Leslie Herbert Wexner is an American billionaire businessman, the founder and chairman emeritus of Bath & Body Works, Inc.. Wexner grew a business empire after starting The Limited, a clothing retailer with a restricted selection of profitable items, and later expanded his holdings to include Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, Inc., and Bath & Body Works.
Richard M. Joel is a Jewish scholar who was the fourth president of Yeshiva University (YU), a Modern Orthodox Jewish university in New York City. He has written on topics that include Jewish leadership, the BDS movement on college campuses, and civil discourse.
The Center for Public Leadership (CPL) is an academic research center at Harvard University that provides teaching, research and training in the practical skills of leadership for people in government, nonprofits, and business. The center works to prepare its students to exercise leadership in a world responding to a rapidly expanding array of economic, political, and social challenges. Located at Harvard Kennedy School, CPL was established in 2000 through a gift from the Wexner Foundation.
The Charles H. Revson Foundation was founded in 1956 by Charles H. Revson, the founding President of Revlon Cosmetics as a vehicle for his charitable giving. He willed half of his estate to the Foundation upon his death. Julie Sandorf has been the President of the Foundation since January 2008.
The Foundation for Jewish Culture was an advocacy group for Jewish cultural life and creativity in the United States.
Shalom Hartman Institute is a Jewish research and education institute based in Jerusalem, that offers pluralistic Jewish thought and education to scholars, rabbis, educators, and Jewish community leaders in Israel and North America. The institute's goal is to strengthen Jewish peoplehood, identity and pluralism, enhance the Jewish and democratic character of Israel, and ensure that Judaism is a compelling force for good in the 21st century.
Herbert A. Friedman (1918–2008) was an American Reform rabbi who served as the CEO of the United Jewish Appeal and was the founding president of the Wexner Foundation. He inspired the Wexner Heritage Program seminars, which have now been educating Jewish community leaders for over two decades. He co-founded the foundation in 1985 with Leslie Wexner, chairman of Limited Brands, and served for a decade as president. For more than two decades before that he was executive chairman of the national United Jewish Appeal, where he designed and led the missions to Israel that became the basis for much of the American Jewish community's support for Israel.
The Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program supports graduate students planning a career related to Judaism. The program selects 20 students preparing for careers in the rabbinate, the cantorate, academic Jewish studies, and Jewish communal service. Wexner Graduate Fellowships are given to students who are strongly committed to the Jewish community, have exceptional academic records, and show potential to become leaders.
Dr. Arthur J. Naparstek was a professor of social work and Dean of the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He was an expert on urban redevelopment and neighborhood revitalization whose community-building concepts served as the basis for local and national government programs in both the United States and Israel.
John S. Ruskay, is executive vice president emeritus of UJA-Federation of New York and a senior partner of JRB Consulting Services. He served as a commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom from May 2016 to May 2018. Ruskay is an author and lecturer on issues affecting the Jewish people.
Andrew Klaber is the chief executive officer of Bedford Ridge Capital, an investment management firm in New York. Previously, Klaber was a partner on the investment team at Paulson & Co., a multi-strategy hedge fund. He is also the founder and emeritus chairman and president of Even Ground, an international non-profit organization that annually provides academic support, basic health care, and nutrition to more than 2,000 children who have been orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS.
Mandell "Bill" Berman (1917–2016) was the businessman and philanthropist behind the Mandell L. and Madeleine H. Berman Foundation, which supports Jewish education, and research and study of the contemporary American Jewish community. His philanthropic focus was on the storage, dissemination, and preservation of Jewish data, as well as Jewish education and special education.
The Zamir Chorale of Boston, founded in 1969, is a choral group that performs Jewish liturgical pieces, major classical works, music of the Holocaust, newly commissioned compositions, and Israeli, Yiddish, and Ladino folksongs. Zamir has been recognized by American Record Guide as “America’s foremost Jewish choral ensemble.” The documentary film Zamir: Jewish Voices Return to Poland, about the Chorale’s 1999 trip to Eastern Europe, was shown across the country on public television stations. Rose of Sharon Winter, Rovi, of The New York Times, called the film “an unforgettable video experience.”
Nadav Tamir is a former Israeli diplomat. He is currently J Street Israel's new Executive Director and a senior advisor for governmental and international affairs in the Peres Center for Peace.
The David Bohnett Foundation is a private foundation that gives grants to organizations that focus on its core giving areas – primarily Los Angeles area programs and LGBT rights in the United States, as well as leadership initiatives and voter education, gun violence prevention, and animal language research. As of 2022, the foundation has donated $125 million to nonprofit organizations and initiatives.
The Bronfman Fellowship is a non-profit educational program for young Jews in Israel and North America.
Gilah Kletenik is an academic and rabbi.
Ruth Wasserman Lande is an Israeli politician, diplomat and activist. She was a member of the Knesset for the Blue and White party from 2021 until 2022 and also was an MK for the party in two short spells in early 2021.
The Jewish community of Greater Columbus has made up a small but noteworthy part of the region since the arrival of Jews in 1840. The community has gone through periods of growth, especially in the last quarter of the 20th century. Today, the well-established community includes schools, temples, elder care facilities, kosher food services, ritual baths, social clubs, community religious learning centers and other organizations and has a population of approximately 25,500, as of the most recent 2013 study. It is the 43rd largest Jewish community in the United States and the third largest in Ohio, trailing Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Usumain Tukuny Baraka is a Sudanese activist and asylum seeker living in Israel. He is a leader of Israel's asylum-seeking community and the first Darfuri refugee to graduate from a Hebrew-language program in an Israeli university.
