Catherine Bell, is the national program director of KESHET has been working for justice since college, when she found her feminist voice and realized that she had to use it. Catherine comes to Keshet from JOIN for Justice, where she served for 6 years as the Director of the Jewish Organizing Fellowship. Under Catherine’s leadership, the Fellowship grew into a highly competitive, nationally acclaimed program for recruiting and training talented emerging Jewish organizers. Catherine’s work at JOIN focused on training, coaching, and facilitating communities of practice, as well as consulting with Jewish organizations on how to use the framework of community organizing to build stronger, values-driven institutions and communities.
Catherine has over a 15 years of experience organizing and educating in a Jewish context. Since her own participation in the JOIN Fellowship after college, she has worked as a youth educator and organizer within the Boston Jewish community and with immigrant youth in Brockton, MA. She has also worked as an organizer of progressive Jewish adults in the Boston area and in New York City, and as an organizer at Temple Israel in Boston. Catherine spent time in Ghana as an HIV educator with the Volunteer Corps of American Jewish World Service, and has a background in performance and Theater of the Oppressed popular education techniques. Catherine graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College, and holds an M.A. in Sociology of Education from NYU.
Emilia Diamant, is the Executive Director of the Jeremiah Program in Boston, MA. She is a Boston native whose areas of expertise are social justice, leadership, and cross-cultural dialogues with young people. She has taught in Boston, New York, Costa Rica, North Carolina, Ukraine and Italy, in many languages and settings. Her training as a social worker enables her to employ both micro (therapeutic) and macro (systemic) techniques in her work. She graduated from New York University with a degree that combined her professional and academic experiences to create a major exploring the need for high-quality, non-traditional educational programs in urban spaces. She holds a master’s in social work and a certificate in nonprofit leadership and management from the University of North Carolina. Diamant was a JOIN for Justice fellow in 2012-2013, where she was trained in community organizing, communal power, and strategic planning.
Baley London is the Allen & Ruth Ziegler Executive Director of the USC Hillel Foundation. Bailey previously served as the Director of Emerging Leadership and Next Gen Initiatives at the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County. While at the Federation, she developed and implemented a prestigious leadership training program and significantly impacted the Jewish community through financial resource development and young adult engagement. Bailey graduated with two Masters Degrees from the USC School of Social Work and HUC’s School of Non-Profit Management. In Spring 2014, Bailey was selected to be a member of Future50, an initiative fueled by the USC Center for Religion & Civic Culture to identify and foster “emerging leaders who are beginning to shape the future landscape of faith in Los Angeles.”
Rabbi Avi Orlow is an educator with a great love of irreverent, relevant, and revealing Torah. Avi is currently the Director of Jewish Education at the Foundation for Jewish Camp. He has held numerous positions as a camp educator and a Hillel Rabbi and spent an unforgettable stint running youth programming in Minsk, Belarus. Avi has a BA in religious studies from Columbia University and was ordained in the charter class of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the open Orthodox rabbinical school. Avi lives in White Plains with his wife, Cantor Adina Frydman, and their children, Yadid, Yishama, Emunah, and Libi. He blogs religiously at saidtomyself.com
Rabbi Scott Perlo is the Associate Director of Jewish Programming for Sixth & I. Scott had the honor of being the first rabbi of the Professional Leaders Project and Moishe House. He is the founder of the Ma’or Beit Midrash and CreateHavdallah, and he was the rabbi of Adat Shalom in West L.A., and rabbinic intern at IKAR and Beit Warszawa in Warsaw, Poland. He received his undergraduate degree from University of Pennsylvania and his ordination from the Ziegler School at the American Jewish University in 2008. He writes fairly often for the Huffington Post and delivers fresh takes on spirituality for the blog, Kosher Salt.
Stefan Teodosic is the Executive Director of Beber Camp, Perlman Camp and the Perlman Retreat Center. He has worked in the Jewish camping world for over 20 years, including 14 at the executive level. He has a B.A. in Economics, a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. with a focus on strategy. Before his move to the Jewish professional world, Stefan spent several years working in the international strategic financial services sector at American Express. Stefan is currently on the board of Moishe House and the Community Foundation for Jewish Education (CFJE) of the JUF/Jewish Federation of Chicago. He lives in Chicago with his wife Cortney and their kids Micah and Levi. He is an avid musician, not-for-profit consultant, self-styled athlete and world traveler.