Staff
Bob Brand (he/him)
Senior Fellow
Bob Brand is a retired city and health planner and business person and a Fellow at The Shalom Center. Bob has spent the past 60 years trying to figure out how to work for a more just world. There have been several victories, several outright losses, and a full range of challenges to the progress we have made. His work has focused on how to mobilize resources and redistribute them to address issues of exclusion, inequity, and democracy. Bob’s work as a planner has involved a career in public health, labor activism, as the developer of an online software as a service package that secured close to $3 billion of support for low and moderate income people, and as an activist.
Bob has also taken photographs during much of this time, has had some exhibits, and has work in collections of the Smithsonian, Beineke Library at Yale, Vanderbilt Library Special Collections and Archive, Princeton University Library Special Collections, Penn State and Stanford as well as the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Linda Carranza (she/her)
Chief Operating Officer
Linda Carranza is a human rights and social justice advocate guided by a commitment to grassroots activism, advocacy that is representative and responsive to local communities, and non-violence as a key tactic in social change. She has been working for the last 20+ years in the US and Europe with NGOs/nonprofits and grassroots organizations fighting discrimination, supporting refugee and migrant inclusion, and advancing legal reform. With her husband, Michael Simmons, Linda co-founded and ran the Ráday Salon, an independent human rights learning and discussion program in Budapest, Hungary, providing a venue for learning, exchange, and discussion of human rights issues in an informal context.
Rabbi Nate DeGroot (he/him)
Associate Director
Rabbi Nate DeGroot currently serves as Associate Director for The Shalom Center. In this role, he is helping to support the future planning and present rollout of the organization’s new strategic vision. At Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s request and with the Board of Director’s support, DeGroot humbly anticipates succeeding Rabbi Waskow as Director of The Shalom Center in January of 2025.
Rabbi DeGroot was hired as The Shalom Center’s National Organizer in 2022, during which time he helped to mobilize Exodus Alliance, a national Passover campaign confronting the Corporate Carbon Pharaohs who fund the fossil fuel industry. Later that year, DeGroot was selected by a major national Jewish foundation to participate in a select cohort of innovative thinkers to reimagine the future of Judaism, with a special focus on celebrations for good. He became Associate Director in January of 2023.
Ordained at Hebrew College in 2016, Rabbi DeGroot previously served as Associate Director, Spiritual & Program Director at Hazon (now Adamah) in Detroit. Before that, he was selected as the inaugural Jewish Emergent Network Rabbinic Fellow at IKAR in Los Angeles, where he had previously served as Rabbinic Intern. While in rabbinical school, DeGroot founded a grassroots cooperative Jewish community in Portland, OR, called Mikdash: Portland’s East Side Jewish Cooperative.
Rabbi DeGroot has extensive experience in the Jewish justice and experiential education field. He has served as a facilitator with Encounter, he was a Rabbinical Student Year in Israel Fellow, with T’ruah, and he has worked with AJWS, the Amir Project, and more. An accomplished speaker and writer, DeGroot has been published in numerous articles and book chapters, and has been an invited speaker at venues such as The Chautauqua Institution.
Living in Detroit, Michigan with his wife and two kiddos, Rabbi DeGroot also serves locally as a part-time congregational rabbi, educator, and speaker.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow (he/him)
Founder, Director
Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow, 89, is a public scholar and political activist. Born in Baltimore in 1933, he received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of Wisconsin, where he studied the 1919 race riots. In 1958, Waskow worked as a legislative assistant to Congressman Robert Kastenmeier with Marcus Raskin and later helped Raskin found the Institute for Policy Studies, a lefty think tank, in 1963. From 1963 to 1977, Waskow wrote numerous books and articles on military strategy, race relations, conflict resolution, and political change. He was also involved in the civil rights and antiwar movements, speaking out against the Vietnam War and participating in the Democratic National Convention in 1968 as a delegate and a speaker at the protests.
