Bill Gabovitch, Massachusetts – Co-President
Bill joined the Board of JOIN in 2014, is chair of the Governance Committee and sits on the Executive Committee. He has worked with the Fellows on fundraising for the past several years. Bill has been an active member of the Boston Jewish Community for many years. Bill is a past president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston and has been on the JCRC Board over 10 years. He has also had deep involvements with Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (Boston’s Jewish federation) since 1989, including serving on their Board of Directors from 2000- 2012.Bill has also had involvements with Keshet, a group working for full inclusion in Jewish life of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jews and Moise Kavod House. Bill is the General Counsel of Primark US and was previously a Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Staples, Inc. PreviouslyBill worked for the law firms of Nutter, McClennen & Fish, LLP, Kaye Fialkow, Richmond and Rothstein and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan. Bill is a member of Shir Hadash, a Reconstructionist havurah that meets in Newton Centre, MA. He graduated from Indiana University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Laura Loeb, Maryland – Co-President
Laura has been very involved with several of JOIN’s programs, including ROAR! A Jewish Leadership Training for Resistance, Organizing, Action, & Resistance, which provided one-day trainings in 19 cities in 2017, a 2018 voter registration drive in Atlanta with Jewish groups working in coalition with African American organizations, and the successful campaign in Florida to pass Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to rehabilitated felons. Laura is an active member of the Community Issues/Social Action Committee at Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C. She volunteers with organizations sponsoring brain tumor research and is also supportive of the work of Tahirih Justice Center, which provides legal services to immigrant women and children fleeing violence. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School and sits on the Dean’s Advisory Council and received a BS degree in accountancy from the University of Illinois. She was a healthcare regulatory lawyer for 22 years, becoming a partner first at Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) and then at King & Spalding. After the unexpected death of her brother, Laura became co-owner and manager of Herman L. Loeb LLC, a family-owned, privately held oil and gas exploration production company. She lives in Potomac, MD, with her husband and has two daughters, age 26 and 24.
Leili Herlinda Davari, Texas
Leili (she/her) has 11 years of experience in grassroots organizing, facilitation, and leadership development. Her experience began in Los Angeles where she started her career organizing local and state-level campaigns in support of domestic workers labor rights and school funding reform campaigns. As a Bend the Arc organizer, Leili led campaigns in support of reforming solitary confinement and cash bail at the California state level. During her final years at Bend the Arc, she was the Selah Program Director where she led two cohorts dedicated to Jewish People of Color. Since March 2022, Leili has been the Director of Racial Equity and Inclusion for the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable supporting the Jewish social justice field and its journey towards honoring race equity and inclusion. She holds a BA in Political Science from New Mexico State University and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Leili is proud to have lineage from Mexico and Iran which includes cooking her family recipes including Khoresh Bademjan and enchiladas. She lives in Dallas, TX with her husband.
Jordan Berg Powers, Massachusetts
Jordan Berg Powers is the Executive Director at Mass Alliance, where he previously served as Deputy Director of Mass Alliance. In his nine years there, he has helped elect new progressive leaders across the state, recruited progressive champions to run, and trained hundreds of grassroots organizers. In 2015 Jordan was recognized for his exceptional work in politics as an inaugural inductee into the 40 under 40 Poly Award. Using his expertise in talking to ordinary voters about progressive policy, Jordan is active in campaigns for saving public education, gender equality and more progressive tax system for the Commonwealth. He conducts trainings across the state on campaign strategy and management, candidate recruitment, progressive messaging, and women in politics. Jordan has a Masters in International Politics from the London School of Oriental & African Studies, a B.A. in International Development, and a B.A. in Economics from American University.
Alice Kuhn, Texas
Alice Kuhn serves as the Executive Director of the Michael and Alice Kuhn Foundation, a foundation she and her husband Michael created and funded, dedicated to social justice and eradicating poverty. She has served on numerous nonprofit boards, including the Jewish Federation of Austin, the Jewish Family Service of Austin, the New Milstones Foundation, and the Capital Area Food Bank. Born in Chicago, Alice received a BA from the University of Texas at Dallas and an M.Ed from the University of Texas, Austin.
Rabbi Lydia Medwin, Georgia
Rabbi Lydia Medwin joined the clergy team at The Temple in Greater Atlanta in 2014 and currently serves as Associate Rabbi. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Lydia attended the University of Texas in Austin (hook ’em) and Hebrew University for undergraduate studies, earning degrees in Middle Eastern Studies and Honors Humanities. She was ordained on the Los Angeles campus of Hebrew Union College in May of 2010. While there, she received a Masters of Hebrew Letters and a Masters in Jewish Education from the Rhea Hirsch School. Lydia has served synagogue Beth Israel in Jackson, MS, B’nai David in Visalia, CA, Or Ami in Calabasas, CA, the Hillel at UCLA, and as a teacher’s assistant at USC in Jewish history. She later served for four years as a pulpit rabbi at Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles. Between undergraduate and graduate studies, she worked as the education director for a synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, and traveled to places as varied as South Africa, Peru, and Greece.
