Advisory Council
Dr. Jessica Liebowitz is a Research Scientist in Computer Science at Brandeis University, where she is co-founder and co-director of the Data Science Internal Internship (DSII). This project creates partnerships between top-performing undergraduates in data science/artificial intelligence and administrative offices across the university. It oversees the experiential learning of participating students, who work directly with administrative leaders to increase the university’s organizational effectiveness through innovations in data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. It grew out of Dr. Liebowitz’s and Professor Tim Hickey’s data analytic research into the supply and demand of fastest growing skills within the higher ed sector.
Dr. Liebowitz also serves as the Chair of the Advisory Council for the Brandeis University Consortium for the Teaching of Hebrew Language and Culture. She is a long-time supporter of the professionalization of Hebrew language learning. While at Middlebury College as special advisor to the Chair of the Board, Dr. Liebowitz helped support the creation of the Middlebury School of Hebrew in 2007 and served on its first Advisory Board. Dr Liebowitz was recently appointed to the Board of Directors of Fulbright Israel, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a founding former Board member of the Natan Fund. She is currently a student in the Hebrew language program at Brandeis.
Dr. Liebowitz holds a PhD from Harvard University, BA from Yale University, and Honorary Doctorate from Middlebury College.
Rabbi David Gedzelman is President & CEO of The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life, which is dedicated to revitalizing Jewish identity through educational and cultural initiatives as well as to advocating for and supporting Hebrew and Jewish literacy among the general population. David has been actively involved in the Foundation’s programs since 1995, when he was recruited to conceive and develop Makor in New York City. As the Founding Creative and Rabbinic Director of Makor, David created and led a cutting-edge venue for New Yorkers in their 20s and 30s, providing innovative arts, cultural and educational programming aimed at engaging an under-involved population in possibilities of Jewish life and meaning.
Rabbi Gedzelman was the lead professional at the Foundation working on the conceptualization, design, and implementation of Hebrew language public charter schools, which the Foundation has played a founding role in supporting since 2007. Rabbi Gedzelman’s passion for the Hebrew language and his deep commitment to inter-group understanding as well as supporting integrated and diverse public schools suited him well for this project which now encompasses a network of schools nationwide overseen by Hebrew Public: Charter Schools for Global Citizens, a grantee of the Foundation. David has been a champion of Hebrew fluency and literacy in North America and was a founding member of the World Zionist Organization’s Council on Hebrew Language and Culture in North America. He also spearheaded Kayitz Kef, an initiative of the Areivim Philanthropic Group now part of the Brandeis Consortium that brings Hebrew immersion programs to Jewish day camps across North America.
Rabbi Gedzelman holds a BA from Hamilton College, an MA from Duke University in Comparative Religion, and Rabbinical Ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He has studied in Israel at the Hebrew University and at the Pardes Institute. He serves on the boards of the American Pardes Foundation, Friends of Hatikvah International Academy Charter School, OneTable: Shabbat Together, and Yaffed. Rabbi Gedzelman lives in Harlem, New York City, with his wife Judith Turner and their three children, Nomi, Anina and Ziv.
A renowned scholar and teacher of Jewish religious texts, Ruth Calderon is one of Israel's leading figures spearheading efforts to revive Hebrew Culture and a pluralistic Israeli-Jewish identity. In 1989, she founded Elul, the first pluralistic beit midrash in Israel, at which secular and religious Jewish men and women study, learn, and interpret Jewish texts side by side. In 1996, she founded Alma, Home for Hebrew Culture, a pluralistic cultural and intellectual center that brings secular and religious Jews together to combine the wisdom of the Jewish texts with modern thinking. These organizations broke down barriers between the sacred and secular, the observant and nonreligious, and male and female, and led to a surge of similar centers and pluralistic thinking across Israel.
Calderon served one term in the 19th Knesset (2013-15) as a member for the Yesh Atid party and as Deputy Speaker of the Knesset. Her maiden speech before the Knesset, in which she read a passage from the Talmud she brought to the podium and called for a new Hebrew culture for Israel, in which both secular and religious Jews interpret and seek guidance from the sacred texts, created a sensation in the Israeli and worldwide Jewish communities. MK Yair Lapid nominated Calderon to be the president of the World Zionist Organization in November 2020, making her the first woman president or chair of a major Zionist organization.
Calderon holds a Master of Arts and PhD in Talmud from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Carol A. Fierke serves as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, with a faculty appointment in the Department of Biochemistry. She earned a PhD in biochemistry at Brandeis in 1984.
Before returning to Brandeis in her current role, Fierke was provost and executive vice president at Texas A&M University. Before that, she was dean of the Rackham Graduate School and vice provost for academic affairs, graduate studies, at the University of Michigan, where she also served as chemistry department chair for nearly a decade, and was the Jerome and Isabella Karle Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry.
A world leader in her field, Fierke is the recipient of the American Chemical Society’s Repligen Award in Chemistry of Biological Processes, the Protein Society’s Emil Thomas Kaiser Award, and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s Mildred Cohn Award in Biological Chemistry for her contributions in the application of chemistry to the study of enzymes. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and a number of other agencies and foundations, including the National Science Foundation, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the Office of Naval Research and the Keck Foundation.
In addition to her PhD in biochemistry from Brandeis, Fierke has a BA in chemistry from Carleton College.
