Meet Our Parenting Through a Jewish Lens Instructors!

Here is some info about our amazing Parenting Through a Jewish Lens faculty:

Margie Bogdanow recently moved to Cambridge. She spent the summer in New Hampshire picking blueberries and infusing them into vinegar, pancakes, cakes and vodka. She received her masters of social work from Simmons College and co-founded Parenting Resource Associates in Lexington, MA. Read more about Margie’s life and work with parents and children.

Sabrina Burger was born in Madrid, Spain. She lived in Israel for 12 years, where she studied English literature and linguistics at Hebrew University and attended the Bezalel School of Art and Design. Sabrina has taught in numerous settings, integrating Torah, art and parenting skills. Read more about Sabrina’s education.

Judy Elkin, a long-time Jewish educator and a certified personal and professional coach, spent the summer canoeing and kayaking whenever she could. As a Jewish educator, Judy has worked with adolescents, parents, parent educators, teachers, and graduate students. She was the founding Director of Ramah Family Camp. Learn more about Judy’s coaching.

Rabbi Leslie Gordon has served as a congregational rabbi in Alexandria, VA and Lowell, MA. In addition to teaching for Parenting Through a Jewish Lens (Ikkarim), her work in recent years has centered on reaching out to new, newly educated and potential Jews. Read more about Leslie’s teaching.

Rabbi David Jaffe lives in Sharon with his wife Janette, their two boys and their charismatic cat, Bugsy. He is the school chaplain at Gann Academy and the founder and dean of The Kirva Institute for Torah and Spiritual Practice. Read more about the foundation that David started.

Rabbi Daniel Liben received his rabbinic ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1983 and has served as the spiritual leader of Temple Israel of Natick since 1991. A prolific teacher, he is a recipient of the Bureau of Jewish Education's Keter Torah Award for his work in family education. Red more about Rabbi Liben's work in the rabbinate.

Layah Kranz Lipsker is a Jewish educator, writer, and lecturer, with twenty years of experience teaching Jewish mysticism and biblical texts. She lives on Boston's North Shore with her family, with whom she loves to travel, hike, and go apple picking. Read more about Layah’s Jewish Woman's Day of Learning.

Dr. Natan Margalit was raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and studied for many years in Israeli seminaries. He has rabbinic ordination from The Jerusalem Seminary and a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in Talmud. Natan enjoys teaching about Judaism and the environment and spending time with his three-year-old and six year-old, and perfecting his guitar playing skills. Read more about Natan's educational endeavors.

Dr. Jacob Meskin is Academic Director of Adult Learning programs at Hebrew College. He is one of the co-authors of the Parenting Through a Jewish Lens curriculum, and both trains the faculty of and teaches in the Me'ah program. He also serves as Assistant Professor of Jewish Thought and Education at Hebrew College. Jacob can often be found walking his dog along the streets of Brookline. Read more about Jacob's academic past.

Rabbi Beth Naditch has a MA in Jewish Education and rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and is certified as a chaplain. She has taught Jewish adults in formal and informal settings, as close to home as the Parent Learning program at Temple Israel Boston and the DeLeT program at Brandeis University, and as far away as Warsaw, Poland. Rabbi Naditch, a self proclaimed jewelry beader, lives with her husband and their three young sons in Newton. Read more about Beth's work with pastoral care volunteers.

Cantor Ken Richmond came to Temple Israel of Natick in 2006. As Cantor and Family Educator, he enjoys leading the congregation in participatory prayer and teaching and learning with nursery school students, religious school and day school students and their families, and adults of all ages. Cantor Ken and his wife Rabbi Shira Shazeer are klezmer musicians and speak Yiddish with their sons Zalmen and Velvel. Read more about Ken'’s work as a cantor.

Rabbi Benjamin Samuels of Congregation Shaarei Tefillah in Newton is co-curriculum designer, and an educational consultant and instructor for Parenting Through a Jewish Lens. He received his rabbinic ordination and masters degree from Yeshiva University and is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program. Rabbi Samuels plays ice hockey and loves to take road trips with his family - he has a tradition of buying a Starbucks mug at each city stop. Read more about where else Rabbi Samuels teaches. 

Dr. Ronit Ziv-Kreger is principal at Ziv-Kreger & Associates and has been consulting with day schools and congregational schools in both Israel and Greater Boston since 1998. In the past three years Ronit has been helping CJP to revitalize and reinvent supplementary education in the Boston area. She also serves as an instructor in the Jewish Environmental fellowship: Adamah. Read more about Ronit's consulting work.

Rabbi Julie Zupan is an alumna of Tufts University. She has ordination from Hebrew Union College in New York and currently serves as the Jewish Family Educator for the Early Learning Centers of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Boston (JCCGB). She lives in Sharon with her husband, Rabbi Joseph Meszler, and their two school-age children; her family loves taking nature walks in all seasons. Read more about Julie's career.