Rabbi Medwin is a certified Jewish Meditation Teacher. She is a co-author with Dr. Ron Wolfson and Rabbi Nicole Auerbach of The Relational Judaism Handbook: How to Create a Relational Engagement Campaign to Build and Deepen Relationships in Your Community (Kripke Institute). Lydia also proudly serves as co-chair of the board for the Multifaith Initiative to End Mass Incarceration. While in rabbinic school, Lydia met her husband, Dan Medwin, and they and their three children are thrilled to be a part of The Temple community.
Rabbi Medwin is an alum of JOIN’s Clergy Organizing Fellowship.
Stepfanie Rhodes, New York
Preferred Pronouns: She, Her, Hers
Stefanie has spent the last 20 years working in Jewish philanthropy. Before joining Slingshot, she ran the Annual Fund at the JCC Manhattan where she started the first Giving Circle to benefit JCC programs. She also spent 9 years working at the Jewish Funders Network, where she ran the Younger Funders programming and was the founding Director of the Foundation Professionals program. Prior to joining the Jewish professional world, she worked in ad agencies and tech start-ups in the Bay Area.
Stefanie holds a BA in Journalism and a Certificate in Jewish Studies from Indiana University and a Certificate in Jewish Philanthropy from Yeshiva University. She is a Senior Schusterman Fellow and was a member of the inaugural CEO Onboarding cohort. Stefanie lives in NYC and is married with two kids and a French Bulldog.
Dan Rosan, Massachusetts
Dan Rosan is an experienced healthcare strategist with over ten years of experience in the nonprofit and private sectors. Currently, he supports Biogen’s Development Sciences organization as the head of Business Analytics, where he drives resource planning, performance measurement, and special projects. Prior to joining Biogen, Dan was a management consultant for a boutique firm serving the biotechnology industry, where he worked with the world’s largest biopharmaceutical companies and top-tier venture capital funds. He also led the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility’s healthcare practice for four years. Dan has a BA in History from Vassar College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children.
Phil Rosenblatt, Massachusetts
Phil Rosenblatt is a partner at the Boston law firm of Nutter McClennen & Fish. Inspired by the Jewish Organizing Initiative’s founding Executive Director, Michael Brown, Phil joined the JOI Board many years ago and has worked with their leadership to guide the organization through a number of exciting transitions, culminating in JOIN for Justice’s collaboration with PJA & JFSJ to bring the organization to a whole new level. Phil also serves or has served on the Board of Combined Jewish Philanthropies, as Vice President and Board member of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, as President of the Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center, as an Executive Committee and a Board member of the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association, as President of the Lincoln Station Phase I Homeowners Association in Lincoln, New Hampshire, and as a Board member of the Loon Mountain Alpine Ski Race Team, also in Lincoln, New Hampshire. Phil received a BA from Union College in Schenectady, New York, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School. He lives in Needham, Massachusetts with his wife Nancy and dogs Hannah and Bode. Their two sons live in Washington, DC and Houston, Texas.
Judy Seldin-Cohen, North Carolina
Judy Seldin-Cohen has been a passionate social justice advocate in Charlotte for two decades. The YWCA Central Carolinas recognized her with the Woman of Achievement Lifetime Advocate Award in 2020.
Judy also writes about community organizing. She co-authored Recharging Judaism, a guide to synagogue organizing and was a finalist for a 2018 National Jewish Book Award. Her essay about organizing to change local affordable housing policy was included in the anthology Impact: Personal Portraits of Activism, a 2021 Indie Book Award Finalist.
Judy joined the Board of JOIN in 2023. She also serves as board chair of A Way Home, a $26 million public-private housing endowment moving families out of homelessness in Charlotte. She serves on the board of her local YWCA, whose mission is to eliminate racism and empower women, and also on the board of the Jewish Farmer Network, which connects modern Jewish farmers to each other and ancient Jewish wisdom.
Her previous career included managing client teams at Booz Allen in Chicago and working as the vice president of ticketing at the Jacksonville Jaguars. Judy earned her MBA at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.
She lives in Charlotte with her husband, Jeff Cohen. Three adults in their 30s know her as Mom, calling her regularly.
