וועד המנהלים
Board of Directors
President
Debbie Katz
President
Debbie Katz
Debbie Shapiro Katz is the President of Camp Yavneh and works as a Senior Development Officer in Major Gifts at Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston. She was a camper at Yavneh for three years in the 80's while growing up in Brookline. Her years at Yavneh influenced her greatly! She currently lives in Needham with her two children and her husband Doug, a psychologist. They are members of Temple Emanuel and attend Family Camp at Yavneh.
Board Members
Aaron Albert
Ruth Bernstein
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld
Deborah Skolnick Einhorn
Nanette Fridman*
Nicole Gann
Jesse Geller
Ruby Gelman
Scott Gladstone
Matthew Hills*
Doron Korinow
Sara Lee
Laurel Marcus
Rabbi Micha’el Rosenberg
Harold Simansky
Rebecca Stein
Cheryl Stober
Rochelle Walensky
Erik Winton
Alanna Wolf
Micah Zimring
Aaron Albert
Aaron is the fourth generation of his family to support Yavneh’s mission. His great grandparents and grandparents were early supporters of Hebrew College and Camp Yavneh. His mother and uncles attended Yavneh as campers and as counselors and were also supporters of Yavneh. Aaron is the also the fourth generation to lead his family business, Harodite Industries, in Taunton Massachusetts. Aaron served on the AAFA (American Apparel & Footwear Assoc.) board of directors and served for almost 15 years on the board of the South Area Solomon Schechter Day School. He is also a strong supporter of JNF and the Magen David Adom.
Ruth Bernstein
Ruth lives and works in the Boston area. She and her family started attending Yavneh with Family Camp and now have two Camp Yavneh campers in the family. A librarian, Ruth grew up going to Henry S. Jacobs and Greene Family camps and graduated from Brandeis University. Ruth has lived and worked in Israel as part of Sherut L’am and served on the Ma’ayan board for a decade. The Bernsteins attend congregation Shaarei Tefillah in Newton.
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld became President of Hebrew College in July 2018 after being appointed President-Elect in fall 2017 and serving as Acting President from January-June 2018. Rabbi Anisfeld first came to Hebrew College in 2003 as an adjunct faculty member of the Rabbinical School and then served as Dean of Students from 2005-2006. She went on to serve as Dean of the Rabbinical School for eleven years, from 2006-2017. Rabbi Anisfeld graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1990, and subsequently spent 15 years working in pluralistic settings as a Hillel rabbi at Tufts, Yale and Harvard universities. She has been a regular summer faculty member for the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel since 1993 and is co-editor of two volumes of women’s writings on Passover, “The Women’s Seder Sourcebook: Rituals and Readings for Use at the Passover Seder” (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2002) and “The Women’s Passover Companion: Women’s Reflections on the Festival of Freedom” (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2002). From 2011 to 2013, she was named to Newsweek’s list of Top 50 Influential Rabbis in America. In 2015, Rabbi Anisfeld was named one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world by The Jerusalem Post. She writes and teaches widely, weaving together Torah, rabbinic commentary, and contemporary poetry and literature in her wise and compassionate approach to the complexities of the human experience and the search for healing and hope in a beautiful but fractured world.
Deborah Skolnick Einhorn
Deborah is the Associate Dean for Academic Development and an Assistant Professor of Jewish Education in the Shoolman Graduate School at Hebrew College. Within these roles, Deborah recruits, advises and teaches graduate students, while working with faculty and administration to hone and enhance the Jewish Education and Jewish studies programs. Her teaching focuses on Jewish American history education, leadership and students’ graduate thesis research. In addition to speaking and writing on Jewish education, Deborah’s focuses her scholarship on gender, philanthropy and organizational change in American Jewish life. Deborah is the past president of the Jewish Community Day School of Rhode Island and her children attend JCDS Boston, where they have been students since the family returned to Brookline in fall of 2016. She also serves on the board of Tufts Hillel and is the past chair of the Women's Alliance Endowment Fund of Rhode Island. Two of Deborah's three children now attend Yavneh while the third impatiently waits her turn in Gurim, summer 2019.
Nanette Fridman*
Nanette Fridman first experienced Camp Yavneh when she came to Family Camp with her husband and then young children. She is the past president of the Board of Directors at Yavneh and is the mother of two campers. Professionally, Nanette is the founder and principal of Fridman Strategies, a consulting firm specializing in strategic planning, financial resource development and governance for nonprofits.
