has also served as rabbi at Columbia/Barnard Hillel, a founding board member of AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps and Repair the World, and on the boards of the Jewish Funders Network and New York Jobs with Justice. Rabbi Rosenn was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion where she was a Wexner Graduate Fellow. She has twice been named one of the Forward’s 50 most influential Jews in America, and in 2022 was named one of the top 22 faith leaders to watch by the Center for American Progress. Rabbi Rosenn lives in New York City with her husband, Rabbi David Rosenn, and their two sons. More →
Mary Babic is committed to the power of storytelling as a means for sparking social change, and to centering and elevating the voices of people who are most impacted by inequality, injustice, and exclusion. Before joining Dayenu, she worked for more than a decade at Oxfam, where she traveled across the country to hear from farmworkers, poultry workers, fisherfolk, BIPOC activists, and countless others on the frontlines of climate disaster response and fights for justice. She produced numerous reports, blogs, and media pieces about this work, and her work was featured on major media outlets (including, to her delight, mentions by John Oliver and Jon Stewart). Prior to Oxfam, she worked in various progressive nonprofits, including labor unions and women’s advocacy organizations. Originally from Connecticut, she has lived and worked in Nicaragua, Great Britain, and Morocco. She holds a BA from Harvard and an MFA from Boston University. She enjoys making things (clothes, plays, people, tomatoes), playing games (especially mah jong), hiking and biking, and hanging out with her two kids and one cat.
Libi is passionate about using fundraising as a tool for impacting change, amplifying stories, and connecting people to the causes they care about. Originally from Virginia, Libi graduated with a BS in Business and Enterprise Management from Wake Forest University and has been a fundraising leader at a range of Jewish and cultural organizations for the past six years. Most recently, she served as the Director of Development at Theater Latté Da in Minneapolis, MN, where she led all fundraising efforts and grew the donor base by nearly 200%. When not at work, Libi can be found running, reading, or trying to teach herself how to bake.
Rabbi Laura Bellows works to build climate-resilient, spiritually-rooted, justice-seeking communities centered in Jewish wisdom. She has served as a curriculum and ritual designer, outdoor experiential educator, program manager, artist, and facilitator in Jewish and inter-religious spaces. Laura studied Environmental Studies at Oberlin College and was ordained at Hebrew College, where she recently lead Prozdor and Teen Learning programs. She moonlights as a soferet (scribe) and freelance rabbi for couples and communities throughout the Boston area.
Zoe Goldblum is a life-long activist who has dedicated her career to community and electoral organizing. She has worked on bold, progressive campaigns that prioritize climate action, including for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Tyler Titus, Beto O’Rourke, and Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez. Additionally, Zoe brings a background in Jewish community organizing to her work, having led J Street U as its 2017 national board president. Zoe holds a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University. She currently lives in Brooklyn, and can often be found at a public park.
Noa Gordon-Guterman (she/they) is an organizer and activist committed to Climate Justice and spiritually rooted movement building. Before working at Dayenu, she ran a campaign to stop fracked gas exports on the Delaware River, and worked to advocate for a moratorium on fossil fuels in New Jersey. Noa got her start climate organizing during her Avodah service year where she supported programming at Interfaith Power and Light DC. MA. NoVA, and coordinated a Jewish Delegation to join in solidarity with Annishanaabe/Ojibwe water protectors in Northern Minnesota. When not typing on a computer, you can find her making music, cooking with loved ones, or scheming ways to fit as many people as humanly possible in her small Brooklyn apartment.
Jaime Kaiser believes in the power of storytelling to inform, inspire and mobilize. Her media expertise has roots in public radio, where she produced and edited dozens of stories for a weekly PRX show about the environment. Jaime was previously a lead producer for Post Script Media, a climate podcast startup. She has collaborated on climate and clean energy content with a range of other digital media companies including The Years Project, Canary Media and Gimlet Media. In her spare time, she enjoys rock climbing and exploring new restaurants in her Chicago neighborhood. Jaime has a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Brandeis University.
Muriel MacDonald is an organizer, trainer, and communicator based in San Francisco, CA. As a volunteer with Sunrise Movement, Muriel trained hundreds across the country, coordinated direct actions, and served on the executive leadership team of Sunrise Bay Area. Muriel also worked in Public Affairs for Skip, an electric scooter company, and as a community builder at The Kitchen, a Jewish congregation in San Francisco. When not working, Muriel can be found making music on Shabbat, riding bikes, and plotting direct actions. Muriel holds a B.A. in Modern Studies from the University of Virginia.