His entry into “serious Judaism” was catalyzed by the assassination of Martin Luther King and the resulting unrest, which inspired him to write The Freedom Seder, which put the Exodus story in the counter-cultural and anti-racist context of the 1960s. Over time his involvement with the Jewish Renewal movement eventually led him to found the Shalom Center in Philadelphia. He married Rabbi Phyllis Berman in 1986, and the couple jointly adopted the middle name “Ocean.” In 1993, he co-found ALEPH: The Alliance for Jewish Renewal with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and others. Waskow himself was ordained in 1995. He has written about twenty-eight books, many with his wife.
His most recent book is Dancing In God’s Earthquake: The Coming Transformation of Religion (Orbis Books, 2020) and he is known best for his seminal, Seasons of Our Joy: A Modern Guide to the Jewish Holidays (Jewish Publication Society, 1982).
Board of Directors
Cherie Brown (she/her)
Board Chair
Cherie R. Brown is Founder and CEO of the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI), a Washington, DC-based nonprofit leadership training organization. Ms. Brown has an M.Ed in Counseling and Consulting Psychology from Harvard University and over the last thirty eight years, Ms. Brown has built NCBI into one of the leading diversity training and grassroots leadership organizations with chapters in over 50 cities worldwide. These NCBI-trained leaders work together in teams to provide a powerful resource for their communities – combating racism, sexism and antisemitism, resolving inter-group conflict, and launching activist-based coalitions.
In addition, in 2020, Cherie launched: A Coalition Building Approach to Taking on Antisemitism on Campuses with trained cadres of Jewish students faculty and staff-on campuses across the U.S doing bridge building work on antisemitism and racism
Madeline Canfield(she/her)
Madeline Canfield is the Organizing Coordinator for Jewish Youth Climate Movement. She previously organized with the Sunrise Movement, co-founded Houston Youth Climate Strike, co-led the Youth Working Group for the City of Houston Climate Action Plan, and served on the Zero Hour Partnerships Team. She also co-founded the anti-sexual assault organization Jewish Teens for Empowered Consent. She is an undergraduate at Brown University.
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling (he/him)
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling is the Senior Advisor for POWER Interfaith, the largest faith-based grass roots organizing network in Pennsylvania. He founded and directed the Social Justice Organizing Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College from which he was ordained. Prior to that he was the Executive Vice-President of Jewish Funds for Justice (now Bend the Arc). Earlier he was the Executive Director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. He serves on the boards of The Shalom Center, Faith in Action, and the Faith and Politics Institute; he co-leads trainings on Racism and Antisemitism for congregations and organizers; leads The Work That Reconnects (the work of Joanna Macy) retreats and workshops; he is a certified Jewish Meditation Teacher. He has authored numerous articles and book chapters.
Lex Rofeberg(he/him)
Lex Rofeberg is a Jewish educator and activist who works for Judaism Unbound, a digital, Jewish organization. He serves as co-host of the Judaism Unbound podcast and as Senior Jewish Educator for Judaism Unbound's UnYeshiva, a digital center for Jewish learning and unlearning. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Judaic Studies from Brown University. He came to Judaism Unbound in 2015 after a two-year Education Fellowship at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, based in Jackson, Mississippi. Lex received his certificate in Interfaith Families Jewish Engagement from Hebrew College, and he was ordained as a rabbi in by ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal. Lex has been active in a variety of Jewish movements for justice, including Open Hillel, IfNotNow, and Never Again Action. He serves on the board of directors for Tikkun Olam Productions (the filmmaking collective that produced the 2023 film Israelism) and Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations, and on the honorary board of Mitzvah Matzos. He lives on Narragansett land in Providence, Rhode Island.
Adam Sher (he/him)
Like so many contemporary Jews, Adam’s journey deeper into meaningful Jewish engagement as an adult was supercharged by Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s seminal ‘Seasons of our Joy’, as well as his other books including ‘The Bush is Burning!’. Before coming to The Shalom Center as a board member, Adam worked with Reb Arthur and Reb Phyllis during his time leading Elat Chayyim at Isabella Freedman and later directing the retreat center as a whole until 2020. In addition to serving The Shalom Center, Adam serves on the Board of Ayin Press and his local Board of Education. His professional service is dedicated to Jewish Studio Project. Adam is inspired by a hopeful and expansive vision for the future of The Shalom Center, and the world.
