Rabbis For Human Rights - North America

Staff

“Our quarrel is not with Jews who are different, but with Jews who are indifferent."

– Rabbi Stephen Wise

Staff

Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. She is the author of There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition and Where Justice Dwells: A Hands-On Guide to Doing Social Justice in Your Jewish Community. Rabbi Jacobs has been named to the Forward’s list of 50 influential American Jews (2006 and 2008), to The Jewish Week’s first list of “36 under 36” (2008), and to Newsweek’s list of the 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America (2009, 2010 and 2011). She lives in New York with her husband, Guy Austrian, and their daughter Lior.

 

 

 

Joshua Bloom is the Director of Israel Programs for Rabbis for Human Rights-North America and served as a consultant to Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel between 2009 and 2010 before coming to RHR-NA. As a human rights and international development specialist, he has worked in the US and in over a dozen countries around the world for organizations and institutions such as Mercy Corps, American Jewish World Service, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Conflict and Health Programme at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Health and Human Rights Programme at the University of Cape Town, UNICEF, Amnesty International USA and the LIFE Program in Israel and India. Joshua is married to a third-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College.

 

Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster is the Director of North American Programs for Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. Ordained in 2008 from the Jewish Theological Seminary, where she was a student activist and leader, she is a noted speaker and writer on Judaism and human rights. While in rabbinical school, she worked as rabbinic intern at the JCC of Manhattan, where she was a taught midrash and introductory Judaism, and at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah. Her writing has appeared in Sh’ma, Conservative Judaism, and several anthologies, and she is a regular contributor to the blog The Jew and the Carrot. Rabbi Kahn-Troster was also a 2009-2010 D’var Tzedek fellow for the American Jewish World Service. She serves on the boards of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and Hazon.

 

Ronit Schlam is the Events Manager for Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. She has produced fundraising and performing arts events within the non-profit industry for the last ten years. Ronit has worked for such prestigious organizations as the Lincoln Center Festival, the Chateauville Foundation, Friends of Israel Disabled Veterans, and the launch of the Castleton Festival, an annual international opera festival under the artistic direction of Maestro Lorin Maazel. She is motivated by the great potential for communication and understanding by way of artistic expression. 

 

 

 

Aimee Gonzalez is the Director of Operations for Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Miami, and is currently working on a Master's Degree in International Relations at New York University, focusing on Political Economy.

 

 

 

 

 

Marisa Elana James is the Rabbinical Student Fellow in Israel for Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. After three years of living in Jerusalem, Marisa began her studies in 2010 at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. During those years, she primarily studied at the Conservative Yeshiva and worked for Encounter Programs. Previously, Marisa taught college writing and literature courses at the University of Connecticut and Rutgers, managed a bookstore, and worked as an insurance broker in New Jersey and New York. Marisa regularly teaches Introduction to Judaism classes for internationals in Bethlehem, acts as cantor for communities in Israel and America, and often assists her partner with translations from Hebrew and German to English.