Rachel Mandelbaum has been an organizer and campaigner in the climate movement for over a decade. She got started in this work doing campus organizing at American University around fossil fuel divestment, and since then has gone on to work at 350.org, Chesapeake Climate Action Network and the Maryland Democratic Party. She joins Dayenu after seven years at the Sierra Club, building their federal organizing program and working on campaigns ranging from stopping oil and gas leasing on public lands, to passing the Inflation Reduction Act. She believes that we need large, people-powered movements to build the world we want to see, and protect our planet for future generations. When not working she can be found gardening, traveling, or explaining the latest in pop culture from her home in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Lisa Nikodem believes that in order for each of us to thrive, we must all have the opportunities and resources we need to live full, healthy lives. To that end, she has been organizing and directing grassroots organizing programs for over a decade. She started her career training student organizers on college campuses, and as the Campaign Director at Environment Illinois she worked to protect access to clean water throughout the state by closing loopholes in the Clean Water Act and taking on the factory farming industry. Before joining Dayenu, she worked at Everytown for Gun Safety & Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America for nine years to end gun violence in our communities by building unmatched grassroots power and infrastructure. Lisa knows that in order to grow and sustain people-centered movements, we must also build capacity for connection and joy. When not at work, you can find Lisa studying Spanish, staring expectantly at her container garden, or hiking and camping near her Seattle home.
Julia Paddison is a social justice activist who is passionate about creating a more inclusive and equitable world and identifies her core values as curiosity and connection. Prior to joining the Dayenu team, Julia spent nearly a decade as a yoga teacher, teaching over 5,000 hours of yoga, leading international retreats, and connecting with thousands of students. Her experience as a yoga teacher inspired her to earn a master’s degree in social service and become a licensed social worker. Julia loves to cook almost as much as she loves to eat and has never met a dog that she doesn’t want to hug. She lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA.
Nati Passow has been a leader in the Jewish environmental movement for the past two decades. He co-founded and served as Executive Director of the Jewish Farm School, overseeing hundreds of programs for children, college students, and adults. Nati was a Joshua Venture Fellow and recognized in Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36. From 2019-2021 he taught as an assistant professor of sustainable food systems at Temple University. When not working, Nati can be found biking, tending his garden, and sharing food with family and friends in West Philadelphia.
Dahlia Rockowitz believes in the power of everyday people to demand and win inclusive, equitable, and ambitious climate solutions. She previously worked in both the climate and Jewish social justice movements, planning activist trainings for thousands of committed volunteers around the world at The Climate Reality Project and advocating to the US government in support of human rights and climate justice worldwide at American Jewish World Service. Dahlia studied environmental justice and policy at the University of Michigan, where she also co-designed a massive open online course on how to address and respond to climate change.
Rabbi Jacob Siegel supports Jewish organizations to make their investments and banking relationships more resilient by screening out fossil fuels and investing in a clean energy future. He most recently served as Director of Climate Engagement for Adamah. He also served as Director of Engagement and an impact investment advisor for JLens Investor Network. He received his rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis.
Robbie Silverman has advocated for a more just, fair, and equal world for the past two decades. Before joining Dayenu, he worked for 10 years at Oxfam, where he managed a team of policy experts and advocates to combat the climate crisis, strengthen worker rights, fight for gender and racial justice, equalize access to vaccines, and make our tax system more fair. Robbie has led campaigns using a wide range of influencing approaches, including direct engagement with public policy and private sector leaders, legislative and regulatory reform, coalition building, public mobilization, litigation, investor advocacy, and media outreach. Prior to working at Oxfam, Robbie advocated at the local level for more affordable housing in New York, Chicago, and Jerusalem. He holds a law degree from Yale and a BA and MBA from Harvard. Robbie lives in West Newton, MA. Most weekends you can find him cheering at his kids’ soccer games, singing along at Tot Shabbat, and running by the Charles River.
Phil Aroneanu is an organizer and political strategist and currently works for the US Department of Energy as a Strategic Advisor. Phil helped found Dayenu and served as our Chief Strategy Officer from 2020-2023. He now serves as Dayenu’s Senior Advisor and is a member of the Advisory Board. Phil co-founded 350.org, where he helped launch and run dozens of efforts, including the campaign against the Keystone XL Tar Sands pipeline, the Fossil Fuel Divestment campaign, and the People’s Climate March. He directed Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign in New York, helped mobilize millions to the streets and the ballot box after the 2016 elections, and directed digital organizing at the American Civil Liberties Union. Phil has also consulted and managed a variety of global, national, and state-level electoral and advocacy efforts.
