Advisory Committee

Feinstein’s Advisory Committee is composed of community members whose work and passions align with Feinstein’s public-facing scholarly mission. Some of its members lead organizations that serve as host sites for Feinstein student interns, while others have taught classes and delivered lectures on Temple’s campus. The Advisory Committee works with Feinstein’s director and staff to fulfill the mission of bridging scholarship with public conversations about American Jewish history and experiences.

Ross Berkowitz 

Ross Berkowitz is a Jewish educator and organizational leader currently serving as a consultant for The Lapin Group. Fascinated by how religion and the communities that have been spawned by religious movements have influenced our world, he studied the history and sociology of religion at Vassar College and New York University, where he earned his MA in Modern Jewish History. Over the years, Berkowitz has been a camp director, a Hillel director, founder and Executive Director of Tribe 12, an educator and an activist in the Jewish community. Born in the suburbs of Philadelphia, raised and inspired through fifteen formative years in Habonim Dror and multiple long term Israel experiences, Berkowitz now lives in Center City Philadelphia.

Dan Blacksberg

From landmark experimental music venues to the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival, Philadelphia-native Dan Blacksberg has created a singular musical voice as a trombonist, composer, and educator. Acknowledged as the foremost practitioner of klezmer trombone in its traditional and modern forms and a respected voice in experimental music, Blacksberg is known for a formidable virtuosity and extreme versatility. It is not unusual to see him switch back and forth from traditional klezmer, straight ahead jazz, experimental new music, heavy metal, or even country on his trombone in the course of a few days of performing.

Blacksberg is in high demand as a teacher at many of the leading klezmer festivals such as Klezkamp, Klezkanada, and Yiddish Summer Weimar. He has lead workshops and master classes at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, the University of Virginia, and Temple University, where he also teaches and leads a klezmer ensemble. Awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2012, he has received grants from the American Composers Forum Philadelphia Chapter and was a 2014 composer fellow at the UCross Foundation.

Jonathan M. Broder

Born in New York City, Jonathan M. Broder received a BA from Oberlin College and a JD from Temple in 1983. He also received an MA (2011) and MPhil (2019) from the University Pennsylvania. After receiving his JD and working in private practice as a litigator for several years, he joined Conrail’s law department in 1988, where he specialized in economic regulatory litigation, antitrust compliance, and general commercial litigation. There, Broder served as Vice President of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer where he managed Conrail’s legal and corporate affairs, as well as its real estate and business development departments.

Broder is an Adjunct Professor at Temple University’s School of Law and Coeditor of The Temple 10Q: Temple’s Business Law Magazine. He, too, is the Co-chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s Community Engagement Committee and Leadership Cabinet, and a member of their Board of Trustees, Co-chair of the Board of Temple University Hillel, a member of Congregation Rodeph Shalom’s Board of Directors, Co-chair of their membership taskforce, and a past president and trustee of Jewish Learning Venture.

Edward S. Brown

Edward S. Brown is an expert in the financial structuring of real estate transactions and the conceptualization and execution of prominent real estate developments. Brown is the founder of Strouse Greenberg Financial Corporation, where he served as its President for 12 years before forming The Edward S. Brown Group in 1986, a company which develops real estate, purchases then repositions existing real estate, and arranges debt and equity for institutional grade real estate transactions. He has been involved in approximately $500,000,000 of development. Among the projects are several major residential, industrial, retail and office developments.

Max Buchdahl

Max Buchdahl is a rabbinical student at The Jewish Theological Seminary. He also serves as Secretary for the Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. Buchdahl graduated from Temple University in 2018 where he studied Journalism and Political Science and sat on the student board of Hillel. He is a proud graduate of the Feinstein Center's Jewish Professional Internship Program. He has also learned at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, at the Drisha Summer Kollel, and at Yeshivat Hadar.

Rabbi Yosef Goldman

Rabbi Yosef Goldman serves as rabbi of Shaare Torah synagogue, alongside his wife, Rabbi Annie Lewis. He has served as a ba’al tefillah for some of the most spiritually vibrant and creative prayer communities in the United States and Israel, including Romemu, B’nai Jeshurun, and Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in Manhattan, the Kitchen in San Francisco, and Nava Tehila and Beit Tefila Yisraeli in Israel.

