Meet Our Fellows
Matt Bar
Matt Bar is a folk-singer, a rapper and above all a folk-rapper. He has albums in all three genres and has had degrees of success in each area as well. This includes a song being used on episode MTV's "The Real World," a featured appearance on NBC's Hip hop Nation Notes from the Underground, opening for Outkast and Jurassic 5, selling 4,000+ total albums. Matt Moved to New York two years ago to attend the Jewish Theological Seminary and play music in the big city. As a day job Matt began working as a hebrew school teacher. He began writing 'bible raps' as a jump off point for class discussion. The students loved this activity and Matt started getting asked to perform them at different functions."I didn't plan on these raps being something for my music career," Matt explains "but the performances were really satisfying. They combine everything I love: music, theology, teaching and learning. If this is the direction my music career heads, I'm all for it."
Avi Bass
Avi Bass has over the past few years alternatively written for the Jerusalem Post, lead various Israel programs on his college campus (Brandeis University), taught Hebrew and Talmud, and happened upon adventures throughout Israel and the US. This summer he will be working with Aharon Horwitz et Al. at New Z networks, and is also planning a Pilot Trip for students from Boston interested in Aliyah.
Noah Greenfield
Noah Greenfield is a student at Yeshiva University studying Philosophy, English Literature and Semitic Languages. He is doing a BA/MA at Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies in Jewish Philosophy and is pursuing Rabbinic ordination at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He hopes to pursue a doctoral degree in Religion. Noah is an editor of YU's prestigous Beis Yitzchak Journal, a Hebrew-language journal of Talmud and Jewish Law. Noah is involved in genocide prevention, agunot rights, local social justice opportunities, and figuring out a way to make money, have fun, learn Torah AND help the world.
Eliezer Israel
Eliezer Israel is a high-tech maven turned non-profit manager, with a focus on new directions in Jewish education. He holds degrees from Boston University in Computer Science and Philosophy. He has deep technological experience, and was in the core team at Israeli startup Unicorn Solutions from its first year in 2001 to its sale to IBM in 2006. In 2007 he left the world of high tech to become Executive Director of Yeshivat Bat Ayin, a school of advanced Jewish studies that is working to redefine the shape of Jewish education. He also has helped develop the Museum of Psalms as a member of their board.
Rosella de Jong
Rosella de Jong likes a challenge and her goal is to drive people crazy with her eternal questioning. Her trade marks are dry humor and chaoticness. She can be found on a (salsa) dancefloor, in front of the tv, with her nose in a book, watching European films or swimming in the Kinneret at midnight. Not all at the same time though. She bakes cakes at any hour and is addicted to travelling and writing journals. In between she studied Italian Literature, a couple of other languages and Film&TV theory, has been a boardmember and activity manager for young Jewish adults in The Netherlands and other countries. She has been working and living in London and planning on returning there.
Jason Lustig
A founding editor-in-chief of Chalav U'Dvash, Brandeis' Journal of Zionist Thought, Jason Lustig (22) runs independent research focused on key issues of Israel, Zionism and the Jewish people. At the same time, Jason is a technology expert who seeks to utilize modern tools to solve ancient problems--and currently serves as the CTO of a Jerusalem-based company. International Communications VP of United Synagogue Youth back in the day, he continues to fight the same battles to help the Jewish world enter the 21st century while retaining its roots with antiquity.
Josh Poritz
Josh Poritz has recently emerged fresh and delicious from the Engineering School at Columbia University. At a mere 5'5" and 120bs, he comes as part of a complete breakfast. A computer science major from birth, Josh has spent his past seven summers developing and testing VoIP telephony software for Alcatel-Lucent. He holds a patent to a precursor for AJAX, a now-popular combination of technologies enabling highly interactive web applications at low cost overhead. Josh served as Webmaster aboard Lionpac, Columbia's pro-Israel public affairs club, for his first six undergraduate semesters (and at one point managed seven websites simultaneously), and as Political Affairs affairs director for his last two. During his final semester, he organized a Columbia-wide pro-Israel lobbying mission to Capitol Hill. Josh will begin work at Bloomberg in late August and plans establish a software venture one day.
Ori Salzberg
Ori Salzberg is a 23 year old music producer and student of philosophy and musicology at the Hebrew University. He enjoys rock, hip hop and alternative music and is very connected with the traditional Jewish and Hasidic music. Ori is constructig a small home studio for recording in an intimate, relaxed setting, in which he hopes to produce many albums and other various projects. He is part of a commuinty of young creative thinkers and performers in Nachlaot, an old neighborhood of Jerusalem, and hopes to release some of the building energy and crystalize it in recordng and performance. Ori plays guitar, percussion, sings, and is currently exploring digital music programming as well. Always exploring and looking for new connections, Ori is a dreamer, but also grounded in this concrete life, and is hopeful to utilize the summer for planning practical ways of attaining some of these goals.
Beth Shapiro
Beth Shapiro, joyous wife and mother of four believes that when we work together as a nation of individuals anything is possible. She is the founder and director of Tafkid, a non profit organization dedicated to helping individuals discover and actualize their dreams in service of Klal Yisrael. When not building her own dreams and ignoring the pile of clothes sitting on the couch in her home office, Beth works as a development consultant for non-profits in Israel helping them to articulate their vision of the Jewish people and connect them with funding sources to make them a reality. Although she has un-officially given up blogging to write a book, you can read her archives about life, love, marriage and spiritual growth at www.houseofjoy.blogspot.com
Adam Soclof
Adam Soclof grew up in Ann Arbor, MI. In December 2006, he graduated with a B.A. in Judaic Studies from the University of Michigan, where he served as Vice Chair and Treasurer of the Hillel Governing Board. Recently, he has worked for B’nei Akiva Camp Stone, the Jewish Coalition for Service & the Hebrew Day School of Ann Arbor. His latest endeavor is HyperSemitic, a performing arts troupe seeking to generate discussion about Jewish identity in the Diaspora and to lend a morale boost to Jewish particularism.
Eli Winkelman
At Scripps College in Claremont, California, Eli Winkelman served as president of the Hillel student board for a few years and founded Challah for Hunger. Challah for Hunger (CfH) volunteers bake challah from scratch every week, and sell it to the campus community to raise money for the victims of and awareness of the genocide in Sudan. In two and a half years, Claremont CfH sent more than $30,000 to humanitarian relief efforts in Sudan and Chad, and facilitated the writing of hundreds of letters to Washington. Eli is now helping students at other campuses start CfH groups. Eli has also worked in Washington two other times, at The Israel Project and helping to set up a Congressional office, and has worked on a few other campaigns, in particular, running the last Mark Strama Campaign Academy, a summer program that teaches high school and college students everything there is to know about campaigning. Eli graduated in May 2007.