Ginna Green is a strategist, writer, movement-builder, consultant, and Partner and Chief Strategy Officer at Uprise. She is also the co-host of A Bintel Brief: The Jewish Advice Podcast from The Forward. At Uprise, Ginna leads the practice on diversity + equity + inclusion and philanthropic advising within the Jewish community, and is a principal strategist for its progressive movement communications clients. Previously, she worked as Chief Strategy Officer at Bend the Arc: Jewish Action where she managed the communications, advocacy, electoral, rapid response and racial equity teams from 2018-2020. Prior to Bend the Arc, Ginna was Managing Director of the Democracy Program at ReThink Media, and before that spent several years on staff at the Center for Responsible Lending. She is a frequent speaker and writer on democracy, race, racism in the Jewish community, Jewish community diversity, and leadership, and has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, and Salon, and heard on NPR, KCRW, KQED, and CNN.
Ginna sits on the boards of Bend the Arc, where she is co-chair; Women’s March Win PAC, where she is president; the Jews of Color Initiative, Political Research Associates; the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable; and Jewish Story Partners. An alum of the Jeremiah Fellowship and the Selah Leadership Program, a Schusterman Senior Fellow, and a Jewish Orthodox Feminist Aliiance 2020 Notable Woman, Ginna is a native southerner and the mother of four amazing kids.
Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman is a writer, mother, and climate activist in Boston. She serves as the Director of Professional Development at Hebrew College. Her song The Tide Is Rising, which she co-wrote with her husband Yotam Schachter, has spread as an anthem in the climate movement. Her writing has been published in various venues including The New York Times, YES! Magazine, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, and Rooted & Rising: Voices of Courage in a Time of Climate Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).
Rabbi Shoshana is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, JOIN For Justice, and Oberlin College where she was also a Henry David Thoreau Scholar. She was ordained by Hebrew College in Newton, MA. She lives in Boston with her husband and son.
Jessica James is the Major Gifts Consultant for Dayenu. With a background in social work, Jessica has spent two decades leading individuals, non-profits, and ethical corporations through transformations that allow them to raise more money, build stronger teams, and make measurable progress towards our collective goals of a more just, equitable and enlightened society. Jessica lives in Maplewood, NJ with her two sons.
Renanit Levy is an advancement consultant who partners with a range of Jewish organizations to secure the resources they need to increase their impact. She founded R.Levy Consulting in 2016 after having worked in leadership roles in Jewish community settings for over two decades. Immediately prior, Renanit served as Director of Philanthropic Partnerships at Hazon (now Adamah); she has also worked as the Director of The Gottesman Fund and as a grantmaker and communal planner in the areas of Jewish education and identity, government relations, and health and human services at UJA-Federation of New York, as well as in admissions for The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Renanit holds a graduate degree in Jewish Communal Leadership and Nonprofit Management from the University of Michigan School of Social Work, where she was the Ernie Michel Fellow through the Federation Executive Recruitment and Education Program. She is a certified trainer in the Respectful Jewish Workplaces Initiative; a graduate of Bend the Arc’s Selah Leadership Program, which trains Jewish leaders to be effective, sustainable and collaborative agents for change; and an Affiliate of the SRE Network. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and three daughters and is an avid yogini, dedicated member of two book clubs and active community volunteer.
Naomi Seiler is a communicator and content editor based in Rockville, MD. She has worked in the Jewish community for several years and advocated for various causes such as climate change within them. She has a bachelor’s degree in media and digital communication, as well as cinema and media studies from the University of Maryland. In her spare time, she loves making art, dancing, and watching films.
Rachel currently has been working as a spiritual resiliency program designer with Dayenu for the last 3 years on Climate Adaptation workshops. She is currently pursuing a dual masters, getting an MBA at Johns Hopkins and a Masters in Design Thinking from Maryland Institute College of Art with the aim of working on systemic challenges to the climate crisis. Prior to school, she spent 10 years as a Jewish earth-based educator at Urban Adamah, Eden Village, Wilderness Torah, and Hazon. She is also the founder of Melacha U’Vracha, a Jewish ancestral skills gathering which premiered in 2023. She spends her spare time practicing scribal arts, playing nigunim on the banjo, and baking pies of seasonal fruits in abundance.
Jen Myzel is a singer-songwriter, children’s book author and elementary school teacher. Jen’s three studio albums are inspired by her eight years of study with Joanna Macy, founder of the Work that Reconnects. Jen’s children’s sing-a-long book, ‘Yellow Lotus Flower’, has been praised by Joanna as “a story for our times”. As a teacher and musician, Jen has collaborated with inspiring, family-friendly artists including the Alphabet Rockers, Octopretzel and Empty Hands Music, and has performed at various change-maker events including the Bioneers Conference and the March Against Monsanto. Jen is a founding member of the Thrive Street Choir and has written and led songs for direct actions and rituals across the Bay Area including the widely sung “Gentle Heart.” Jen currently lives in a land-based community in the occupied Miwok and Pomo territory of Occidental, CA with her husband, newborn son and seven other humans aspiring to be more graceful stewards of this beautiful Earth.
