Anat Avissar, 30, is a copywriter and creative director, working with NGO’s for the last 5 years. She was the acting director of Beit Hasofer Jerusalem and the editor of the successful Hebrew poetry website “Zuta”. She worked with the Jerusalem Foundation as the Vice President’s assistant to the USA desk for over 2 years. Anat writes the only female queer column in Israel for the last 5 years, in YNET, the web edition of Yediot Achronot. Anat preformed as a drag king in the Jerusalem drag show Gevalt for 6 years, and was an activist in the Jerusalem Pride March, during the 2005-2007 riots.

Anat grew up in a Moshav near Jerusalem, the oldest of 4 brothers and sisters, to a high school principal Mother and national education supervisor father. To this day, Anat is an active member of the reform community and synagogue at her parents’ congregation. After joining the IDF, Anat was a commander and teacher for disadvantaged soldiers. Anat is single, living in Holon and is also a volunteer in the rehabilitation of abused dogs, a jazz singer and a writer, working on a book currently.

Sara started at AU in February 2007 as the Center's second director. Before coming to AU, she had worked as the Coordinator of Programs at the University of Rhode Island Women’s Center, as a graduate assistant with the Gender Issues Education Services Office and the Program Coordinator for the Women’s and Gender Equity Resource Center at Texas A&M University. She currently serves as a member the NASPA Center for Scholarship, Research, and Professional Development for Women and is the Co-Chair for the National Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals.

Joanna Blotner is a member of the Religion and Faith team at the Human Rights Campaign having joined the organization in 2008.  In this role she engages a wide array of congregations nationwide empowering clergy and people of faith to put their faith into action on behalf of LGBT equality and inclusion.  Joanna has been responsible for planning the 2009 and 2011 “Clergy Call for Justice and Equality” conferences which brought 250+ clergy from every state in the country to DC to lobby Congress on LGBT equality, has organized over forty congregation-based educational workshops on gender identity and oversees much of the department’s political advocacy work on both state and federal levels.  Prior to working at HRC, Joanna served as a Legislative Assistant for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Reform Movement’s social justice advocacy office in Washington, DC.  Her legislative portfolio at the RAC included climate, energy, environmental justice, elections and voting rights.  

Joanna is a graduate of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana with a B.A. in Political Science and Jewish Studies. During her senior year of college, she served as president of the university’s Hillel and is extremely proud of the role she played in helping establish an IU Keshet chapter that year, an engagement and support group for LGBT and allied Jewish students.  Joanna grew up at and still belongs to Temple Micah in Washington, DC.

Matt started as the Program Coordinator of the GLBTA RC at AU in April 2009. In this position, he oversees one-time & annual programming and coordinates/facilitates the educational workshop series at the resource center. Moreover, he serves as a member of the OCL Staff Development Advisory Committee, the OCL Orientation Coordinating Committee, and teaches in the Women Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. Before coming to AU, he had experience working as an academic advisor, internship coordinator, facilitator of prejudice reduction/diversity/LGBT workshops, and taught in the Integrative Studies Program. Outside of AU, Matt is a member of ACPA, DCCPA, and the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals, where he coordinates the monthly conference call series.

Halley Cohen has been working in social justice, gender and sexuality issues since 1997, as an activist, scholar, and artist. She holds advanced degrees in gender and the arts from the University of Chicago, La Trobe University (Australia), and American University. Named an InterFuture Conner Scholar for her work on gender-conscious theatre in England, South Africa, and the US; she was also awarded a Mellon grant for intercultural writing on LGBT and race issues, and was tagged by the Lambda Literary Foundation as one of twenty-five Emerging LGBT Writers in the nation in 2008.

Currently, she directs the GLOE program at the Washington DCJCC, founded by Stuart Kurlander in 2006 – the only full-time LGBT program at a Jewish Community Center. Working to foster a welcome and inclusive environment for LGBT Jews, GLOE creates on-going original programming that speaks to the LGBT Jewish community, through substantive events in the arts, spirituality, community service, for kids and families, and in social justice. GLOE also regularly functions as a resource for the broader Jewish community, conducting discussions on queer identity, hosting anti-suicide trainings for faith community leaders, and advising organizations on LGBT Jewish issues.

Dan Furmansky is a seasoned social justice leader with fifteen years of experience with non-profit and progressive advocacy organizations focused on LGBT rights, immigrant rights, the environment, animal welfare, global hunger and poverty, and economic justice. He currently manages an interfaith public advocacy campaign of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Standing on the Side of Love, offering people the opportunity to translate their faith into effective action on behalf of marginalized communities.  As a consultant, he has worked for clients as diverse as the Maryland Association of Naturopathic Physicians, Keshet, and Maryland State Senator Rich Madaleno.  From 2003-2008, he served as executive director of Equality Maryland, increasing the organization's budget and staff ten-fold, launching a marriage equality campaign, and leading the efforts to pass the state's inclusive hate crimes law and multiple bills to provide rights for domestic partners, as well as local transgender anti-discrimination measures.

