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Project-Incubator Staff
Barbara Lerner Spectre (Paideia)
Project-Incubator 2006-2010
Barbara is the Founding Director of Paideia, the European Institute of Jewish Studies in Sweden, an academic institute established in 2001 through a grant of the Swedish Government that serves as a resource and stimulus for the renewal of European Jewish culture. She was formerly on the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jerusalem, where she taught Jewish Thought, and the Melton Center of the Hebrew University. Her area of research is in Models of Response to the Holocaust in Christian and Jewish Theology. Her publications include: “A Theology of Doubt” (Hebrew) and, together with Noam Zion of the Hartman Institute, the two volume: “A Different Light: The Hanukkah Book of Celebration”. She is the recipient of the 2007 Max Fisher Prize for Jewish Education in the Diaspora, and the 2008 ICRF award for Women in Action.
Brachi Lipshitz (Paideia)
Project-Incubator 2006-2010
Brachi is the director of the Paideia Project-Incubator. Residing in Israel, she is a theatre director, her latest work being with the Catharsis improvisation theatre group in Jerusalem. She is also the founder and director of several community theatre groups and has initiated many community theatre projects within the Jerusalem municipality. She is also leading the Beit-Midrash for storytellers at Elul, in Jerusalem. Brachi has taught various courses – both theoretical and practical – in theatre and Jewish culture at Emunah College, Jerusalem, and in several high schools. Brachi was in charge of the Arts Track and the Arts and Text days at Paideia during 2005-2006. She holds a B.Ed. in Theatre Directing and Education from Seminar HaKibbutzim College in Tel-Aviv, and is currently pursuing her M.A. in theatre studies at Tel Aviv University.
Yair Lipshitz (Paideia)
Project-Incubator 2006-2010
Yair is a junior fellow in the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where he is also active in curriculum writing and personal tutoring of Jewish Education students. His PhD dissertation, currently written in the Theatre Department of Tel Aviv University, discusses issues of body and text in Jewish theatre and drama. Lipshitz is a member of the academic committee at Alma College for Hebrew Culture in Tel Aviv. There, he leads the “Beit Midrash” sessions and teaches various courses in Hebrew culture. He is also a lecturer in the Theatre Department of Tel Aviv University. During 2005-2006, Yair served as Scholar in Residence in Paideia.
Noomi Weinryb (Paideia)
Project-Incubator 2007-2010
Noomi is a PhD candidate in Philanthropy at the Hebrew University. Noomi was previously the Deputy Director of Paideia where she has been the initiator of the refined applied leadership program – the tracks system. Noomi has a BA and MA in Economy, majoring in Organization and Management, from the Stockholm School of Economics. In addition, Noomi has a BA in Theatre Studies and Jewish Studies from the Stockholm University. As an economist, Noomi has also worked as junior consultant for customer driven business strategies and has worked extensively with fundraising, program creation and philanthropy in the field of Jewish life and culture. Noomi was a Wallenberg Fellow at Paideia during the year 2001-2002.
Rani Jaeger (Paideia)
Project-Incubator 2008-2010
Rani is the Scholar-in-Residence at Paideia for the year 2009-2010. Rani co-directs the Be’eri program at the Shalom Hartman Institute, which pioneers a new model of Jewish education for Israeli secular high schools. He teaches both at Tel-Aviv University and at Alma College. Rani is currently pursuing his PhD at Bar-Ilan University, at the department of Hermeneutic and is also one of the founders of “Beit Tefilah Israeli”, a new liberal synagogue in the heart of Tel Aviv.
Erik Gribbe (Paideia)
Project-Incubator 2008-2010
Erik works with resource development at Paideia. He holds a MA and a BA in International Economics from Stockholm School of Economics and a BA in Arts from Stockholm University. Before coming to Paideia, Erik has worked for the UNICEF, the Red Cross and as a high-school teacher, among other things. His previous background is in the performing arts, as a dancer with the Royal Swedish Ballet for 10 years.