With nearly a decade of experience in political and nonprofit data management and organizing, Josh Levin is passionate about leveraging data to drive meaningful social change. Their work with community groups in Houston played a pivotal role in ensuring undercounted communities were accurately represented in the 2020 census and received COVID-19 vaccines, addressing critical gaps left by the Federal government. Growing up in a deeply Jewish household, with a mother who was a Jewish educator and a father who served as a cantor, Josh’s upbringing was steeped in the values of tikkun olam (repairing the world). This background laid the foundation for his dedication to social action, seamlessly blending their Jewish roots with their commitment to environmental and social justice at Dayenu.
Gavi Reiter (she/they) is a climate organizer, campaign strategist, and emergency manager who knows that those on the frontline of crisis need to be at the forefront of change. Their journey in climate justice began in 2003 when their Jewish community challenged fossil fuel infrastructure near schools. As the Climate & Energy Program Associate at the Pisces Foundation, Gavi expanded the program’s strategic focus to fund grassroots organizing and support communities affected by climate super pollutants in the U.S., India, and China. She also worked on down-ballot climate elections at Lead Locally, served as an emergency manager for COVID-19 at New York City Emergency Management, was a member of the youth frontline-led SustainUS which advocates for climate justice at the United Nations, and founded Sunrise Philly and Fossil Free Penn. Gavi holds an M.S. in nonprofit leadership and a B.A. in earth sciences from the University of Pennsylvania. Outside of work, she enjoys swimming, hiking, and having bountiful potlucks with friends.
Maetal Gerson (she/her) is an Organizing and Leadership Development Fellow at Dayenu and a second year rabbinical student at The Jewish Theological Seminary. She graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in English and Music in 2021 and completed the Chicago Avodah Service Corps the following year working as a community organizer at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. She deeply believes in the capacity that community organizing has to create resilient and strong communities that are capable of responding to injustices by demanding and enacting systemic change. She is excited to apply her organizing knowledge and skills to her new role as a Dayenu Clergy fellow and continue to deepen her work the Jewish communities.
Aly Halpert (she/her) is a queer Jewish musician, educator, and activist living on Lenni Lenape land in Philadelphia, PA. A singer, pianist, drummer, and guitar player, Aly writes songs for building community and visioning different worlds. Aly leads music and prayer for Jewish community, including Let My People Sing, Kol Tzedek Synagogue, Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, and Hadar’s Rising Song Institute. Her songs have been sung in national gatherings, song circles, and quiet moments of personal prayer, and have moved people all over the world. Her first full-band album Loosen was released in April 2022 with Rising Song Records. Aly believes deeply in the power of music to awaken us to the loss and hope we carry, expand our sense of possibility, and connect us to each other and our collective strength.
Sai Koros (they/them) is a student rabbi and educator who is passionate about intergenerational community-building, ritual arts, and learning as activism. They believe in addressing underlying problems through direct action in order to create lasting change. Sai has organized protests and teach-ins to draw attention to environmental catastrophe and the dangers of white supremacy. They are a regular panelist and community consultant through which they raise awareness about political issues, the needs of Jewish young adults, and ways to nurture queer Jewish life. Sai attends Reconstructionist Rabbinical School, propelled by their work as Congregational Manager and Lay-Cantor for Congregation Dor Hadash. As one of the congregations who was attacked in the Tree of Life shooting, Dor Hadash’s volunteer-led community inspired Sai to blend their love of Judaism, activism, and community. Sai earned their Bachelor of Philosophy degree in Religious Studies, Sociology, and Jewish Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. They have received awards for both academic and activist achievements. When they’re not working, they love to write, make all types of art, care for their houseplants, snuggle with their cat, and spend time with their friends and family in their hometown of West Philadelphia.
Savannah is a first-year rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison where she studied Jewish Studies, Geology, and Environmental Studies, and she has focused on the intersection of environmental justice and Judaism in her Jewish leadership. She founded the student organization Jews for Climate Justice which serves as an active Dayenu circle in Madison, and has interned for GrowTorah, co-created a sustainability guide for Hillel International, and worked for the Rising Tide Network. She is excited to continue her Jewish climate leadership journey as an Organizing fellow for Dayenu this year.
Rabbi B. Elka Abrahamson is President of The Wexner Foundation. She oversees the Foundation’s full range of activities and imagines how the Foundation might further strengthen and educate Jewish professional and volunteer leaders in North America and public service leaders in the State of Israel. Rabbi Abrahamson has been associated with the Foundation for many years. She was the Director of the Graduate Fellowship Program and Vice President prior to assuming her current role in 2011.
