Jewish Women International advocates for the rights of women and children, including victims of abuse, in the Jewish community. It has offices and chapters around the United States and convenes the National Center on Domestic & Sexual Violence in the Jewish Community. The media contact is Deborah Rosenbloom, JWI chief program officer.

Hebrew College in Newton Centre, Mass., has programs in Jewish studies, Jewish education, transdenominational rabbinic ordination for both men and women, cantor education and Mekorot (Hebrew language and Jewish texts). It also maintains Prozdor, a Jewish high school. Rabbi Daniel Lehmann is the college’s president.

Gratz College is a transdenominational school in Melrose Park, Pa., that offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees. It also operates a Jewish Community High School. Jerry Kutnick is dean of academic affairs.

The Drisha Institute for Jewish Education is a school created for Jewish women who want to study advanced Hebrew texts. Rabbi David Silber is its founder and dean. It is in New York City.

Brandeis University is a private, nonsectarian Jewish university in Waltham, Mass. It was founded in 1948 as a university for Jews rejected by Ivy League schools because of quotas. Fred Lawrence is president.

Rabbi M. Bruce Lustig heads Washington Hebrew Congregation, a Reform synagogue and the largest Jewish congregation in Washington, D.C. He is active in interfaith issues and helped organize what is called “the nation’s first Abrahamic Summit,” a meeting of Christians, Jews and Muslims for interfaith dialogue.

Rabbi Elyse Frishman is a Reform rabbi and spiritual leader of Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, N.J. She served as editor of the Mishkan T’filah, only the fourth prayer book in the 150-year history of American Reform Judaism.

Rabbi Andy Bachman and his wife, Rachel Altstein, are leaders in the burgeoning emergent synagogue movement. They are founders of Brooklyn Jews, an informal congregation of young, urban Jews in the New York borough. In 2007, Andy became the head rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim, the borough’s largest Reform synagogue. He writes a blog that is widely read […]

Vardit Ringvald is a professor of Hebrew at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and is the director of a summer Hebrew language school run by Brandeis and Middlebury College in Vermont.