Rabbi Aaron Weininger
Rabbi Aaron Weininger joined Adath Jeshurun Congregation (Minnetonka, MN) in 2012, upon receiving rabbinic ordination and an MA in Hebrew Letters from the Jewish Theological Seminary. He holds the Berman Family Chair in Jewish Learning. Aaron earned his BA in Anthropology and Jewish Near Eastern Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2007 he became the first openly gay person admitted to rabbinical school in the Conservative movement of Judaism. That experience taught him the power of listening at the margins rather than pulling people into whatever the center is at that moment, and he is attuned to the spark each person brings to Torah, prayer, and acts of kindness in the warmth of community. During rabbinical school he was welcomed into communities as a teacher and prayer leader in Statesville, NC, Portland, ME, Sag Harbor and White Plains, NY and across New York City. He trained as a chaplain in Clinical Pastoral Education for two summers at Bellevue Hospital Center, and a third with the Educational Alliance at a Kosher soup kitchen for older adults on the Lower East Side. He studied as a Schusterman Fellow at JTS. From 2018-2021 Aaron served as co-chair of the Minnesota Rabbinical Association and joined Honeymoon Israel as rabbi for the MSP cohort in January 2020. A product of pluralistic Jewish camping and USY, he is the chair of the Herzl Camp Clergy and Educator Council. He serves on the Editorial Committee of Siddur Lev Shalem for Weekdays and the JTS Chancellor's Rabbinic Cabinet, as a board member of JFCS Minneapolis, and on the Advisory Board for the Multi-Religious Fellows Program at the Collegeville Institute.
Idit Klein
Idit Klein (she/her/hers) is the President & CEO of Keshet and is a national leader for social justice with more than 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Since 2001, she has served as the leader of Keshet, the national organization for LGBTQ equality in Jewish life. ldit built Keshet from a local organization with an annual budget of $42,000 to a national organization with an annual budget of nearly $4 million. Under her leadership, Keshet has supported tens of thousands of rabbis, educators, and other Jewish leaders to make LGBTQ equality a communal value and imperative. ldit also spearheaded the creation of leadership development programs for queer Jewish teens and mobilized Jewish communities to help defeat a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and advance transgender rights in Massachusetts. In addition, she served as the Executive Producer of Keshet’s documentary film, “Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School.”
Prior to leading Keshet, ldit worked in Jerusalem for Israeli-Palestinian peace and helped envision the Jerusalem Open House as a leader in the Israeli LGBTQ rights movement. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale University, ldit earned her Master’s in Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with a focus on social justice and anti-oppression education. She serves on the advisory board of the Safety Respect Equity Coalition and the leadership team of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable to strengthen the national Jewish social justice movement. ldit was honored by the Jewish Women’s Archive with a Women Who Dared award as well as by Jewish Women International with a Women to Watch award, and selected for the Forward 50, a list of American Jews who have made enduring contributions to public life. She lives in Boston with her family.
Michelle Labgold
Michelle Labgold is the Chief Planning Officer of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation (GMJF). In this capacity, she is responsible for assessing local needs and trends, establishing priorities, overseeing volunteer engagement, creating collaborative efforts and ensuring the appropriate investment of communal resources. She has worked in the Jewish communal and human services field for 28 years and holds a Masters in Public Administration. Prior to her position at GMJF, Michelle was Senior Director of Domestic Affairs at the Jewish Federations of North America, Director of the Westside Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles and Administrator of the Jewish Home for the Aging in Los Angeles.
Davia Loren, MD
Dr. Davia Loren is a woman of myriad intersectional identities. She’s been practicing medicine for nearly 25 years, maintaining board certifications in both General Pediatrics and Newborn Intensive Care. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle where she has been living since 2004, she’s a member of Temple Beth Am there. Davia is a peer-trainer for the University of Washington Office Of Healthcare Equity where she will be providing workshops on gender & sexuality identity diversity as well as on bias & micro-aggressions. Davia’s identities include mom (her three kids range in age from 15 to 21) and cherishing companion to her beloved partner, Jane.
Davia has served as the Medical Director of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Camp Kalsman since 2006, the Medical Liaison for the URJ-NFTY USA Camping System since 2016 and is now one of five physicians leading the URJ Medical Advisory Team. She is a passionate advocate, activist, and ally for gender diversity education and inclusion; she helped develop Camp Kalsman’s gender inclusion program. Davia is a member of the Gay & Lesbian Medical Association and a member of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health where she serves on their Global Education Institute’s Faculty Development Committee. She’s provided expert testimony to the Washington State Senate on inclusion of transgender health care in insurance coverage, she speaks about gender diversity to audiences on a regional and national level. Davia was elected to the URJ North American Board as the first openly transgender person in 2019. As a passionate board member for LGBTQ+ presence in Jewish life she has participated in their groundbreaking DEI Taskforce, and is presently a member of the Trustees Committee. Davia loves to hike, cook (especially for Jane), and pretty much anything that involves being out on the water.
Jeff Schoenfeld
As Partner and Head of Global Institutional Business Development and Relationship Management at Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), Jeff leads the firm’s Institutional Investment Management client activities on a global basis for a range of products/services. He joined BBH in 1984, was named a Partner of the firm in 1996, and has served numerous investment leadership roles during his 37-year BBH career, including Chief Investment Officer, Head of Asset Allocation, and Head of Fixed Income Management. Currently, Jeff participates in several firm-wide oversight committees for Asset/Liability Management and BBH’s volunteerism activities, BBH Cares. He also helps lead BBH’s Diversity & Inclusion efforts and is the founding sponsor for the firm’s LGBTQ Affinity Group, BBH Pride.