Rabbi Becky Silverstein(he/him)
Rabbi Becky Silverstein is Co-Director of SVARA’s Trans Halakha Project SVARA. A believer in the power of community, Torah, and silliness in transforming the world, he strives to build a Jewish community and world that encourages and allows everyone to live a life that reflects their inherent divinity / dignity. Becky is a Schusterman Fellow, and currently serves on the board of the Jewish Studio Project. Becky grew up in New York, holds a B.S. in Engineering from Smith College and Rabbinic Ordination from the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. Becky resides in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts with his spouse, Naomi Sobel, and kiddos, Edie Gefen and Charlie Alon.
Rabbi Margot Stein (she/her)
Rabbi Margot Stein, MFT, completed the clergy track for post-graduate studies in marriage and family therapy at Council for Relationships (CFR). She is dedicated to helping individuals and families who are struggling with difference: autism, ADHD, behavior disorders, learning issues, non-traditional, nonbinary or gender queer orientation, artists, and others learning to listen to their inner calling. Clients and their families experience an increased ability to care for and accept themselves as they successfully meet life’s challenges and discover new possibilities.
Rabbi Stein currently serves on the board of Jewish Learning Venture, where she helped create “Whole Community Inclusion (WCI),” which seeks to include those with special needs in all aspects of Jewish synagogue life and education. She also helped develop the award-winning “Celebrations” Shabbat and holiday curriculum and works with special-needs children and their families to create meaningful life-cycle celebrations. Rabbi Stein is an accomplished educator, prayer leader, published author and composer. With five albums of original Jewish music to her credit, she also produced The Shalom Center’s CD, Sing Shalom!
Linda Tobin (she/her)
Linda Tobin has had a disjointed and eclectic work history and she has loved every moment of it. With a Master’s in Social Science Administration (MSSA) from CWRU and expertise in program planning, cross-cultural training, staff development and training, public relations and marketing, casework/community organizing, government advocacy, and volunteer coordination, she has served in a wide range of professional and communal settings. She is most proud of the international work she did with the ‘Joint’ - the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in India and later as Director of Jewish Service Corps on the Asia-Africa desk. Linda has served as a tutor around the world, from Sikkim, India, to downtown Cleveland, where she lives. These days, she's having fun curating a large art collection of works on paper from a Montenegrin artist. Linda is very proud to have been invited to serve on the Board of The Shalom Center and considers the organization's work deeply important and even more important as time goes on.
Jericho Vincent (they/them)
Jericho Vincent is a spiritual entrepreneur. The founder of Temple of the Stranger, an mystical community in Brooklyn, New York, rooted in Jewish ancestral wisdom and open to all, executive director of Shuva, which shares Jewish ancestral perspectives on restorative justice, and initiator of various spiritual experiments, they also teach Torah on Instagram @thealef, and as a guest of synagogues and organizations across the country.
Raised in an ultra-Orthodox home with an illustrious rabbinical lineage, Jericho learned from Buddhist, Sufi, and atheist communities before returning to Judaism to excavate timely wisdom from their family’s ancient traditions. Jericho is the author of the memoir Cut Me Loose. Their writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, and The Cut, and their responsa have been published by the Trans Halacha Project. Jericho has been named to the Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36 and to The Forward’s Forward 50 for their work. Jericho holds a master's degree in Public Policy from Harvard University, where they were a Pforzheimer Fellow. Trained as an IFS coach, they are currently a Wexner Fellow, a member of the ROI community, a senior rabbinical candidate, and a fellow at Atra: Center for Rabbinic Innovation. They are constitutionally incapable of turning down an offer of babka.
Yehudah Webster (he/him)
Spiritual activist and community organizer Yehudah Webster works to animate and integrate anti-racist behaviors and culture in communities, supporting the collective organizing, advocacy and direct service efforts to dismantle racism systemically. As the Program Director and Faculty at Kirva (formerly Inside Out Wisdom and Action Project), Yehudah equips communities with the daily concrete spiritual tools of Mussar to subvert racism within ourselves and others through facilitating workshops, consulting with organizations, and building a community of anti-racist practice. He has presented in a wide variety of settings, including staff developments for organizations, college campuses, communal institutions, and youth group programs. Yehudah is a graduate of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice’s Grace Paley Organizing Fellowship, Bend the Arc’s Selah Leadership Program, and Kirva’s Ovdim Fellowship.