Mr. Furmansky was an awardee of Environmental Protection Agency Annual EnergyStar Congregation Award for national outreach as a participant in Hazon’s 2001 cross-country Jewish environmental charity bike ride. In 2008, he won the national cornerstone award from the Jewish Funds for Justice (JFSJ). He is also member of JFSJ’s Selah leadership training program created for Jewish leaders working in the social change arena. 

Mr. Furmansky has served as a spokesperson for LGBT rights in numerous print, radio and television interviews and appearances, including CNN, “The Bill O’Reilly Show,” NPR, Washington Post, Advocate, New York Times, and Christian radio shows. He is currently Vice Chair of the Equality Federation, a coalition of statewide LGBT civil rights organizations, and officiates at the weddings of same-gender couples, helping them to create personalized, meaningful ceremonies.

Rachel Gildiner is the Associate Director for Student Engagement at Hillel’s Schusterman International Center in Washington, D.C.   Rachel’s work focuses primarily on Hillel’s Engagement Initiatives - The Campus Entrepreneurs Initiative (CEI) and Peer-Network Engagement Internship - which are based on a peer-to-peer relationship based engagement methodology and hosted on over 50 colleges across the country.  Before joining Hillel in 2007 Rachel spent two years working in development for Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Business School.

Rachel graduated in 2005 from List College, an undergraduate joint program between Columbia University and The Jewish Theological Seminary, where she majored in Sociology and Modern Jewish Studies.  She received her Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration at The George Washington University in 2011.  Rachel lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband and their son, Samuel.

Elizabeth Leibowitz is the current Project Manager of the 2012 Jewish Organization Equality Index (JOEI) at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), America’s largest advocacy organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. JOEI is a new, two-part project at HRC is comprised of a comprehensive survey to evaluate the LGBT inclusive nature of Jewish non-profits workplace practices, policies, in addition to their programs and outreach to the LGBT community. This survey will be followed by a benchmarking report highlighting best practices seen in the community and next steps to be taken. Before working at the Human Rights Campaign, Leibowitz was the Interim Director of National Initiatives and State Government Relations at the Embassy of Israel in Washington, DC, where she helped to expand the Embassy’s outreach into the U.S. LGBT community. She has previously held internships and fellowships at a handful of other organizations and offices including OneVoice DC, the Aguda, the Office of Congressman Bill Foster and the Office of Congressman Patrick Murphy. She is a 2011 graduate of American University where she received her B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Israeli Studies. She is native Philadelphian but has accepted Washington DC as her new home; she is more likely to stay if she can find a decent Italian restaurant in the city.

Vanessa "Vinny" Prell has dedicated one quarter of his life (and counting) to anti-oppression work, most recently through pursuing an MA in Urban and Minority Education at the University of Maryland in College Park.

She previously served as Executive Director of the National Union of Jewish Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, and Intersex Students (NUJLS). An old hand at program development and workshop leading, she has conducted workshops on topics as varied as becoming an ally, sex education, religion and abortion, rape culture, and identity politics.
Her background in youth empowerment has led him to work with high school and college aged youth. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with honors, and degrees in Literature and the Study of Racism and is honored to be a member of Bet Mishpachah, Washington DC’s egalitarian Synagogue embracing a diversity of sexual and gender identities. 

 Arthur Slepian is the founder and Executive Director of A Wider Bridge, an organization that seeks to create greater connection between the North American Jewish and Israeli LGBTQ communities, and provide an LGBTQ pathway for greater engagement with Israel.  A Wider Bridge recently led its first LGBT trip to Israel.
Arthur has several decades of experience as a leader in the Jewish community along with a successful career as a leader in the business world.  In his corporate career, he started and led several subsidiary companies for a major financial services firm, and had executive roles that included Strategic Planning, Corporate Development and Enterprise Risk Management. In the Jewish world, Arthur serves on the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Community Federation of the San Francisco Bay Area, is the Chair of the LGBT Alliance of the Federation and serves on the Board of the San Francisco area Jewish Community Relations Council. Arthur has been a leader for more than 20 years at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco, one of the nation’s oldest and largest synagogues serving primarily LGBT Jews, where he served as President from 2003 to 2006, and continues to serve in a variety of leadership roles.  Arthur has an M.A. in Economics from Stanford University and a B.A. in Economics from Yale University.

As Keshet’s Lead Organizer and Training Coordinator, Joanna Ware employs grassroots community organizing strategies to build powerful communities of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and allied people working for justice, equality, and the full inclusion of LGBT people in the Jewish world. In Massachusetts, Joanna directs Keshet’s organizing in the Jewish community on behalf of gender justice and trans equality, including organizing the Jewish community in support of the successful passage of the MA Trans Equal Rights Bill in November, 2011. Nationally, she organizes and trains clergy, educators, communal professionals, and lay leaders working for LGBT inclusion across the Jewish world. Joanna’s academic background is in gender studies, Middle East studies, and politics, and she joined Keshet in 2009 as a Fellow in the Jewish Organizing Initiative, and with experience in Jewish youth work and informal education, anti-violence and anti-sexism education and prevention, policy advocacy, and community organizing.