Patrick Levy (Paideia)
Project-Incubator 2008-2009
Patrick serves as a counselor on organizational strategy, peer education and fund raising for human rights and other non-profit organizations in Israel (through the Joint, the New Israel Fund, the Pradler program and other bodies) as well as abroad (through the UN). He also represents the Foundation “Healing Across the Divides” in Israel. After having been a teacher in Israel, in Jewish schools in France and the United Kingdom, he served as executive director of national and international non-profit organizations. Patrick is also advising mayors of different cities in Israel, businesses and private donors both in the Jewish and Arab communities. His areas of specializations are tri-dimensional projects (non-profit organizations, institutions and businesses), cooperation between businesses and the non-profit sectors, peer education and health issues. In the past 15 years, Patrick has been participating and leading numerous workshops and conferences in South America, North America and Eastern European countries.
Fabian Sborovsky (Paideia)
Project-Incubator 2009-2010
Fabian works with recruitment of new students at Paideia and is the Paideia-Project Incubator program coordinator. He was an Amalie Beer fellow in 2007-2008 and currently serves as chairman of the Paideia Alumni Association. Fabian holds an M.A in Jewish Studies from Vanderbilt University and is active in Jewish education in the United States and Sweden. His previous background also includes several years in the travel industry.
Beto Maya (ROI Community)
Project-Incubator 2009-2010
Beto is the Program Director for ROI. In this position, he is responsible for summit selection, programming, regional gatherings, grant pooling and more. Born in Mexico City, Beto was very active in the Zionist youth movement, “Dor Chadash.” After making Aliyah in 1993, Beto has developed Zionist Education and Leadership programming in many frameworks. Upon completion of his Bachelor of Education Degree from the Beit Berl College in Non-Formal Education and Israeli Studies, he worked in the Hagshama Department of the World Zionist Organization. Beto was then sent to Mexico City as a shaliach for the Jewish Agency for Israel and returned to Israel after three years. Before joining the ROI team, Beto was also the Education Coordinator of the Herzl Museum. Beto currently resides in Modi’in with his dog, Kranky. He misses “real” Mexican food and has a true love for the San Diego Padres
Joshua Avedon (Jumpstart)
Project-Incubator 2009-2010
Jumpstart co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Joshua Avedon is a start-up veteran with an MBA in nonprofit management and an undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley in Mass Communication. He is one of the founders of IKAR, a dynamic Jewish spiritual community in Los Angeles and also a member of the Los Angeles Selah cohort. Joshua also is a co-refounder of Another Mother for Peace. He has written for the Huffington Post, Forward, and PresenTense, among others. Joshua is a recognized leader in forward-thinking use of technology, viral communication and community-building strategies within the world of emerging Jewish organizations. As a successful business and communication strategy consultant for both for-profits and nonprofits, Joshua brings operational know-how, a strong background in grassroots marketing and expertise in harnessing emerging technologies to the Jumpstart team. Previously he was Director of Business Management & Communication for Synagogue 3000, where he oversaw financial/organizational infrastructure, S3K’s online presence, marketing, publishing, and media relations.
Shawn Landres (Jumpstart)
Project-Incubator 2009-2010
Jumpstart co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Shawn Landres has extensive experience in academic and nonprofit leadership, peer network development and grant management. Shawn currently serves as Chair of the Advisory Board of Jewish Mosaic: The National Jewish Center for Sexual & Gender Diversity and is a member of the American Jewish Committee ACCESS Los Angeles Steering Committee, the IKAR Leadership Council, the J Street Advisory Council, the PJA/MPAC Muslim-Jewish New Ground Project advisory board, and the Selah Network Leadership Team. Coeditor of four books and numerous articles, he has written for The Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, Forward, and the Annals of the AAPSS, among others (including Austrian, British, Czech, Hungarian, and Slovak journals). He has taught at UCSB; the University of Judaism; Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia; and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Shawn also is a Research Scholar at the Institute for Jewish & Community Research. An interreligious activist with expertise in evangelical-, Catholic-, and Muslim-Jewish affairs, Shawn is an inaugural (2009) Fellow of the Ariane de Rothschild Fellows Program. Previously, he served as Director of Research for Synagogue 3000, where he managed the launch of the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute, launched the widely read S3K Reports series and Synablog, and conceived S3K’s Jewish Emergent Initiative. Shawn holds degrees in Religious Studies and Social Anthropology from Columbia University, UCSB, and the University of Oxford. He is certified by 21/64 as a consultant/trainer in multigenerational family philanthropy.
