Bradley Cohen

Bradley is the founder of www.allforthekids.org, which focuses on leveraging trekking and outdoors activities to support children in need in Israel and around the world, particularly focusing the relationship between Israel and Africa. After a B.A Honours Degree from Manchester University in England, Bradley set off to spend the next 6 years living and working in various countries in Asia. He spent a large amount of time living and volunteering in orphanages in Bihar, India's poorest state, where he helped restructure the education and feeding program, as well as used his teaching, meditation and martial arts training to bring in a holistic program of exercise and life-skills to the children. At the end of 2006 Bradley returned to Israel after rediscovering his Jewish roots and the profound spiritual insight, and wisdom of Judaism. He has just completed an epic fundraising adventure which saw him walk the entire length of Israel along the Israel National Trail, from the Lebanese border to Eilat, in just 40 days. He wanted to truly connect to the land before making aliyah, and use the venture to raise money for projects in Israel and in Africa. More information at www.allforthekids.org

Shai Davis

Shai Davis graduated from Harvard University with high honors in 2006, distinguished as the college's first joint major in film making and religion. His senior thesis, "Ex Machina" -- a fiction-documentary about modern day prophets – has won several awards, including Best Picture at the Sundeis Film Festival. After moving to Israel in 2007, Shai began freelance work as an Internet marketing expert and design consultant. In addition, he continues to work at his family's business -- a New York-based consulting firm for non-profit organizations. An aspiring animator and screenwriter, Shai hopes to return to film making someday soon. A selection of his work can be found at www.ShaiDavis.com.

Eitan Ingall

Eitan Ingall is a Sophomore at the University of Michigan in the College of Literature Science and the Arts Honors Program. He is pursuing a degree in Organizational Studies, an interdisciplinary program relatively new to the U of M, which combines Economics, Political Science and Psychology. As a campus activist, Eitan currently serves as the President of the Israel IDEA (Initiative or Dialogue, Education and Advocacy), a leading Pro-Israel political advocacy group at Michigan. The group has brought speakers to address the student body such as Daniel Pipes and Bret Stephens, and works closely with committed students to convey a positive message about Israel to the U of M campus community. He has published work in the Michigan Daily, the Jerusalem Post and various other journals, and is currently co-authoring a paper on social network analysis with faculty in the Political Science Department at Michigan. In his free time, you might find Eitan sledding in Nicols Arboretum with his friends or playing piano in a music lounge.

Rafi Gabbay

Rafi was born and lives in Jerusalem. He studied Industrial Design at Hadassah College while concurrently working towards a degree in Jewish history, finishing with distinction. He is currently studying for a masters degree in Jewish Art at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Study. His work ranges from designing products for the Ministry of Defence (Studio Dea, Jerusalem) to classic Judaica for companies like Y. Swed and Azoulay Art. His work was presented in the contemporary design exhibition "Dream Makers" at the Israel Museum. Rafi is continually exploring his Jewish identity, either through study of texts in a yeshiva framework, script writing or working with "Gesher" to bridge the gap between secular and religious in Israeli society. This search has led Rafi to develop an interface between Jewish life and design.

Erin Kopelow

Graduating from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with a degree in political science, Erin moved to Toronto Canada, where she worked in creative development for an innovative, niche television production company. Erin came to Israel for the first time in the fall of 2005 on a one-year volunteer program with MASA and was seconded to work with MASA in marketing, PR, and communications. She remains with MASA where she concentrates on issues related to participant integration, networking within Israel and Israeli cultural exposure in the international arena. Impassioned by the culture, people and challenges of Israel, Erin made Aliyah in 2007 and currently lives in Jerusalem and is planning to pursue a Masters degree in Israel within the coming year.

Eileen Levinson

Eileen Levinson is a designer and artist living in Los Angeles, California. She has an undergraduate degree in Sociology and American Culture Studies from Washington University in St. Louis, and just completed her Master of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design from California Institute of the Arts. Her practice explores interventionist and participatory mediums that spark dialogue amongst communities. For more information, visit www.eileenmachine.com.

Becca Linden

Like Barack Obama, Becca Linden was a community organizer in Chicago. Before that, she studied Sociology and Government at Wesleyan University where she graduated with High Honors in 2006. Most recently Becca has been learning Torah at Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies where she is helping to develop a Torah/Social Justice Professional Development Track. Becca is a proud native of Charlottesville, Virginia.

Jodi Meyerowitz

Jodi Meyerowitz is a second-year student studying Economics and Human Physiology at the University of Oregon. The University is located two hours south of Portland, where Jodi has lived for the past ten years. Jodi lived in South Africa until age ten, and upon her immigration to the United States, she realized diversity in the Jewish community that she had not known before, which has served as a major source of inspiration. Jodi was recently elected Student Board President of Oregon Hillel and is very excited about this role through which she intends to help grow the number of students active in Hillel, and the UO Jewish community as a whole. She is the Ethics Chair of This Is Israel, an Israel awareness group on campus; and also serves as a Resident Assistant in the Residence Halls, where she oversees and advises a hall of first-year students.

