Educational Leadership Program

Saul Kaiserman, RJE (he/him/הוא) is Founding Director of Lifelong Learning and Scholar in Residence at Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York. In 2013, Mr. Kaiserman was inducted by Hazon into its “If Not Now Society” as a “Visionary Leader in Jewish Life and Learning;” in 2019 he was recognized as a “Distinguished Jewish Educator” by the Association of Reform Jewish Educators (ARJE). Mr. Kaiserman is currently writing his dissertation at the Davidson School of Education of the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he is a doctoral fellow in the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education and where he received his Master of Arts in 1999. He is a board member of the Jewish Education Project, and in the summer of 2020 was interviewed for its podcast, Adapting: The Future of Jewish Education.  He serves as adjunct faculty in the School of Education of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) and as a mentor for the Educational Leadership Program of the Mandel Institute for Nonprofit Leadership. In July of 2020, he was an all-star songleader for the Union for Reform Judaism’s Campfire on Tour summer concert series. He is a native New Yorker and lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his wife, Elizabeth Freirich, and their daughters, Jory and Zeva. Videos of Saul’s performances and work are on his YouTube Channel.

Jacob Pinnolis is currently Interim CEO at Maimonides School in Brookline, Mass.  Jacob joined Maimonides in 2020 as Chiel Educator-in-Residence, working on the systematic implementation of reflective teaching practice, with a focus on student-centered learning and mastery. He will return to this role in 2022-23. Jacob previously served as Director of Teaching and Learning at Gann Academy, where he was responsible for deepening a culture of reflection, developing a program of professional growth at every stage of a teacher’s career, and constructing a process of supervision to support these goals. While at Gann, he also taught Tanach, Jewish philosophy, and analytic philosophy. Jacob has published numerous articles on Jewish education, teacher development, and leadership culture, and has conducted workshop sessions at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education on developing reflective teaching practice. He is the former editor of Gleanings: An Online Journal of Jewish Education, published by the Melton Research Center. Before entering Jewish education, Jacob taught analytic philosophy at the University of Florida and at Virginia Commonwealth University. Jacob has an A.B. in Philosophy from Harvard University and an M.Ed. in Jewish Education from the Davidson School of Education at JTS, and did doctoral work in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Jacob lives in Newton, Mass. with his wife, Sarah. Jacob and Sarah enjoy camping and hiking, stargazing, reading, and gardening. They have two grown children.

Michelle Shapiro Abraham has worked in the field of Jewish Education for over twenty years.  She currently serves as the Executive Director of Strategic Innovation and Program for the URJ and oversees the Reform Movement’s teen strategies, Israel Immersives, and various camp-related projects.  A longtime educator, author, and consultant for both camps and congregations, she holds a Master’s Degree and an honorary Doctorate in Jewish Education from the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at HUC-JIR.   Michelle is a PJ Library and Sydney Taylor Notable Book Award author, and the proud recipient of the 2015 Covenant Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.   She recently expanded her work to explore the intersection between community organizing and youth development as a strategy for reimaging Jewish leadership, communal power, and individual thriving.  When not involved in Jewish education, you can find Michelle at her pottery wheel in her home studio, experimenting with sourdough recipes, or enjoying time with her family

Dr. Susie Tanchel is Vice-President of Hebrew College in Newton, MA.  Prior that that she served as Head of School at JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School for close to a decade.  During her tenure, Tanchel was an accomplished and deeply beloved leader, guiding the school to preeminence as a national model of excellence in pluralistic Jewish education, and creatively embodying its abiding commitments to community, centrality of Hebrew language, and teaching the whole child. Before going to JCDS, she served as the Associate Head of School at Gann Academy – The New Jewish High School of Greater Boston for 7 years and had taught Tanakh there for 14 years. Susie earned her doctorate from Brandeis University’s Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department. She has been an instructor in a number of pre-service education program including the DeLeT (Day School Leadership Through Teaching) program at the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education and the Masters of Teaching Program in Secondary Education at Brandeis University. She was on the writing team of the JTS and the Avi Chai Foundation’s Standards and Benchmark project for the teaching of Tanakh. Susie has also taught in a variety of adult education settings including Combined Jewish Philanthropy’s Genesis Program, and Biblical Hebrew and Me’ah at Hebrew College. Over the course of Susie’s career, her teaching, scholarship and leadership has been recognized by a variety of fellowships and awards.  Most recently, she received the 2017 Hachmat Lev Award from Keshet and was a recipient of the 2018 Covenant Award for Jewish Educators.