Nicole Gann
Nicole Lieberman Gann is an attorney, licensed to practice in California and Massachusetts. Along with the Camp Yavneh Board, Nicole serves on the board of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). She is also a Nursing Mothers' Counselor. Nicole lives in Newton, MA with her husband, Joshua Gann, and their three children, who are all current campers.
Jesse Geller
Jesse Geller was a camper and staff member at Yavneh from 1973-1974 and 1976-1984 (Kerem 1977). He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Camp Yavneh since 1994, serving as the Building and Grounds Committee Chairman and as an officer of the Board. Jesse is the immediate past President of the Yavneh Board. He resides in Brookline, Massachusetts with his wife Pamela and son Levi (Kerem 2025).
Ruby Gelman
Ruby Gelman is a pediatric dentist and has a private practice in Greenwich Village, NY. She lives in Manhattan with her husband Shimon Shkury and their two children, Ari (age 7) and Avital (age 4). Ruby attended Yavneh as a babysitter in the late 1980s and later served as a counselor and Rosh Ayda for many years. She credits her time at Yavneh with two very pivotal roles in her life: Yavneh helped Ruby to realize that she wanted a career where she could work with and help children; and more so than any other area of her religious life, Yavneh helped to form her as a committed and engaged Jew. Ruby has been involved with Yavneh the last several years, especially in areas of fundraising and scholarships. As a child who was not able to attend camp because of finances, Ruby is dedicated to helping Yavneh maintain a robust scholarship fund.
Scott Gladstone
Scott is a Chestnut Hill based attorney concentrating in business litigation, construction law and Brookline zoning. Scott was a camper and then a counselor/waterfront/kitchen staff at Yavneh throughout the ‘80s. Scott’s three children have attended Yavneh with his youngest returning this summer as a counselor. Scott is an officer at Temple Emeth in Chestnut Hill and a long-time Brookline Town Meeting Member.
Matthew Hills*
Matt has been on the Board of Camp Yavneh since 2006 and was President from 2007-2009. He is a Managing Director of LLM Capital Partners, a private equity firm. Matt has served on Boards of public and private companies in the U.S., Canada and Israel, and has served on and been Chair of Audit and Compensation & Governance Committees. He was recently Chair of the Newton School Committee. Matt received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School (1987) and a B.A. cum laude from Brandeis University (1981).
Doron Korinow
Doron’s first summer at Camp Yavneh was in 1992 as a Gurim camper and continued on to Kerem ’98 and Na’aleh ’99. Doron returned to Yavneh as a counselor followed by Rosh Arayot in 2004. Doron married his high school sweetheart – both he and Elana Fein graduated in the first class of the The New Jewish High School/Gann Academy. After studying medicine at Tel Aviv University, Doron continued on to train in Emergency Medicine at UMass, and now works as an ER doctor in the Boston area. Doron spends a week or two every summer returning to Yavneh as a camp physician. His two daughters, Orly (age 4) and Meirav (4 months) can’t wait to go to Yavneh as campers!
Sara Lee
Sara Lee was a professor of Jewish education and director of the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. She grew up in Boston and worked at Camp Pembroke one of the Cohen Family Camps. Sara's children all attended Young Judaea camps, and her granddaughter Maya was both a camper and counselor at Camp Yavneh. In the course of her career in Jewish education she has consulted with and placed graduates of the program she directed in a variety of Jewish educational camps. Sara is a member of the Board of Trustees of Hebrew College.
Laurel Marcus
Laurel attended Camp Yavneh for nine years as a camper and counselor and spent two years staffing Family Camp. She has served on the Board since 2015. Her fondest memories of Yavneh include time on the basketball courts, ReliSh (Ruach Lifnei Shabbat), and that first-day-of-camp thrill when you turn onto Lower Deerfield Road. After graduating from Dartmouth College, Laurel spent eight years at digital marketing and design firms, specializing in consumer data insights and web analytics. She consults on the side for local companies on digital strategy and user experience.Laurel is currently pursuing her MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Rabbi Micha’el Rosenberg
Rabbi Rosenberg is Associate Professor of Rabbinics and member of the tenured faculty of Hebrew College. He joined the College faculty in August 2012. He is the author of Signs of Virginity: Testing Virgins and Making Men in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2018), and the co-author with Ethan Tucker of Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law (Ktav, 2017). He formerly served as rabbi of the Fort Tryon Jewish Center and an adjunct professor of Talmud and codes at the Jewish Theological Seminary, both in New York City. He has taught Bible, Talmud and halakhah in a variety of settings, including the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, the National Havurah Institute and the Northwoods Kollel and Beit Midrash of Ramah Wisconsin, and has a particular interest in the intersection of Jewish studies and legal theory. An alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program and Harvard College, Rosenberg holds a doctorate in Talmud and Rabbinic literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
Harold Simansky
Harold is a devoted Yavneh booster, having spent seven summers there (1978-1984) and now with two sons attending. He resides in Brookline, MA with his wife, Linda, and his boys Aaron, Jacob and Ethan. He also tries to spend some time at work, assuming it does not conflict with his Yavneh responsibilities.
