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Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block, Director
Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block is the Director of Education at PANIM: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values. He is the co-editor and co-author of Just: Judaism. Action. Social Change andhis articles have been published in Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility and Newsweek.com. He has launched two Jewish serving-learning programs: Summer JAM (Judaism, Activism, and Mitzvah work), which he directed for four summers, and PanimWorks. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from Grinnell College and rabbinic ordination from The Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He currently serves on the board of Jews United for Justice, the Advisory Board for The Selah Leadership Program of the Jewish Funds for Justice, and is a founding member of Eastern Village Cohousing, an award-winning, green cohousing community, where he lives with his family in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland.
Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, Senior Educational Consultant
Rabbi Sidney Schwarz founded PANIM: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values in 1988 as a means to spark greater interest in Jewish values and tikkun olam, repair of the world. He previously served as executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, D.C. and was the founding rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Rockville, MD, where he is now rabbi emeritus.
Dr. Schwarz is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) and holds a Ph.D. in Jewish history. He has served on the faculties of the University of Maryland, Temple University and the RRC as well as the Wexner Summer Institute and the Whizin Family Education Institute. Schwarz’s first book, Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of American Jews can Transform the American Synagogue (Jewish Lights) was not only widely read and quoted, but has been used by hundreds of synagogues and rabbis across the country. In it, he offered a new paradigm to help reclaim the American synagogue for a younger generation of American Jews. Judaism and Justice: The Jewish Passion to Repair the World (Jewish Lights, 2006) uses a similar blend of history and sociology to offer a new vision for a Jewish community built around a commitment to social justice.
Schwarz is the co-author of Jewish Civics: A World Repair/Tikkun Olam Manual (1994) and Jews, Judaism, and Civic Responsibility (1998). He has written more than 100 articles for various journals, including Judaism, Moment, Sh'ma and Reconstructionist, and is a frequent lecturer on contemporary Jewish affairs. In 2002, Rabbi Schwarz was awarded a Covenant Award for Exceptional Jewish Educators by the Covenant Foundation. To view Rabbi Schwarz's remarks at the awards ceremony please click here.
Mikah Goldman, Program Associate
Mikah, a Rutgers University graduate, joined PANIM in November 2008 as a Program Associate. An experienced educator, Mikah recruits agencies for and serves as a lead faculty on Panim el Panim seminars. Prior to working for PANIM, she worked for the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Education Center at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, NJ. In 2008 Mikah was selected to attend the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous Summer Institute for Teachers, making her a JFR Alfred Lerner Fellow. During her spare time, Mikah enjoys volunteering, cooking, reading, and exploring the DC area.
Shayna Kreisler, Director of Civic Engagement and Leadership
Shayna Kreisler is the Director of Civic Engagement and leadership at the Panim Institute of BBYO. Shayna comes to Panim from BBYO where she has served as the Director of Education and Teen Initiatives for the past two years. Previous to BBYO, Shayna was a teacher in New York City, where she currently resides. Shayna also has experience working in the BBYO field where she served as the Assistant Director of Philly Region for 3 1/2 years. She is excited to be working with Panim because of their mission, which matches many of her own passions and values.
Rachel Meytin,
Associate Director
Rachel originally joined PANIM as the project manager for the Jewish Civics Initiative (JCI), prior to which she taught the JCI course at Los Angeles Hebrew High School. She has a master’s degree in Education and an M.B.A. in Non-Profit Management from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. She is originally from upstate New York and earned a B.A. from Boston University where she majored in psychology.
Natalie Sukienik, Program Associate
Natalie is originally from East Windsor, NJ, and graduated from Dickinson College with a psychology major and political science minor. After graduation, Natalie relocated to Louisiana to participate in City Year Louisiana, a program that allowed her to work with students affected by Hurricane Katrina. Prior to joining the PANIM team, Natalie worked at KaBOOM!, a national non-profit committed to building playgrounds in low income areas using a community build model. Natalie became a member of the PANIM family in November 2008 as a Program Associate working on PanimWorks and J-Serve.
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