A proud member of the Frozen Chosen, Elka, a native Minnesotan, earned her teaching degree from the University of Minnesota and spent the early years of her career creating curricula for religious schools and informal educational settings, particularly Jewish camps. Ordained at HUC-JIR, New York, Elka began her career as associate rabbi at Peninsula Temple Beth El, San Mateo, CA. She then served, with her husband, Rabbi Martin (Misha) Zinkow, as co-senior rabbi at Mount Zion Temple in St. Paul, MN.
Rabbi Abrahamson, well known as a dynamic speaker and engaging teacher is relentlessly optimistic about the Jewish future owing to the remarkable leaders she encounters in her rabbinate, many of them Wexner Alumni. She serves as High Holiday Rabbi at the 92nd Street Y in New York City and has been published in magazines, books and journals. She is a popular scholar-in-residence, presenter, and keynote speaker for a wide variety of Jewish organizations. She received the Bernard Reisman Award as an outstanding member of the professional Jewish community and is the 2019 recipient of the Mandelkorn Distinguished Service Award.
Elka is an avid student and dedicated teacher of Mussar. She also loves a good football game, especially if the Vikings (or Buckeyes) are winning.
Phil Aroneanu is an organizer and political strategist and currently works for the US Department of Energy as a Strategic Advisor. Phil helped found Dayenu and served as our Chief Strategy Officer from 2020-2023. He now serves as Dayenu’s Senior Advisor and is a member of the Advisory Board. Phil co-founded 350.org, where he helped launch and run dozens of efforts, including the campaign against the Keystone XL Tar Sands pipeline, the Fossil Fuel Divestment campaign, and the People’s Climate March. He directed Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign in New York, helped mobilize millions to the streets and the ballot box after the 2016 elections, and directed digital organizing at the American Civil Liberties Union. Phil has also consulted and managed a variety of global, national, and state-level electoral and advocacy efforts.
Shifra Bronznick is a strategist to social sector networks, organizations and leaders. Her ongoing partnership with Auburn has deepened its influence and impact on the multi faith movement for justice. Shifra created the groundbreaking Better Work, Better Life paid leave campaign. The Men as Allies initiative she launched has influenced creative approaches to diversifying thought leadership across sectors. The leadership programs she designs support hundreds of women in cultivating their full potential and advancing social change. Her change management consulting projects have affected the trajectory of many leading organizations in the Jewish community and across the nonprofit field.
Shifra was Founder and President of Advancing Women Professionals & the Jewish Community, recognized annually by the philanthropic guide, Slingshot, for leadership and innovation. She co- authored Leveling the Playing Field with Didi Goldenhar and Marty Linsky. Her action research projects with the Nathan Cummings Foundation, including Visioning Justice, strengthened the field of Jewish social justice and led to the creation of the Selah Leadership program and to the establishment of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. The leadership consultant to the White House Project for over a decade, recently, Shifra and her colleague Didi Goldenhar piloted a new philanthropic curriculum for Women Moving Millions.
Shifra has been chosen three times by The Forward as one of the fifty most influential Jews. She received the 2019 Lives of Commitment award from Auburn Seminary, the Leading Lights award from the Future Work Institute, the Distinguished Leader award from A Better Balance and is a Ford Foundation Public Voices Fellow. Shifra was a senior fellow at NYU’s Research Center for Leadership in Action and she teaches strategic leadership at NYU Wagner Graduate School for the Executive Masters in Public Administration program. Previously, Shifra was the Executive Vice President of Swig, Weiler and Arnow Management Company where she oversaw business operations and spearheaded philanthropic initiatives.
Rabbi Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR, which launched in 2004 with the goal of reinvigorating Jewish tradition and practice and inspiring people of faith to reclaim a moral and prophetic voice. IKAR, one of the fastest growing and most influential Jewish congregations in the country, is credited with sparking a rethinking of religious life in a time of unprecedented disaffection and declining affiliation. Brous’s TED talk, “Reclaiming Religion,” has been viewed by more than one million people and translated into 14 languages. In 2013, she blessed President Obama and Vice President Biden at the Inaugural National Prayer Service, and in 2017, she spoke at the Women’s March in Washington, DC. Brous was named #1 on the Newsweek/The Daily Beast list of the most influential Rabbis in America, and has been recognized numerous times by The Forward and the Jerusalem Post as one of the fifty most influential Jews.
Josh started the creative collective [GOOD POLITICAL] to work with friends on things that matter, including helping the Parkland students with digital communications for March For Our Lives, leading the creative launch of Michelle Obama’s initiative, When We All Vote, and as Senior Creative Advisor to Governor Tony Evers defeat of Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
Josh is host and showrunner of the travel series LAST GLIMPSE and SPACEDROP.