Jeff is passionately involved in several philanthropic organizations. He is the Immediate Past President of UJA-Federation of New York, the largest local philanthropy in the world. Preceding his role as President, Jeff was the Co-Chair of UJA's Annual Campaign and the Chair of UJA’s Caring Commission, overseeing human service and community building programs in New York, and 70 countries around the world. Today, he chairs UJA’s Allocation Steering Committee, is a member of its Executive Committee, Finance Committee and Board of Directors. Jeff currently serves as Chair of the Israel and Overseas Committee of the Jewish Federations of North America, helping to strategically guide global allocations for the North American Federation system. In this capacity, Jeff serves as a member of the Board of Governors of The Jewish Agency for Israel.
Jeff is a member of the Board of Directors of The Jewish Funders Network, joining other philanthropists to address critical societal challenges. He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of amfAR, a leading cure-focused global HIV/AIDS research organization. Jeff serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the NPR Foundation, the country’s leading provider of journalistic excellence and programmatic content for public radio and podcasts, and also serves as a member of the Graduate Executive Board at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, working to expand Wharton’s impact as the foremost teaching, research, and experience-led business school in the world.
Jeff received his B.A. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley, and his MBA in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Ron Werner
Ron Werner (Denver, CO) is President and Co-founder of HW Home, Inc., a Colorado-based home furnishings retailer and design source. Ron grew up in the Chicago suburbs and now calls Denver home. Prior to forming HW Home in 1998, Ron was a Senior Vice President of Investments with Smith Barney. Ron serves on various boards including Alexander Muss High School in Israel (AMHSI), for which he serves as President and was previously Vice President and Chair of the Sales & Marketing Committee. He is also a proud alumnus (1982) of the school and refers to his study at AMHSI as the most important part of his educational experience. Ron is also Co-chair of JNF’s Nefesh B’ Nefesh Task Force. He previously served as President for the Mountain States Region from 2014- 2016, and now is the region’s chairman. He is a member of JNF’s Century Council and King Solomon Society.
Rabbi Benay Lappe
Rabbi Benay Lappe is the Founder and Rosh Yeshiva of SVARA. Ordained by The Jewish Theological Seminary in 1997, Benay also currently serves as Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Next Jewish Future in Chicago, and as an Associate at CLAL—The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. An award-winning educator specializing in the application of queer theory to Talmud study, Benay has served on the faculties of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Temple University, American Jewish University, The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, The Graduate Theological Union’s Center for Jewish Studies at UC-Berkeley, Milken Community High School, and The Wexner Institute. During her tenure as Director of Education at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, in Manhattan, Benay founded CBST’s Lehrhaus Judaica, which has served over 10,000 students to date. Benay also cofounded the Queer Jewish Think Tank at Congregation Beth Chayim Chadashim, in Los Angeles, which still operates today. Benay’s writings have appeared in Shma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility; eCLAL: An Online Journal of Religion, Public Life and Culture; The Book of Jewish Sacred Practices: CLAL’s Guide to Everyday and Holiday Rituals and Blessings; Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation; Torah Queeries, among others. Benay was named to Jewrotica’s Sexiest Rabbis List of 2013 (and is a little embarrassed about this but also a little bit proud), The Forward’s 2014 List of Most Inspiring Rabbis, was awarded the 2015 Mintz Family Foundation Award for Creative Jewish Education, and is a 2016 recipient of the prestigious Covenant Award for innovative Jewish education. While learning and teaching Talmud are her greatest passions, Rabbi Lappe is also a licensed pilot, shoemaker, and patent-holding inventor.
Rabbi Sue Reinhold
Rabbi Dr. Sue Reinhold is the principal at Braveheart Advising, her executive coaching and spiritual advising practice. After a career that comprised many entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial leadership roles, including founding and growing a noted wealth management firm, building a corporate strategy team at a Fortune 200 company, running two mutual funds, helping turn around a JCC and a large donor-advised philanthropy operation, and helping to start a new religious community, The Kitchen SF, Rabbi Sue has moved into a mentoring and advising phase of her career. Rabbi Sue is a trusted advisor to C-level executives around the
country who are usually Jewish and/or running Jewish organizations. Rabbi Sue also advises people spiritually on changes they want to make in their lives, helping them get out of personal and professional Egypts. Rabbi Sue also leads Addict Torah, a lively Torah study group that is built to enhance people's recovery from addiction and to help people create distance from addictive tendencies in their lives. Rabbi Sue also currently serves as national board Co-Chair of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice.
Gamal Palmer
Gamal Palmer is the Founder of Diversity Gym, an international diversity and inclusion expert, and an executive leadership consultant.
A graduate of Yale and student of Oxford, with a strong background in organizational leadership and inclusion, Palmer has worked with thousands of leaders, executives, and CEOs to help them diversify their teams, and increase effectiveness and collaboration. He’s worked with large-scale businesses and non-profits including Live Nation (Music Forward), Intuit, UCLA, USC, Sempra Energy, and Computacenter. Through Diversity Gym, he’s coached thousands of individuals to help them find acceptance and foster inclusion to impact their bottom line.
Having worked with social impact entrepreneurs in 15 African countries, the Middle East, and the US, Palmer brings a deep understanding of the human condition to the corporate sector. His dedication to advancing global equity has led him to be recognized by the Schusterman Foundation, The Durfee Foundation, Los Angeles Global Justice Center, and The Aspen Institute.
As Senior Vice President for the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Gamal leverages his expertise to help professionals create authenticity to navigate and overcome differences. As a speaker, he focuses on helping industry leaders overcome diversity avoidance by generating authentic connection with their teams and customers.