During her career, she has been recognized for improving the campus environment for faculty and students, especially women in science, including active involvement with the University of Michigan ADVANCE Program to create and support a diverse and excellent faculty. Her numerous awards and honors include the American Chemical Society’s 2016 National Award for Encouraging Women Into Careers in the Chemical Sciences, sponsored by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and the Monie A. Ferst Award from Sigma Xi.
Jeremy has served as the Chief Executive Officer for Foundation for Jewish Camp since 2010. Prior to joining FJC, he had a highly-regarded 20+ year career in Consumer Packaged Goods, beginning at General Mills, Inc, then at Campbell Soup Company, where he served as President of its largest Division, US Soup. In 2005, he was recruited to serve as CEO of Manischewitz.
Jeremy spent many wonderful summers at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin as a child where he discovered the joy of Judaism and made lifelong friends. He started his Jewish communal work in high school, serving as international president of United Synagogue Youth. He since served on many philanthropic boards including Jewish Federation, Israel Bonds, American Friends of Magen David Adom, and his synagogues. Jeremy, a former board Vice-Chair of JPRO (the network of Jewish communal professionals), received the 2023 Bernard Reisman Award for Professional Excellence from Brandeis University.
He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Columbia University and an M.B.A. in General Management from Harvard Business School. He and his wife, Gail, live in Fort Lee, NJ.
Daniel Saadia Gitlin has more than 30 years of experience as the general manager and shareholder of a group of companies, the leader in Mexico, in the manufacture of all types of textile products for the home and their commercialization through catalog sales and franchise model with the CONCORD trademark, directing to more than 2,500 collaborators.
For 20 years, Mr. Saadia has been volunteering his time and expertise at Universidad Hebraica, a nonprofit institution that seeks to train leaders and education professionals in the fields of education in general, Jewish studies, the Hebrew language and well-being. Mr. Saadia is currently Chairman of the Board and previously was Chairman of the Executive Committee.
Mr. Saadia, an industrial engineer, graduated from Tel-Aviv University, Israel, and received a Master of Business Administration from IPADE, Mexico D.F.
Ted Sasson is the founding director of the Mandel Institute for Nonprofit Leadership and Director of Programs of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation. He is also a professor of Jewish Studies at Middlebury College where he teaches courses about Israeli politics and society and American Jewish life. Previously, Ted served as Senior Research Scientist at Brandies University’s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, where he also held the title of Visiting Research Professor in the Sociology Department.
Ted is author of The New American Zionism (NYU Press, 2014) and several previous books, as well as dozens of articles and research monographs in the fields of Israel Studies, diaspora studies, heritage tourism, demography, and the sociology of crime and punishment. His short essays have been published in the Jewish Review of Books, Tablet Magazine, The Forward, The Jerusalem Post and other periodicals. He is author most recently of review essays on Israeli perspectives on American Jewry, and Israeli perspectives on civil rights, democracy and Arab-Jewish relations.
Ted previously served as chair of the social science division of the Association for Jewish Studies and on the boards of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry and the Association for Israel Studies. He earned his BA at Brandeis University and his PhD in sociology at Boston College.
One of America's foremost Jewish leaders, Barry Shrage served for three decades as president of Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston and as a powerful voice on the American Jewish communal scene. He is known in Boston and throughout the world for his tireless support of Jewish education; his promotion of engagement by religious and nonreligious Jews; his commitment to working for social justice at home and abroad alongside others; his strong support of Israel; his bridge-building, outreach and engagement with the non-Jewish community in creative partnerships; and for his boundless energy and creativity.
Following Shrage’s retirement from CJP in 2018, he joined Brandeis University as professor of the practice in the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program, where he trains and mentors students in their future roles as Jewish professional leaders. He is working closely with Brandeis’ Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, where he is developing and leading a new initiative on Jewish identity. The Initiative for Jewish Identity will examine Jewish identity historically and in the contemporary context, and build on that understanding to identify and support community programs that can produce large-scale measurable impact on Jewish engagement.
Shrage received his BA from City College of New York and his MSW from Boston University.
Stephen Snyder joined the Japanese Studies department at Middlebury in 2005 and became Dean of Language Schools in 2014.
His research focuses on modern and contemporary Japanese fiction, translation theory, and literary translation. He is the author of Fictions of Desire: Narrative Form in the Novels of Nagai Kafū and co-editor of Ōe and Beyond: Fiction in Contemporary Japan. He has translated works by Yōko Ogawa, Kenzaburō Ōe, Ryū Murakami, and Miri Yu, among others. His translations have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including The New Yorker, Harper’s, and Granta.
He oversees the Middlebury Language Schools.
Professor Vardit Ringvald, PhD is the leading scholar of Hebrew pedagogy. She serves as the Director of the Consortium for The Teaching of Hebrew Language and Culture and as a research professor at the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University. A founder of the School of Hebrew at Middlebury College and the leading scholar of Hebrew pedagogy, curriculum development, teacher preparation, and assessment, Dr. Ringvald is the leading expert in the Proficiency Approach for teaching Hebrew as an additional language.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Ringvald served as Brandeis University’s Hebrew program director, in addition to director of Arabic, Asian, and Romance languages.
As a consultant to many schools and educational organizations, Dr. Ringvald specializes in curriculum development, teacher preparation, and teacher assessment. Her goal is to professionalize teachers and school-based Hebrew programs.