Josh advised The Democrats on creative and served in the Obama administration as Director of Digital Strategy for the U.S. Department of Labor. He was also Video Director for the 2016 Democratic National Convention‘s digital efforts. Josh previously worked for President Obama’s reelection campaign, the Government of Israel, and Charlie Sheen. It is likely the only thing all three have in common.
Keya Chatterjee is Executive Director of US Climate Action Network (USCAN), and author of the book The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby. Her work focuses on building an inclusive movement in support of climate action. Keya’s commentary on climate change policy and sustainability issues has been quoted in dozens of media outlets including USA Today, the New York Times, Fox News, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and NBC Nightly News. Prior to joining USCAN, Keya served as Senior Director for Renewable Energy and Footprint Outreach at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), where she worked for eight years. Before that, Keya was a Climate Change Specialist at USAID. Keya also worked at NASA headquarters for four years, communicating research results on climate change. Keya was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco from 1998 to 2000. She currently serves on the board of the Washington Area Bicycling Association. Keya received her Master’s degree in Environmental Science, and her Bachelor’s in Environmental Science and Spanish from the University of Virginia.
Dana R. Fisher is the Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity (CECE) and a Professor in the School of International Service at American University. Her research focuses on questions related to democracy, civic engagement, activism, environmental stewardship and climate politics — most recently studying political elites’ responses to climate change, how federal service corps programs are working to integrate climate into their efforts, and activism around climate, systemic racism, and the American Resistance.
Professor Fisher has authored over seventy-five research papers and book chapters and has written six books. Her seventh book, Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action, is currently in press at Columbia University Press. She served as a Contributing Author for Working Group 3 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Review (IPCC AR6) writing about citizen engagement and civic activism. She is a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Governance Studies program at The Brookings Institution. She is currently serving as the President of the Eastern Sociological Society and the chair-elect of the Political Sociology section of the American Sociological Association. Her words have appeared in the popular media, including in the Washington Post, Slate, TIME Magazine, Politico, the Nation, and the American Prospect.
Ginna Green is a strategist, writer, movement-builder, consultant, and Partner and Chief Strategy Officer at Uprise. She is also the co-host of A Bintel Brief: The Jewish Advice Podcast from The Forward. At Uprise, Ginna leads the practice on diversity + equity + inclusion and philanthropic advising within the Jewish community, and is a principal strategist for its progressive movement communications clients. Previously, she worked as Chief Strategy Officer at Bend the Arc: Jewish Action where she managed the communications, advocacy, electoral, rapid response and racial equity teams from 2018-2020. Prior to Bend the Arc, Ginna was Managing Director of the Democracy Program at ReThink Media, and before that spent several years on staff at the Center for Responsible Lending. She is a frequent speaker and writer on democracy, race, racism in the Jewish community, Jewish community diversity, and leadership, and has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, and Salon, and heard on NPR, KCRW, KQED, and CNN.
Ginna sits on the boards of Bend the Arc, where she is co-chair; Women’s March Win PAC, where she is president; the Jews of Color Initiative, Political Research Associates; the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable; and Jewish Story Partners. An alum of the Jeremiah Fellowship and the Selah Leadership Program, a Schusterman Senior Fellow, and a Jewish Orthodox Feminist Aliiance 2020 Notable Woman, Ginna is a native southerner and the mother of four amazing kids.
Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield is Executive Vice President at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where she shapes the vision and strategy, leads the staff, oversees programs and operations, and develops the culture. Previously, she was Director of Experiential Education at the American Jewish World Service, and the founding director of the Jewish Greening Fellowship, an initiative to cultivate environmental change leadership among Jewish communal professionals, reduce the environmental impacts of non-profit organizations in the New York area, and generate meaningful responses to global climate change. Rachel is a teacher, writer and speaker—skills honed early as a scholar of literature and developed throughout her career as an educator and curriculum writer. Rachel holds an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. She lives with her husband, a psychiatrist, and is the mother of two (almost) grown children.
Rabbi Joy Levitt is the Chief Executive Officer at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, one of the largest Jewish Community Centers in the world, serving over 3,000 people each day. In the heart of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and together with our community, the JCC creates opportunities for people to connect, grow, and learn within an ever-changing Jewish landscape.The JCC imagines a community that is diverse and engages meaningfully with its values, culture, and ideas in people’s everyday lives. Prior to coming to the JCC, Rabbi Levitt served congregations on Long Island and in New Jersey. She earned a Bachelor’s degree from Barnard College and a Masters degree from New York University in American Studies and was ordained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She is the founder of the Jewish Journey Project, an initiative designed to revolutionize afternoon Jewish education for children and the co-author of A Night of Questions: a Passover Haggadah. She serves on the boards of the Shefa School, a new Jewish community day school for children with language-based learning disabilities; Plaza Jewish Community Chapels; The Jerusalem Foundation; and Israel story. She is married to Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, and together they have five children and three grandchildren.