For over a decade, Goldman has advised synagogues and prayer communities seeking to deepen the communal spiritual experience through musical prayer. He is a featured vocalist in the Hadar Ensemble and a founding member of the Middle Eastern Jewish music ensemble, the Epichorus. Along with trombonist Dan Blacksberg, Goldman was selected by the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts for its 2018–19 Jazz Residency. His first album of original music, Open My Heart, was released by Rising Song Records in winter 2019.

He received rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2013 and was awarded a Master of Sacred Music. Goldman previously served as a chaplain resident at Einstein Medical Center, as Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel’s Rabbi and Director of Sacred Music, and as co-director of Hadar's Rising Song Institute, where he continues to serve as a Senior Advisor.

Moriah Levin

Moriah Levin is a financial consultant who operates the Philadelphia small business consulting practice Elysian Fields Baseball LLC. Moriah is on the board of Congregation Shivtei Yeshuron Ezras Israel and active in the synagogue’s revitalization. He graduated with an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, and received his BA from Oberlin College.

Nati Passow

Nati Passow is a writer, amateur carpenter, urban gardener, and educator living in Philadelphia. The operations manager at Dayenu, Passow has been a leader in the Jewish environmental movement for the past two decades. He co-founded and served as Executive Director of the Jewish Farm School, overseeing hundreds of programs for children, college students, and adults. Passow was a Joshua Venture Fellow and was recognized in Jewish Week's 36 Under 36. He teaches as an assistant professor of sustainable food systems at Temple University. He holds a BA in Religion and Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Joyce Salzberg

A recognized leader and innovator in early intervention, Joyce Salzberg has over 40 years of experience in the fields of healthcare and developmental disabilities. She is the longest-serving member of New Jersey's State Interagency Coordinating Council (SICC) and has recently been appointed the Acting Chair.

Salzberg is the founder and CEO of Sunny Days, one of the nation's leading early intervention and autism services providers, serving children with developmental needs in New York, Oklahoma, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Prior to co-founding Sunny Days, she held a variety of positions in the field of developmental disabilities, including Associate Executive Director of United Cerebral Palsy of New Jersey, in which she oversaw its early intervention programs. In addition, she has served on numerous charitable boards, oversight committees and industry advocacy groups. She has recently been accepted into the committee of C200, and is on the advisory board of The Women’s Business Collaborative (WBC). She holds a BA and MSW from Temple University, where she has been honored as a Distinguished Alumnus and was inducted into the Gallery of Success in 2011. Salzberg was also inducted into Temple University's Hall of Fame of Women Entrepreneurs in 2013.

Daniel Samuels

Daniel Samuels is an evert producer who currently serves as the Public Programs Manager at the National Museum of American Jewish History and the Production Manager for the North Carolina Folk Festival. Over the last 15 years, Samuels has collaborated with hundreds of artists from across six continents as an artist, producer and presenter. He has hosted events ranging from small neighborhood block parties to large scale festivals, and in doing so has worked with the NEA, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the National Council for the Traditional Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, Venture Richmond, Arts Greensboro, and more. Samuels is also a drummer who has toured extensively across the United States playing country, hip hop, jazz, funk and soul.

Joey Weisenberg

Joey Weisenberg is the founder and co-director of Hadar’s Rising Song Institute. He is a mandolinist, guitarist, singer, and percussionist who has performed and recorded in a wide variety of musical styles. Weisenberg has worked as the Music Director at Brooklyn's oldest synagogue, the Kane Street Synagogue, and visits shuls and communities around the world as a musician-in-residence, in which he teaches his popular 'Spontaneous Jewish Choir" workshops. Having come to cherish the imperfectly beautiful music of normal people singing together, he works to empower communities around the world to unlock their musical and spiritual potential, and to make music a lasting and joy-filled force in Jewish life. His nigunim have become popular worldwide. Weisenberg is the author of Building Singing Communities (2011) and award-winning The Torah of Music (2017), both published by the Hadar Institute.

Carly Zimmerman

Carly Zimmerman is a business development and marketing specialist at Larson Lighting Protection. She, too, is chair elect of the Jewish Federation’s Women of Vision and a board member at Tribe 12. Zimmerman previously served as Senior Relationship Director at BBYO and CEO of Challah for Hunger. She holds an MA in Jewish Professional Studies from the Spertus Institute of Jewish Learning and Leadership and a BA in History and Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

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