Amy Philip (JHub/Pears Foundation)
Project-Incubator 2010
Amy is Deputy Director of The Pears Foundation. She is responsible for the strategic direction and management of almost all of the Foundation’s UK partnerships and projects with particular focus on community, citizenship, Holocaust Education, and Jewish community projects including the Jewish Social Action Hub (www.jhub.org.uk) which aims to build the capacity of innovative emerging and existing organisations and projects. Before joining the Foundation, Amy was Deputy Director of the Parliamentary Committee against Antisemitism and was responsible for the delivery of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism. Previously she was Researcher and Policy Adviser to the Deputy Mayor of London. She has been a Limmud volunteer since 2003, including chairing Limmudfest in 2005 and serving as a trustee in 2009. She is currently on the Limmud International steering group with responsibility for training.
Rabbi Ute Steyer
Project-Incubator 2010
Rabbi Ute Steyer received her rabbinic ordination (s’mikha) from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 2009. She also received a M.A. in Jewish Philosophy. Her thesis dealt with the rabbinic and scriptural influences on thought of Emmanuel Levinas. She is currently giving a two-year graduate fellowship in legal theory at the Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Rabbi Steyer has served as acting rabbi in small congregations in North America as well as scholar-in-residence at various congregations. She taught courses at the JCC in Manhattan and is scheduled to teach a course in Pastoral Theology at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Rabbi Steyer was raised in the UK, Greece and Germany and has lived for many years in Stockholm, Sweden and was an active member of the Stockholm Jewish community. Ute was a Wallenberg Fellow at Paideia during the year 2001-2002. Publications: “Rabbinic Authority – The case of Da’at Torah” (forthcoming), “Possibilities and Limits of Levinas’ Ethics in Pastoral Counseling” (forthcoming).
Dina Gidron
Project-Incubator 2010
Dina is a management and strategy consultant in the non-profit sector in Israel. Working with a variety of organizations, Dina facilitates strategic planning and organizational processes and provides individual counseling to both junior and veteran managers. Over the past year, Dina has also written a number of papers including an in-depth report on Social Management in Israel (for Sheatufim) and a review of environmental models and green programs that empower and develop vulnerable populations (for JDC Israel).
Following a long career in the business sector – her last position as Executive Director and Partner in a leading business training and consulting firm – Dina served as Shlichat Aliya in Canada and later joined JDC in Israel and served as Director of Donor Relations in the International Relations Division from 2006 until 2009. Based in Jerusalem, Dina managed a team focused on developing and fostering links between JDC programs in Israel, the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the rest of the Jewish world with North American Federations, foundations and private donors. Born in England, Dina grew up in Israel. She holds an MBA from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where she also earned her BA in Political Science and Geography. Dina is married and the mother of two boys. They live in Zur Hadassa, a small community on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Ofra Palmer Granot
Project-Incubator 2010
Ofra works as a resource development counselor for non-profit organizations in Israel, specializing in business-community relations and in cross-sector partnerships. She coordinated the Community Affairs’ unit at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd for six years, from 2002 to 2008. Ofra taught at the Ariel College and still gives workshops on The Third Sector issue at several other organizations. Previously, she served as a fundraising manager at the Dor Shalom movement and for three other non-profit educational organizations. Ofra holds an MA in NGO management from the Hebrew University and a BSW in social work from Tel Aviv University. Ofra is the chairwoman of a Jewish text study group in her community.
Michal Elbaz (JAFI)
Project-Incubator 2007-2008
Ms. Elbaz is the director of the Central Eastern European desk of the Education Department of the Jewish Agency. Ms. Elbaz grew up in Zurich, Switzerland where she graduated from High School and was an active member of Bnei Akiva there. She has a B.A. and teaching degree in History of the Jewish people from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Most of her professional experience is in the field of Jewish education and resource development for Jewish organizations. In Jerusalem she worked in the European desk of Keren Kayemet Leisrael and while living in Geneva for several years, she was the director of the Community Center of the Jewish Community there. In her current function in the Jewish Agency, Ms. Elbaz is developing new and ongoing projects in the renewed communities of Central Eastern Europe and promoting pan-European initiatives in the field of Jewish education. Thanks to her previous experiences and her current function, Ms. Elbaz is very much familiar with the situation and the needs of the small and middle sized Jewish community in Eastern and Western Europe. Ms. Elbaz speaks fluently four languages, Hebrew, English, German and French.