Chari Pere

A native New Yorker, Chari Pere graduated valedictorian from the School of Visual Arts in 2007 with a B.F.A. in Cartooning. Her works earned her grants including The Visual Arts Foundation Scholarship, the Charles and Marie Egnasko Scholarship, the Archie Goodwin Memorial Scholarship, and an SVA Alumni Scholarship, as well as an Emerging Jewish Artists Fellowship from NYU's Bronfman Center. A former MAD Magazine intern, Chari currently Co-Chairs monthly Cartoonist Roundtable meetings at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in NYC. Chari's published work includes: two coloring books for LearningAboutDiabetes.org, The Girls' Guide to Guys' Stuff (Friends of Lulu, 2007), and MAD Magazine. For updates or to view more of her work, please visit www.charipere.com.

Assael Romanelli

Assael Romanelli, Educator and Performance artist, grew up in Israel and the USA. He graduated with honors from Ben Gurion University in 2004, followed by a two and a half year shlichut with the Jewish Agency to the Masorti Movement in the UK. He has been working for over a decade in informal education and arts in Israel, USA and the UK. Today he is studying towards his Masters in Social Work in Haifa University.

Assael is interested in the meeting point between Education, Art and Therapy, as his belief that all three worlds are intertwined and can benefit from more interaction. Over the past decade, He has planned and executed many educational projects, as well as teaching performing arts improvisation classes in Israel, UK and USA. Currently he is the manager of "Drachim," the gap year program in Israel for Noam UK (The Zionist Youth Movement of the Masorti Movement in the UK). His summer project is aimed at making the most of the combination of therapy and education.

Daniel Rosen

Daniel Rosen is a young entrepreneur focusing his energies on working with communities to achieve "green" and sustainable development projects. Daniel is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of KEYA Earth (www.keyaearth.com), a sustainable-development firm focusing specifically on meeting the development needs of Native American and other rural communities. He also works with numerous other groups on clean-tech and green development projects such as the Northern Arizona Center for Emerging Technologies (www.nacet.org), a targeted high-tech business development incubator, as well as MyPlanet International (www.myplanetintl.com), a global design and build green contractor.

Daniel Schaefer

Daniel was inspired to start Invested Citizens after reading Muhammad Yunus's vision for a social business sector. His formula for doing good through independent and self-sustaining business models led Daniel to devote himself full-time to finding, selecting, and funding the best social businesses in the world. Before founding Invested Citizens, Daniel graduated from Stanford University and worked as an educator and nonprofit professional in New York, Virginia, and Washington DC.

Todd Schechter

Todd Daniel Schechter is the founder and director of The Jerusalem
Project, a new model in dialogue learning programs that helps trained
facilitators and amateur dialogue enthusiasts alike facilitate engaging
and high-impact conversation workshops. The Jerusalem Project provides
a one-stop shop for the tools and training these leaders need to help
other Jews learn more about themselves and Judaism by learning about
each other.

Previously working as an international documentary television
producer for Chat the Planet, Todd has focused experience working on
documentaries about young people, ages 18 to 25, in different countries
around the world.

Tanya Strusberg

Tanya Strusberg was born and raised in Hong Kong. She studied film, television and broadcasting at the HK Academy for Performing Arts and worked for several years as a film dubber and voice-over artist. She moved to her parents' native Australia in 1995 where she worked in professional theatre as a director, producer and writer before eventually turning to the marketing side of the arts and entertainment industry. Tanya has worked for a number of major Australian arts organisations including the Victorian Arts Centre, the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts and Company B, Belvoir St Theatre. She was also the recipient of an arts management residency grant from the Australia Council to work with the Singapore International Arts Festival. In 2003 she traveled to Israel for the first time to participate as an artist-in-residence at the WUJS Institute in Arad on their arts project track. Following the residency, she returned to Australia, where she was appointed the Israel Programs director for the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS). She returned to Israel permanently in December 2006.

Joel Rothschild

Joel Rothschild is an internet software engineer, musician, and social innovator based in Seattle. As a technologist, Joel specializes in building rich interactive "Web 2.0" user interfaces (recently http://insidetrip.com/) and applications based on complex social and geographic data models (recently http://builditgreen.org/). Musically, Joel (aka Yoel Natan) is an American "roots"/folk singer-songwriter, with a background in chamber and orchestral composition and a growing collection of original music for traditional Hebrew liturgy and song. Joel's recent Jewish community projects include extensive work with the emerging field of professional maggidut (see http://moshavhaam.org/) and founding the Seattle-based Ravenna Kibbutz (see http://ravennakibbutz.org/).

Joel Rothschild will be a technologist in residence at the summer 2008 institute.

JT Waldman

JT (Jeff) Waldman is the writer and illustrator of the groundbreaking graphic novel, Megillat Esther. As a Hebrew School dropout, he "discovered" his Jewish roots while living in catholic Spain and excavated them in a yeshiva in Israel. Thirteen years later Waldman returned to Hebrew School as a teacher and USY advisor drawing from a diverse pool of professional and personal experiences. He has worked in various capacities with organizations like Marvel Comics, GenArt, Zeros2Heroes, and Red Bull. A graduate of the Residential College of the University of Michigan he has also studied at the Liberal Yeshiva in Jerusalem and the University of Seville. In 2006, he received a diploma in Digital Design from the Vancouver Film School. Waldman currently works as the Creative Director of YAVNET, the new interactive branch of The Jewish Publication Society (JPS). To learn more about his work, go to www.jtwaldman.com.

Jamie Zebrak

Jamie Zebrak is 21 years old. An Atlanta native, she is currently attending school at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She is studying Psychology and International Studies with a Focus in the Middle East. In her spare time, she is also pursuing a Film Certificate through the University.