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Early Career Educators Program

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Faculty

Jethro Headshot

Jethro Berkman

jberkman@mandelfoundation.org
Jethro Berkman is the Director of the Educational Leadership Program and a Program Officer in Jewish Education at the Mandel Institute for Nonprofit Leadership. Before joining the Foundation, Rabbi Berkman worked at Gann Academy for eleven years, most recently as Dean of Jewish Education. He is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and a member of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis. He also studied at the Yakar Center for Tradition and Creativity, the Harvard Divinity School, the Hebrew University, the Pardes Institute, the Conservative Yeshiva and Machon Schechter. Prior to his studies at RRC, Rabbi Berkman spent three years living in Israel, both studying and working for Seeds of Peace, an organization that helps teenagers from regions of conflict learn peacemaking skills. Rabbi Berkman also worked with children with special needs in the Boston Public Schools and volunteered for the community service program City Year Boston.
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Tova-Birnbaum

Tova Birnbaum

Tova Birnbaum is the Senior Jewish Education Specialist at the JCC Association and a faculty member in the Mandel Educational Leadership Program at the Mandel Institute for Nonprofit Leadership. She was the Director of Jewish Content at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto for eight years. Tova was born in B’nai B’rak, Israel, in an Ultra-Orthodox home, and was one of the founders of the BINA Secular Yeshiva in Tel Aviv, where she was a faculty member for many years. She also served as the Central Shlicha (emissary), Director of the North America Region of the World Zionist Organization. Tova is a Judaic studies teacher, Theater Midrash workshop facilitator, and a Secular Jewish Life Cycle ceremonies officiant. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto and on the Birthright Israel Education Committee. Tova holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Jewish Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a master’s degree in Theater from Tel Aviv University. Tova and her husband live in Palo Alto and are proud parents of two daughters.
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Jonathan Krasner

Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Chair of Jewish Education Research at Brandeis University. Jonathan is a two-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps and The Benderly Boys in American Jewish Education. He is former chair of the Network for Research in Jewish Education and was named as a 2012 finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. He is currently working on a history of the American Jewish Day School movement and was the recipient of the Sylvia and Moshe Ettenberg Prize of the Network for Research in Jewish Education to support his research. 
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Michal Fox Smart

Michal Fox Smart is a leader trainer and transformational faculty for Mobius Executive Leadership. She has pioneered innovation in the field of Jewish education for more than thirty years, working at the nexus of personal, spiritual, and professional development. Early in her career, Michal pioneered Jewish outdoor and environmental education in the U.S., co-founding COEJL, TEVA, and directing the Isabella Freedman Retreat Center. Her book Kaddish: Women’s Voices, won the National Jewish Book Award. Michal served as Associate Principal of Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy and then Director of Ayeka North America, emerging as a national leader on soulful pedagogy and the development of educators. More recently, she served as Chief Program Officer for IJS, overseeing its programs in Jewish mindfulness and spirituality.
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Devora-Steinmetz

Devora Steinmetz

Devora serves on the faculty of the Mandel Institute’s Education and Executive Leadership Programs as well as the Hebrew College rabbinical school. She is the founder of Beit Rabban, a Jewish day school profiled in Daniel Pekarsky’s Vision at Work: The Theory and Practice of Beit Rabban. She is the author of articles on Talmud, Midrash, and Bible as well as of three books, From Father to Son: Kinship, Conflict, and Continuity in Genesis; Punishment and Freedom: The Rabbinic Construction of Criminal Law; and Why Rain Comes From Above: Explorations in Religious Imagination. Devora has served on the faculty of Drisha, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Yeshivat Hadar, and Havruta: a Beit Midrash at Hebrew University.
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