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Board of Directors


This year we welcomed three new members to the Board of Directors: 

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Diana Anderson 

Denver, CO

Diana Anderson has been active in the Jewish world since 2005. She serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors of JEWISHcolorado. Her Kesher Foundation, whose mission is to build the connection (kesher in Hebrew) between her local Colorado community and Israel, is the lead funder of both the Community Shaliach and Shinshinim programs in Denver. Diana serves as treasurer of the United Israel Appeal, Inc. and is on the National Council of AIPAC as well as AIPAC’s local Executive committee. She also serves on the Board of ADL.  Diana had served as a Committee Member of The Jewish Agency for Israel since 2014 and in June 2015 she was elected as a Member of the Board. Outside of the Jewish community, Diana serves on Denver Academy’s School Board. Diana has a BA in Economics from Claremont Mckenna College and studied at Boston College in Israel for an MS in Business. Originally from Denver, Diana lived, worked, and raised four children in Israel from 1981-2005.   

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Carolyn Kolers 

Toronto, ON

Carolyn Kolers was a partner at Goodman and Carr LLP, where she practiced corporate commercial law for 11 years before joining Cara Operations Limited (now Recipe Unlimited) as in-house counsel. In 2009, she left Cara to devote her time to a variety of volunteer initiatives in the Jewish community. Carolyn served on numerous committees at Beth Tzedec Congregation before being appointed to the Board of Governors, becoming Chair of the Board and then President of the Congregation. As Immediate Past President, she co-chaired the synagogue’s Strategic Planning initiative. Following her completion of UJA Federation’s Joshua Institute for Jewish communal leaders, where she was first introduced to the Shalom Hartman Institute, Carolyn has served on several committees at UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, including the Israel Engagement Strategy Committee, Israel Engagement Mission Chair (2017 and 2019), and the Jewish Identity Committee. She also served as Planning and Strategy Chair for the 2015 Biennial Convention of United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism (USCJ). She is a graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from U of T. Carolyn and her husband Eliot Kolers have two sons.

Michelle Shulman 

Toronto, ON

Michelle Shulman spent most of her career assisting Israeli startup companies to expand into international markets. She is a graduate of York University and received her MBA from the Schulich School of Business. Michelle serves as the Co-Chair of the Board and chairs the fundraising efforts for The Toronto Heschel School. She also serves as Vice-Chair of the Lola Stein Institute, a think-tank engaged in advancing innovative Jewish education. Michelle is deeply involved in the publication of THINK, a journal designed to spark conversation about education, ethics and our children.

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Sidney Friedman, MD

 

SHI North America Board of Directors; Los Angeles, CA 

Intellectual Excitement and Accessibility: I had the great fortune to audit a class in Modern Jewish Thought taught by Rabbi David Hartman z"l when he was a visiting professor at UCLA. He made it exciting to think and wonder about the nature of Jewish observance, the meaning of commandedness, and the relationship between Israel and the Jewish polity. He was very "hamish" and easy to connect with personally. I imagined that the Shalom Hartman Institute would be equally exciting intellectually as well as nurturing and accessible. I discovered an organization filled with people who cared about Jews and Judaism, who were serious in their intention to live Jewish lives and comfortable with diverse expressions of that intention. Equally important was the experience of a warm and nurturing community that I think is a hallmark of the Hartman Institute.

 

Sustaining and Enriching Jewish Life: The dedication to the study and interpretation of Jewish texts as a way to enrich the present lives of Jews in America is a profound methodology well utilized by SHI North America. All Jews have access to and a relationship with the same sources. By studying them together, the participants reinforce their sense of common purpose and interdependence as well as sustaining and enriching their Jewishness. SHI North America is also dedicated to "teaching the teachers," providing them with source materials and insight as to how to interpret and reinterpret these texts within the framework of their individual Jewish communities.

 

Impactful Programs: SHI’s Be’eri program has helped to nurture and foster the resurgence of lived Judaism in Israel. I was deeply moved when an 11th grade student whose family had never observed a single Jewish practice prior to the implementation of the program in her school spoke about how her life, and her family's life, were enriched by the program.

 

I hope the new "Foundations for a Thoughtful Judaism" program will make a similar impact in North America. This initiative exposes Jews who are in the early stages of creating their family to the ideas that have shaped Judaism. We further aim to demonstrate how these ideas have been translated into Jewish practice and the creation of a Jewish community. We hope that by gaining an understanding of these ideas and practices through the lens of a multivocal Jewish experience, participants will want to actively incorporate them into their lives and the life of their family. 

 

Advocating for Diversity and Acceptance: The Hartman Institute is devoted to helping Jews create and maintain a rich and diverse Jewish life and identity. Without SHI, there would be no focused and insistent Jewish voice advocating for diversity and acceptance within the whole of Jewish life. There would be no voice speaking of the necessity of maintaining Israel as a democratic state which is home for all of the Jewish people.  To be Jewish in the modern world involves, for many Jews, a conscious decision to lead a Jewish life. The programs of the Hartman Institute are uniquely qualified to help that person find a way to maintain, support, and make meaningful the decision to be Jewish. 

Board of Directors

 

Shalom Hartman Institute

Shalom Hartman Institute of North America
Canadian Friends of Shalom Hartman Institute

Robert P. Kogod, Chair, Shalom Hartman Institute 

Angelica Berrie, Chair, SHI NA 

Elizabeth Wolfe, Chair, Canadian Friends of Shalom Hartman Institute 

Donald Meltzer, Chair, SHI NA Board of Directors Executive Committee 

Alvin Cramer Segal, O.C., Treasurer, Canadian Friends of Shalom Hartman Institute 

Matt Berler, Chair, SHI NA Investment Committee 

Alayne Sulkin, Chair, SHI NA Development Committee 

Eric Zahler, Chair, SHI NA Finance and Audit Committees  

Joseph M. Steiner, Secretary, Canadian Friends of Shalom Hartman Institute ​

Diana Anderson 

Ilan Baram 
Jacquie Bayley 
Paul S. Berger 
Yaacov Brandt 
Stacy S. Dick 
Raymond Fink 
Alan A. Fischer 
Laraine Fischer 
Joel L. Fleishman 
Anita Friedman 
Sidney G. Friedman 
Donald Friend 
Charles H. Goodman 

Nimrod Goor 
Dafna Gruber 
Ethan Horwitz  

Peter A. Joseph 
Igal Jusidman 
Sylvia Kaufman 

Amy B. Klein 
Stuart Kogod

Carolyn Kolers 
Gordon Lafer

Michael Lewittes 

Bernard Plum 
Stefanie Raker 
Wayne Robbins 

Nathalie Rubens 
Dan Rubin 
Debbie Saidoff 
Naty Saidoff 
David Schnell 
Ronald A. Sedley 

Barbara Segal 
Joel Segal 

Michelle Shulman 
Wendy Singer 

Pam Medjuk Stein 
Alayne W. Sulkin 
Robert M. Sulkin 
Roselyne C. Swig 

Joel D. Tauber 
Shelley Tauber 

Philip Wachs 
Douglas Wilansky 
Zvi Yochman 
Karen Gantz Zahler 
Gerald Zoldan 
Marshall S. Zolla
 

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