Barbra Wiener (she/her)
Barbra Wiener spends her days in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Bodega Bay, California. She has been involved with many forms of creativity, health and wellness throughout her career. She has been involved with health and environmental justice activism, and was the founder and director of the Women's Cancer Resource Center in Minneapolis. Barbra has been on the board of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice, Body Wisdom, and a proud member of The Shalom Center for several years.
Advisory Council
Heather Booth (she/her)
Heather Booth is one of the country’s leading strategists and organizers for progressive issue campaigns. She began organizing with the civil rights movement. She founded the Midwest Academy with funds she won from a back pay settlement while labor organizing. She has directed many election campaigns and was the training director for the Democratic Party. She was the founding director of the NAACP National Voter Fund that helped increase African American voter turnout in 2000. She was the senior advisor for the campaign for comprehensive immigration reform. She was the director of the AFL-CIO health care campaign for the Affordable Care Act and ran the campaign for the first Obama budget. She was the director of Americans for Financial Reform, the coalition leading the fight to hold the big banks accountable that passed the Dodd/Frank bill and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She directed the campaign for marriage equality around the Supreme Court decision. She has worked on many other campaigns. There is a movie about her life in organizing, “Heather Booth: Changing the World” and she is featured in the recent film, The Janes. She is a member of Democracy Partners consulting firm.
Heather's commitment to social justice is in part rooted in her Jewish values. Not only are we called to "tzedek, tzedek" (justice/justice), but to take action to make this a better world. She was the coordinator for AMOS, an effort in the 1990s to help re-instill social justice into the heart of the Jewish community and is glad it is now flowering...with still more to do.
Photo credit: K.K. Ottesen
Rabbi Tamara Cohen (she/her)
As Chief Program Officer at Moving Traditions, Rabbi Tamara Cohen works to embolden Jewish youth to thrive through pursuit of shleimut/wholeness, hesed/caring connection and Tzedek/a Jewish and feminist vision of justice. Tamara is one of this year’s Covenant Award recipients for excellence, creativity and innovation in Jewish education. She was the Barbara Bick intern at The Shalom Center.
Rabbi Diane Elliot (she/her)
Rabbi Diane Elliot brings more than forty years’ experience as a performing dance artist, contact improviser, and somatic movement therapist and teacher to her rabbinate. A certified practitioner and teacher of Body-Mind Centering®, she received ordination and a Masters of Rabbinic Studies degree from the Academy for Jewish Religion, California in 2006 and serves diverse communities as a ritual leader, teacher, and spiritual director, both in the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally. Rabbi Diane is an innovator of embodied Jewish practice, having created and directed the ALEPH Alliance for Jewish Renewal's Embodying Spirit, En-spiriting Body Jewish leadership training program. In addition to serving on the ALEPH staff, she is a founding member of the Embodied Jewish Wisdom Network; serves as a founding steward and faculty member of the Taproot Immersion, a training for Jewish activists; and has published three books of sacred poetry, most recently The Voice is Movement (HaKodesh Press, 2020). To learn more about her work visit www.whollypresent.org.
Photo credit: Susan Freundlich
Koach Baruch (KB) Frazier (they/he)
Koach Baruch (KB) Frazier, Au.D. is a transformer, heartbeat of movements, healer, musician, founder of the Black Trans Torah Club and co-founder of the Tzedek Lab, a network of practitioners working at the intersection of dismantling racism, antisemitism and white supremacy. A collaborative leader, rooted in tradition, curiosity and love, Koach strives to dismantle racism, actualize liberation and transform lives both sonically and spiritually. Koach lives and gardens with their wife, LaJuana and daughter, Aasha in Philadelphia on unceded Lenni-Lenape Land where he is a student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD (she/her)
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, author, scholar, ritualist, poet, dreamworker and midrashist, is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion (www.ajrsem.org), and a co-founder of the Kohenet movement. She is the author of a number of books, including Undertorah: An Earth-Based Kabbalah of Dreaming, Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah, The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership (with Taya Shere), The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons, Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, and The Book of Earth and Other Mysteries. She is the translator of The Romemu Siddur and of Siddur haKohanot: A Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook. She lives in Manhattan with her family.