Nate Looney is JEDI Director of Community Safety & Belonging at Jewish Federations of North America. Nate is a social entrepreneur, diversity strategist, US Army Veteran, and urban farmer. Prior to joining JFNA, Nate was the Manager of Racial Justice Initiatives at Avodah, where he developed the JOC Bayit. Nate is a Bend the Arc Selah alum, A Wider Bridge alum, and a Wexner Field Fellow. He currently serves on the National Young Farmers Coalition’s Policy Setting Committee, Dayenu’s Advisory Council, and serves as a board member at Jewish Multiracial Network, Urban Adamah and JQ International. In 2015, Nate graduated with his BA in Business from American Jewish University and started his first company, Westside Urban Gardens the next day. He is passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and speaks publicly about intersectionality and diversity across multiple sectors. When not working, Nate can be found sailing, deep sea fishing, or camping.
Chloe Maxmin is the Representative for the rural Maine House District 88, the first Democrat to win the District 88 seat. She serves as the youngest woman in the Maine legislature. Chloe’s expertise and focus is on building a durable, values-based movement — with a particular focus on rural regions — to combat the climate crisis.
Chloe was raised on her family’s farm in Nobleboro, Maine, and has been a community organizer for 15 years. Chloe co-founded Divest Harvard – a campaign calling on Harvard University to divest from fossil fuels that ultimately drew 70,000 supporters. In 2015, after graduation from Harvard, Chloe returned to Maine. Her life-long climate activism has won her broad recognition.
Aliza Mazor is the Chief Field-Building Officer for UpStart. UpStart partners with trail-blazing leaders to create a more just, vibrant and inclusive Jewish community. As Chief Field-Building Office, Aliza supports an alumni network of over 100 organizations, helps to craft Collaboratory, an annual gathering of Jewish game-changers, and serves on the Leadership Team. Prior to joining UpStart, Aliza was the Executive Director of Bikkurim: Advancing New Jewish Ideas. In parallel to her service at Bikkurim, Aliza has worked as an independent consultant to non-profits and philanthropies in many fields including social entrepreneurship, human rights, international development, community development, anti-poverty work, women’s rights, and the intersection between documentary film and social activism. Aliza has developed curricula in non-profit management and consults on strategy, fundraising, and board development, executive transitions and management. Aliza has also served as associate director of an international public foundation, director of development for a regional management assistance organization, and director of training for a national social justice organization.
A Chicago native, Aliza, spent fifteen years living and working in Israel and holds an MSW in Social Welfare Planning from the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She currently lives in New York City.
Bill McKibben is an author and environmentalist who in 2014 was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel.’ His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages; he’s gone on to write a dozen more books. He is a founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized twenty thousand rallies around the world in every country save North Korea, spearheaded the resistance to the Keystone Pipeline, and launched the fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement.
The Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was the 2013 winner of the Gandhi Prize and the Thomas Merton Prize, and holds honorary degrees from 18 colleges and universities. Foreign Policy named him to their inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers, and the Boston Globe said he was “probably America’s most important environmentalist.”
A former staff writer for the New Yorker, he writes frequently for a wide variety of publications around the world, including the New York Review of Books,National Geographic, and Rolling Stone. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors . In 2014, biologists honored him by naming a new species of woodland gnat — Megophthalmidia mckibbeni — in his honor.
Joelle Novey directs Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA), through which hundreds of congregations of all faiths across the DC area and Maryland are responding to climate change as a moral issue. She speaks widely throughout the region about the role of religious communities in responding to the climate crisis, and is particularly encouraged that her own Jewish community is now being called nationally to coordinated climate action by Dayenu. She is grateful to be part of several grassroots Jewish communities, including Tikkun Leil Shabbat, Minyan Segulah, and the National Havurah Committee.
Dr. John Ruskay has served in senior positions of leadership in the North American Jewish community for over 40 years. In each position, he has focused on seizing the opportunity to strengthen and renew Jewish life in the most open, accepting context in which Jews have ever lived. He served as Executive Vice President of UJA-Federation (1999 to 2014), Education Director of the 92nd Street Y (1979 to 1985), and Vice Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary (1985 to 1993). He earned his PhD in Political Science from Columbia University.
In 2016, President Obama appointed Dr. Ruskay to a two-year term as a Commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Dr. Ruskay is EVP Emeritus at UJA Federation, a Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem-based Jewish Policy Planning Institute, a Special Advisor to the Israel Policy Forum, and a Mentor in the Mandel Foundation Leadership Program. Dr. Ruskay has been an activist for over fifty years, including as a founder of the New York Havurah, Breira, the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, and the Coalition on the Environment in Jewish Life (COJIL). He also served for over a decade as Treasurer of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE).