Netta Frister-Aaron
Project-Incubator 2006-2007
Netta Frister Aaron is cultural producer at the Jewish Community of Stockholm. She is a graduate of the Dramatic Institute of Stockholm and has previously worked as a producer at Södra Teatern in Stockholm. Netta specializes in Jewish art and has experience with artistic productions in theatre, festivals, television and music. At Paideia, she has been leader of the Art Track and coordinator the course Art & Text Dialogue. She was also the head producer of Paideia’s Month of the Arts – a meeting between Jewish sources and film, music, dance, literature, and the fine arts.
Roee Canaan (Nachshonim)
Project-Incubator 2009
Roee was born in Jerusalem in 1970 and has been with the Nachshonim program since its third cycle (2006). He has worked in several social projects such as the Jerusalem Foundation’s projects department, seminars for new immigrants on culture and identity and the Administration for the Enhancement of Employment (JDC – Ministry of Industry). His academic background is in Neuropsychology (Hebrew university).
Yulia Ginis (Nachshonim)
Project-Incubator 2009
Yulia is a painter and theatre director. She was born in Moscow and made Aliyah at the age of 16. Yulia is the founder of the Israeli “Mystorin group”, aiming at creating an original theatrical language that would combine inspiration from ancient Jewish texts with video, dance and visual theatre. The group has toured in various countries (Romania, Poland, Armenia, Russia, Serbia, and Finland among others). At Nachshonim, Yulia works as coordinator of projects in Jewish communities in the FSU. She has extensive experience in implementation and coordination of educational programs and artistic projects both in Israel and abroad. Formerly, she worked for the Jewish Agency in teaching students, teachers and coordinators how to use and combine different creative arts in informal Jewish education. She has created numerous seminars and taught in the Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan. Several articles written by her on the subject of Jewish education and creativity were published by the Jewish Agency as learning materials for teachers and coordinators.
Nehama (Hami) Verbin
Project-Incubator 2008
Hami has a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Cambridge and teaches at Tel Aviv University. She is research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and a member of the editorial boards of the Canadian journal “Studies in Religion” and the Dutch journal “Ars Disputandi”. Nehama has written numerous articles on the nature of faith and doubt, and on the transition from one to the other. She is currently completing a manuscript on divine providence and the problem of evil.
Jonathan Cohen
Project-Incubator 2007
Prof. Cohen is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Education of the Hebrew University, a Curriculum Adviser to the Hartman Institute and a Faculty Member of the Mandel School for Leadership. Prof. Cohen, in addition to many educational textbooks in rabbinic and Jewish thought, has written academically on the construction of the history of Jewish philosophy, the interaction between hermeneutics and education and the teaching of Jewish thought.
Gabriel Horenczyk (Melton Center)
Project-Incubator 2007
Prof. Horenczyk is an Associate Professor at the School of Education and the Melton Center for Jewish Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His teaching and research areas include: the psychological study of cultural and ethnic identity; Jewish identity transitions; education and immigration; cultural identity processes during intergroup contact; acculturation and identity processes among immigrants. He has published extensively in various scientific journals, and has co-edited two books: Language, identity, and immigration (with E. Olshtain), and National variations in Jewish identity (with S. Cohen). Some of his current research projects: Stress and coping among teachers working with immigrant students; the acculturative school context and the adaptation of immigrant students; the intergroup encounter: strategies, outcome, and the role of collective identity.
Diana Pinto
Project-Incubator 2006
Diana is a historian and writer living in Paris. She has a PhD. in Contemporary European History from Harvard University and is a consultant to the Political Directorate of the Council of Europe. She is a member of the academic committee of Paideia.
Michael Gillis
Project-Incubator 2006
Michael is a member of the faculty of the Melton Centre for Jewish Education at the Hebrew University. His work is concerned with the ways in which different paradigms of reading rabbinic literature can be a resource for teaching and curriculum. He served for five years as the head of education of Revivim, an honors program for the preparation of teachers of Jewish studies in Israeli non-religious high schools.