Rebecca Stein
Rebecca was a camper at Yavneh for 8 summers in the 80’s, Kerem ’89 followed by 2 summers as a counselor. In addition to being a second generation Yavneh alum, Rebecca is also a Yavneh parent to 3 campers and a proud Legacy member. Rebecca is the Sr. Director of Marketing for National Amusements and has more than 20 years experience in marketing and public relations.
Cheryl Stober
Cheryl Stober is a wife, mother of two Yavneh chanichim living #10for2, VP and product manager at Loomis Sayles & Company. A graduate of Brandeis University, Cheryl also holds an MBA from Boston University. She lives in Newton, MA, and is also a member of the Board of Directors at Temple Emanuel. Jewish overnight camp experiences had a profound impact on Cheryl, and she is thrilled to on the Board.
Rochelle Walensky
Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH is the mother of 3 boys (ages 15, 17, 19), has been a Yavneh parent for the past 11 years, and has been a member of the Camp Yavneh board since September 2014. Her enthusiastic support for Camp Yavneh derives from her sons’ collective passion for the camp as a place dedicated to nurturing lifelong friendships, ruach and personal and Jewish growth. Rochelle has spent several weekends at Yavneh during synagogue retreats and a week at Yavneh as the “camp doctor” over numerous summers, and has therefore experienced this passion first-hand.
Erik Winton
Erik and his family have been at Yavneh since 2005, when his wife Shani started working for Yavneh and his three children began as campers (his youngest was in Kerem in 2018). Erik was at camp for almost every Shabbat in session from the summer of 2005 until the summer of 2018 as a staff spouse. He and Shani also held two of their children’s b’nai mitzvot at camp during the off season, which was a blast! When not in camp, Erik is a Principal at Jackson Lewis P.C. a national management-side labor and employment law firm, where is he is the Co-Leader of the firm's Non-Competes and Protection Against Unfair Competition Practice Group. As an employment lawyer, Erik has helped camp extensively for years with legal advice regarding employment issues.
Alanna Wolf
Alanna attended Yavneh as both a camper and staff member for 14 summers, and she is a proud second generation Yavneh alum. Yavneh has impacted her daily life in numerous ways - as a leader, community member, and as a Jew, and she is passionate about strengthening the Yavneh community in order to influence and strengthen the pluralistic Jewish community at large. Alanna also met her husband, Herschel Singer, at Yavneh, and got married in September 2017 - there was such a huge Yavneh representation at the wedding! Alanna and Herschel reside in Northampton, MA, where she works are an occupational therapist.
Micah Zimring
Micah works at Intuit as an user experience designer for digital products. He also has a side business creating Jewish calligraphic art, and co-created Solomon Schechter of Greater Boston’s first siddur, Halleli Nafshi. He and his family are members of the Newton Centre Minyan, where he holds various leadership positions. His two boys are enthusiastic Yavneh campers, and look forward to the next camp season from the moment the current one is over.
Board of Trustees
A special thanks to our Board of Trustees for their continued support as they act in an advisory role to Camp Yavneh.
- Margie Berkowitz**
- Howard Breslau
- Peter Nathan*
- David Decter*
- Tevy Dines
- Adena Geller-Cohen
- Jonathan Golden
- Estelle Gomolka
- Lillian Gray
- Nathan Kaitz*
- Michael Kaufman*
- Amy Klein
- Jay Kroopnick
- Jordan Leff
- Dawna Levenson
- Bruce Micley
- Rabbi Carl Perkins
- Rabbi Yehudah Potok
- Rabbi Benjamin Samuels
- Debra Sheldon
- Rabbi David Starr
- David Wolf
- Debbie Sussman**
*Past president
**Past director