Bill McKibben (he/him)
Bill McKibben is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice.
His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel, in the Swedish Parliament. Foreign Policy named him to its inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers.
McKibben helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal. He stepped down as board chair of 350 in 2015, and left the board and stepped down from his volunteer role as senior adviser in 2020, accepting emeritus status. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors. In 2014, biologists credited his career by naming a new species of woodland gnat—Megophthalmidia mckibbeni–in his honor.
Jacqui Patterson (she/her)
Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder and Executive Director of The Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership. The mission of The Chisholm Legacy Project is rooted in a Just Transition Framework, serving as a vehicle to connect Black communities on the frontlines of climate justice with the resources to actualize visions. Prior to the launch of the Chisholm Legacy Project, Patterson served as the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program for over a decade. During her tenure, she founded and implemented a robust portfolio which included serving the state and local leadership whose constituencies consisted of hundreds of communities on the frontlines of environmental injustice. She also led a team in designing and implementing a portfolio to support political education and organizing work executed by NAACP branches, chapters, and state conferences.
Since 2007, Patterson has dedicated her career to intersectional approaches to systems change. Her passion for social justice led her to serve as coordinator & co-founder of Women of Color United; Senior Women’s Rights Policy Analyst for ActionAid; Assistant Vice-President of HIV/AIDS Programs for IMA World Health, Outreach Project Associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Research Coordinator for Johns Hopkins University, and U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica.
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner (he/him)
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner serves as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and has led the Religious Action Center since 2015. Rabbi Pesner also serves as Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism, a position to which he was appointed in 2011. Named one of the most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine, he is an inspirational leader and tireless advocate for social justice.
Rabbi Pesner’s work focuses on encouraging Jewish communities to reach across lines of race, class, and faith while campaigning for social justice. In 2006, he founded Just Congregations (now incorporated into the Religious Action Center), which engaged clergy, professional, and volunteer leaders in interfaith social justice efforts. Rabbi Pesner was a primary leader in the Massachusetts campaign for health care access that has provided coverage to thousands and became a model for nationwide reform. Over the course of his career, he has also led and supported campaigns for racial justice, economic opportunity, immigration reform, LGBTQ+ equality, human rights, and a variety of other causes. He is dedicated to building bridges to collectively confront antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate.
Rabbi Pesner has trained students on all four campuses of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and gives speeches in interfaith and secular venues all over the world. Rabbi Pesner serves as a board member of the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, and the New England Center for Children. He is a member of the Faith-Based Security Advisory Council for the Department of Homeland Security, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Solidarity Council on Racial Equityand the Leadership Team of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. He has served as a scholar for the Wexner Foundation, The Chautauqua Institution, American Jewish World Service, the Nexus USA Summit, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies. He speaks regularly on college campuses and is scheduled to be visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School.
Rabbi Pesner was the co-editor of “Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Justice,” wrote the afterword to the newly published “Social Justice Torah Commentary,” and is a widely-published author (a full list can be found here).
Ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1997, Rabbi Pesner was a congregational rabbi at Temple Israel in Boston, Massachusetts and at Temple Israel in Westport, Connecticut. A graduate of Wesleyan University and the Bronx High School of Science, Rabbi Pesner is married to Dana S. Gershon, an attorney. They have four daughters: Juliet, Noa, Bobbie, and Cate.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (she/her)
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is an award-winning author and writer who previously served as Scholar in Residence at the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW). She was named by Newsweek as a “rabbi to watch,” as a “faith leader to watch” by the Center for American Progress, has been a Washington Post Sunday crossword clue (83 Down). Her newest book, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World is a National Jewish Book Award winner that has been hailed by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley as ““A must read for anyone navigating the work of justice and healing.”
She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, and many other publications. Her other books include Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting, which was a National Jewish Book Award finalist, and Surprised By God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion, nominated for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature; as well as The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism; Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism, and, with Rabbi Elliot Dorff, three books on Jewish ethics.