Molly Schulman, Pennsylvania
Molly Schulman (she/her) received her B.A. in American Studies from Tufts University with a focus on institutions and power. Since graduating, Molly has sought opportunities to combine her passions for community organizing, resource mobilization, and Judaism. She is an alumna of JOIN for Justice’s Jewish Organizing fellowship (2019), the Chordata Capital fellowship, and the Urban Adamah fellowship. She has worked as an educator in both Jewish and secular settings, founding and facilitating a Rosh Chodesh circle, curating and facilitating a Jewish praxis group with Resource Generation, teaching at Central Synagogue, and training at multiple orientations with IfNotNow. She has served on the board of JOIN for Justice since 2019, is a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and is an ALEPH Kesher Fellow. Molly lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Rabbi Elliott Tepperman, New Jersey
Rabbi Elliott Tepperman has been the spiritual leader of Bnai Keshet, in Montclair, NJ since 2002. His rabbinate embraces spiritually courageous Judaism and loving pursuit of shalom and justice for all people. He believes that Jewish practice is most transformational when deep internal work becomes a springboard for building community and engaging with the world. And likewise when we bring the profound and mundane challenges of our personal and public lives to bear on our Jewish study and worship.
Rabbi Tepperman is a founding member of the IAF-affiliated New Jersey Together. He is currently organizing to build the sanctuary movement in NJ with Faith in New Jersey (PICO). He has worked with Bend the Arc teaching Congregation-Based Community Organizing at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and other seminaries. He was a member of Bend The Arcs 13th Selah cohort. He is a past President of the Montclair Clergy Association and he served as President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. In 2019, Rabbi Tepperman won the Rabbinic Human Rights Hero Award from T’ruah, the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.
He is married to Sarah O’Leary and is the proud father of Akiva-Lev, 19, and Sam, 17. Surprisingly, he now finds himself swimming, running, and playing guitar.
Rabbi Tepperman is an alum of JOIN’s Clergy Organizing Fellowship.
Evan Traylor, New York
Evan Traylor is a rabbinic student and Jewish community builder, educator, activist, and writer. Each and every day, he strives to support and guide people, build strong Jewish communities, and work toward justice and liberation, creating a more loving and peaceful world for all people.
Evan is a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, where he is a Wexner Graduate Fellow and a Ko’ach Fellow. He currently serves on the board of Encounter, leadership team of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, and the Commission on Social Action of the Religious Action Center. Before rabbinical school, Evan worked at the Union for Reform Judaism for several years creating new initiatives in college and young adult engagement, where he was selected for the New York Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36”.
Originally from Oklahoma City, Evan grew up in a loving family and was always active and connected with sports, music, school, and the Jewish community. He graduated from the University of Kansas, studying political science, Jewish studies, and leadership studies. During his senior year at KU, Evan was selected as the winner of the ExCEL Award for excellence in community engagement, education, and leadership. Evan is an alum of NFTY, URJ Greene Family Camp, and URJ Kutz Camp and served as the North American President of NFTY. Previously, he was an engagement intern for the University of Kansas Hillel, a trustee on the URJ Board, a student member of the Hillel International Board of Directors, and a co-founder of the Hillel International Student Cabinet. Evan lives in New York City with his fiancé and their tiny dog, Ruby Nakia.
Evan is an alum of JOIN’s Seminary Leadership Project Cross-Seminary course & Don’t Ketch, Organize!
Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, Maryland
Rabbi Lauren Tuchman received rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2018 and is, as far as she is aware, the first blind woman in the world to enter the rabbinate. A sought-after speaker, spiritual leader and educator, Rabbi Tuchman has taught at numerous synagogues and other Jewish venues throughout North America and was named to the Jewish Week’s 36 under 36 for her innovative leadership concerning inclusion of Jews with disabilities in all aspects of Jewish life. In 2017, she delivered an ELI Talk entitled We All Stood At Sinai: The Transformative Power of Inclusive Torah.
Yehudah Webster, California
Spiritual activist and community organizer Yehudah Webster works to animate and integrate anti-racist behaviors and culture in communities, supporting the collective organizing, advocacy, and direct service efforts to dismantle racism systemically. As the Program Director and Faculty at Inside Out Wisdom and Action Project, Yehudah equips communities with the daily concrete spiritual tools of Mussar to subvert racism within ourselves and others through facilitating workshops, consulting with organizations, and building a community of anti-racist practice. He has presented in a wide variety of settings, including staff development for organizations, college campuses, communal institutions, and youth group programs. Yehudah is a graduate of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice’s Grace Paley Organizing Fellowship, Bend the Arc’s Selah Leadership Program, and Inside Out Wisdom and Action Project’s Ovdim Fellowship.
