Class Correspondent

Kenny Fink’s New York law firm, Cheriff & Fink, has opened two satellite offices. Kenny heads the new office on Long Island while his partner, Bruce Cheriff, operates the firm’s Mount Kisco, N.Y., location. The firm continues to maintain its offices in lower Manhattan, where Kenny handles a variety of civil matters, including personal injury and commercial litigation. Kenny and his wife, Jacqueline Simons, live on the south shore of Long Island with their sons, Jacob and Harry, and their faithful dog, Lilah Indy. Jacqui is an orthodontist with practices in Oceanside and Floral Park. Jonathan Krasner, Ph.D.’02, won the National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish studies for “The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education.” The book tells the story of Samson Benderly, who created the Bureau of Jewish Education in 1910. He sought to modernize Jewish education by professionalizing the field; creating an immigrant-based, progressive supplementary school model; and spreading the mantra of community responsibility for Jewish education. Jonathan is an associate professor of American Jewish history at Hebrew Union College in New York. He and his partner, Frank Tipton, and their children, Ariel, 10, and Gideon, 4, live in Andover, Mass. Mitch Gross was recently promoted to producer from public relations and community manager at Project Whitecard, a NASA contractor working on the online game Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond. Mitch’s primary responsibilities include assisting in game development, managing the Astronaut Academy Website and upcoming app, and coordinating PR and marketing. In August 2011, Debbie Ginsburg, husband Barry Kolodkin ’84, and their children, Jesse, 12, and Lucy, 9, moved from New Jersey to a suburb of Athens, Greece, where Barry directs the Black Sea Trade and Investment Promotion project, part of the United Nations Development Program. Debbie writes, “The kids are going to the American school, and I am slowly learning the Greek alphabet and how to navigate a huge urban area with few street signs.” Jonas Lee, a founding member of Knome’s board of directors, will become the company’s chief marketing officer and head of consumer genomics. Prior to Knome, which seeks to interpret human genomes to yield scientific and medical insights, Jonas founded and managed several finance, Internet and high-technology ventures that pioneered new markets and technologies, including Redbrick Partners, Poindexter Systems, giftcertificates.com and Integrated Computing Engines. Earlier in his career, Jonas served as a management consultant at Bain & Co. At Knome, he works with classmate Sundar Subramaniam, chair of the firm’s board of directors. The Ruderman Family Foundation, under the guidance of Jay Ruderman, brought a second group of Ruderman Fellows to the United States in the spring for a 10-day session designed to help Israeli Knesset members understand the nuances of the American Jewish community. The five Knesset members, who represented a wide range on the Israeli political spectrum, met with Jewish leaders, philanthropists, scholars and activists at Brandeis and in Boston and New York. Paul Walborsky ’88, M.A.’89, is chief executive officer of GigaOM, a Silicon Valley-based media company and tech blog with more than six million unique visitors per month. In February, GigaOM acquired paidContent, a news and information company, which will expand its footprint in New York City and Great Britain.

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