Early life and education
Herman grew up in New Jersey in a Conservative Jewish household. [1] As a child, she was diagnosed with dyslexia and attended a specialized school where she was not permitted to learn Hebrew. [1] [2] She attended high school in West Windsor, New Jersey. [3] During high school in 1987, she participated in a student exchange program to West Germany. [3]
Herman attended Wellesley College, where she majored in religion. [1] She spent her junior year, from 1991 to 1992, studying at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. [1] After graduating, she pursued graduate studies at Brandeis University, earning an M.A. in Jewish women's studies and a Ph.D. in American Jewish history. [2] Her doctoral dissertation, completed in February 2002 under the supervision of Jonathan Sarna, was titled Views of Jews: Antisemitism, Hollywood, and American Jews, 1913-1947. [1] [4]
Career
Herman worked for a year as an assistant to the director at the Yeshiva University Museum. [1] [2] While a doctoral student at Brandeis, she worked part-time at the American Jewish Historical Society, where she created finding aids for the archive's collections related to women. [1] [2] As she was completing her dissertation, she accepted a part-time position at the Steinhardt Foundation, working for rabbi Yitz Greenberg. [1] [2]
In 2005, Herman was appointed executive director of the Natan Fund, a giving circle that supports Jewish and Israeli social innovation. [1] [2] She held this role for 16 years. [2] While at Natan, she founded Amplifier, a network for Jewish giving circles that was later acquired by the Jewish Federations of North America. [1] [2] She became president of Natan in 2021. [5]
In April 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Herman was seconded to serve as the director of the Aligned Grant Program of the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF), a coalition of foundations providing emergency support to American Jewish non-profit organizations. [1] [2] [5]
As of 2022, Herman serves as the chief operating officer of the Maimonides Fund. [2] She is also the managing editor and associate editor of SAPIR: A Journal of Jewish Conversations . [2] [5] [6]
Herman is the president of the board of the American Jewish Historical Society and serves on the boards of Natan, Sefaria, and the DreamStreet Theatre Company. [2] [5] She is a recipient of the JJ Greenberg Memorial Award from the Jewish Funders Network. [2] In 2021, The Jerusalem Post ranked her number 42 on its list of the "Top 50 Most Influential Jews." [5]
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