Gloria Steinem (she/her)
Gloria Steinem is a writer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She was a founder of New York and Ms. magazines, and is the author of The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off, My Life on the Road, Moving Beyond Words, Revolution from Within, and Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, all published in the United States, and in India, As If Women Matter. She co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Free to Be Foundation, and the Women’s Media Center in the United States. As links to other countries, she helped found Equality Now, Donor Direct Action, and Direct Impact Africa. For her writing, Steinem has received the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards, the National Magazine Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism. In 1993, her concern with child abuse led her to co-produce an Emmy Award–winning TV documentary for HBO, Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories. She and Amy Richards co-produced a series of eight documentaries on violence against women around the world for VICELAND in 2016. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. In 2019, she received the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum. She is the subject of Julie Taymor’s biopic, The Glorias, released in Fall 2020. For her boundless commitment to feminism, and for including all voices in the name of equality, Gloria was the 2021 recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities.
Ahmet Tekelioglu (he/him)
President, Midwest Academy
Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu is the Executive Director at CAIR-Philadelphia. He previously served as Education and Outreach Director.
Ahmet is a Turkish-American academic and organizer. His research focuses on American Muslim history and identity. He received his PhD in political science from Boston University in 2016. Concurrently, Ahmet directs the digital Islamic Studies project themaydan.com at George Mason University where he is a research fellow at the Center for Global Islamic Studies.
Ahmet directs CAIR-Philadelphia’s Civic Engagement and school district projects. He also serves on the Inclusion and Equity Committee at the Pennsylvania Department of Education. As part of his portfolio at CAIR-Philadelphia Ahmet teaches courses at Temple University’s OLLI program on Islam 101 and Islam in America and presents inclusion and equity workshops for school districts and corporate settings.
Rev Liz Theoharis (she/her)
The Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis is Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival with the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. She is the Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary. She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Rev. Dr. Theoharis is the editor of We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign (Broadleaf Press, 2021). She is the author of Always with Us?: What Jesus Really Said about the Poor (Eerdmans, 2017) and co-author of Revive Us Again: Vision and Action in Moral Organizing (Beacon, 2018). She has been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, Newsweek, Politico, The Hill, The Guardian, The Nation, Boston Review, CNN, Religion News Service, Sojourners, Religion Dispatches, the Grio, La Jornada, Salon, Slate, and elsewhere.
In 2021 she was awarded the 30th Annual Freedom Award by the National Civil Rights Museum, the Hunger Leadership Award from the Congressional Hunger Center, and the Adela Dwyer-St. Thomas of Villanova Peace Award, each along with the Rev. Dr. William Barber II for their work with the Poor People’s Campaign. In 2020 she was named one of 15 Faith Leaders to Watch by the Center for American Progress. In 2019, she was a Selma “Bridge” Award recipient and named one of 11 Women Shaping the Church by Sojourners. In 2018, she gave the “Building a Moral Movement” TEDtalk at TEDWomen, was named one of the Politico 50 “thinkers, doers and visionaries whose ideas are driving politics”, and was also named a Women of Faith Award recipient by the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Rev. Dr. Theoharis received her BA in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania; her M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in 2004 where she was the first William Sloane Coffin Scholar; and her PhD from Union in New Testament and Christian Origins.
Jim Winkler (he/him)
Jim Winkler is former general secretary and president of The National Council of Churches, having served in that position from 2013-2022. During his tenure, the NCC has expanded its reach beyond its 37 Christian member denominations to engage leaders of non-Christian faiths. In recent years, it has made combating racism a core aspect of its work. In 2018, on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the NCC held one of its largest events ever, drawing thousands for a march from the King Memorial to the U.S. Capitol for a rally to kick off its A.C.T. Now to End Racism initiative. Winkler also helped to organize the NCC to work against “anti-Muslim animus” and support Sikhs who have suffered other attacks.
Winkler is a longtime activist and advocate, regularly speaking at protests and marches.
Prior to his work for NCC, Winkler served for almost three decades at the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church and Society, where he became general secretary in 2000.