Dr. Ruskay writes and lectures widely, and has received numerous honors including honorary degrees from Hebrew Union College (HUC), Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), Yeshiva University (YU) and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC). Dr. Ruskay lives in New York with his wife Robin Bernstein. Together they have five children and nine grandchildren.
Rabbi Saperstein is Senior Advisor on Policy and Strategy to the Union for Reform Judaism, (the largest segment of American Jewry) and the Director Emeritus of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (which he directed for 40 years) representing the Reform Jewish Movement to the U.S. Congress and Administration. In 2019-20, he served as President of Reform Jewry’s international denomination, the World Union for Progressive Judaism.
Rabbi Saperstein served int eh second Obama Administration as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, carrying out his responsibilities as the country’s chief diplomat on religious freedom issues. Also an attorney, he taught seminars on Church–State law and on Jewish Law for 35 years at Georgetown University Law Center and is currently a Distinguished Fellow at Australian Catholic University.
During his career, Rabbi Saperstein has served on the boards or executive committees of numerous national organizations including the NAACP, People for The American Way, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Common Cause, and the World Faiths Development Dialogue. He has overseen the environmental work of the Reform Jewish Movement for decades, playing a leadership role in interreligious and Jewish coalitions addressing environmental issues, including serving as chair of the Interfaith Coalition on Energy and a founding board member of the National Religious Partnership on the Environment, and the Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life.
His latest book is Jewish Dimensions of Social Justice: Tough Moral Choices of Our Time and his articles in publications ranging from The New York Times and The Washington Post to the Harvard Law Review.
Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and urban history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and catastrophe. Her books include Recollections of My Nonexistence; Hope in the Dark; Men Explain Things to Me; and A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she writes regularly for the Guardian and serves on the board of the climate group Oil Change International.
David Turnbull is Director of the Field Intelligence on Strategic Communications (FISC) initiative, an effort to engage philanthropies to increase the scale and effectiveness of resourcing for strategic communications efforts in the global climate movement. Prior to FISC, David spent a decade at Oil Change International, where he directed campaigns and strategic communications aimed at ending new fossil fuel investments and eroding the social license of the oil and gas industry. Earlier, David was Executive Director of Climate Action Network – International, the world’s largest network of civil society organizations collaborating on joint advocacy, campaigns, and capacity building in support of climate action. In addition to Dayenu’s Advisory Board, David currently serves on the Boards of the US Climate Action Network and the Breach Collective, and he was previously a member of the Board of Directors for SustainUS. Based in Portland, Oregon, he draws inspiration from his wife and two children, driving his fight for a safer climate every day.
Rabbi Julia Watts Belser (she/her) is a scholar, activist, and spiritual teacher. She is a professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University and core faculty in Georgetown’s Disability Studies program, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. At Georgetown, she directs Disability and Climate Change: A Public Archive Project, a project that partners with grassroots disability leaders to document the way that disability communities are responding to climate change. As a scholar, her work brings classical Jewish texts into conversation with environmental justice insights, as well as with feminist, queer, and disability ethics. She has held faculty fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and the Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of several books, mostly recently Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole (Beacon Press, 2023). She also writes regularly for popular venues like Truthout, Tikkun, and TIME Magazine.
A long-time advocate for disability and gender justice, she co-authored a Health Handbook for Women with Disabilities (Hesperian Foundation, 2007), developed in collaboration with disability activists from 42 countries, to challenge the root causes of poverty, gender violence, and disability discrimination. She’s also a passionate supporter of disability arts, an avid wheelchair hiker, a devoted gardener, and a lover of wild places.
Akaya Windwood facilitates transformation. She advises, trains, and consults on how change happens individually, organizationally and societally. She is on the faculty for the RSF Social Finance Integrated Capital Fellowship, and is founder of the New Universal, which centers human wisdom in the wisdom of brown women.
She was the President of Rockwood Leadership Institute for many years, and directed the Mycelium Fund, which awarded small grants to non-profit organizations based on generosity and interconnectedness. In 2018, Akaya was one of Conscious Company’s 30 World Changing Women, and has been a featured speaker at the Stanford Social Innovation Institute, the Aspen Institute, and the New Zealand Philanthropy Summit conferences.
She received an Ella Award from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and received the 2020 Vision Award from Middlebury College. Akaya is deeply committed to working for a fair and equitable global society while infusing a sense of purpose, delight and wonder into everything we do. Akaya lives in Oakland, CA where she reads science fiction, makes sauerkraut, and relishes growing enormous squashes in her garden.
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