The Fallout from October 7th: From Crisis to Opportunity

Dr. Ezra Kopelowitz is a sociologist whose expertise is in Jewish education, community, and issues of collective Jewish identity. He is the CEO of Research Success Technologies, a company that specializes in research and evaluation for Jewish organizations. Ezra is also the Co-Director of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education, and on the faculty of the Spertus Institute.  He has published widely in areas that touch on Jewish identification, education, and Peoplehood.  Ezra lives in Kibbutz Hannaton, Israel.

Rabbi Dena Klein is the Chief Jewish Education Officer at The Jewish Education Project, assisting educators in creating ground-breaking approaches to offer relevant, meaningful Jewish learning.  Rabbi Klein is a sought-after change consultant for congregations and other institutions interested in thinking differently about Jewish life. She has served as a presenter in a variety of settings and has advised congregations in leadership and curriculum development. Rabbi Klein has served as a rabbi of Chavurat Tikvah, Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, and Temple Sinai of Roslyn. Rabbi Klein received her Rabbinic Ordination and Masters of Hebrew Letters from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City, where she has also served as an adjunct faculty member. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania.   

Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal is the Director of Youth and Family Education at Central Synagogue, where she oversees programming for families and children of all ages, including a Nursery School, religious school, and teen programming. Prior to Central, Rabbi Rosenthal was the Director of Children and Family Education at IKAR in Los Angeles, and before that she held positions at Congregation B’nai Zion in El Paso, TX and at B’nai Jeshurun in New York City. Rabbi Rosenthal received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and was ordained as a rabbi from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2009.  She also received a master’s degree in Jewish education and was a Wexner Graduate Fellow. She lives on the West Side with her husband, Dr. Adam Arenson, a professor of American History at Manhattan College, and their three children, Simon, Leo, and Maddie.  

Dr. Jonathan Golden is the founder of HeartStance Education Consulting. He teaches at Hebrew College and the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and serves as a fellow at the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education. 

He was the Israel Curriculum Coordinator and a history teacher at Gann Academy, a pluralistic Jewish highschool in Waltham, MA where he taught from 1999-2023. A graduate of Princeton University, he received his M.J.Ed. from Hebrew College and Ph.D. from Brandeis University. At Brandeis, he studied American Jewish history under the tutelage of Professor Jonathan Sarna and wrote a dissertation entitled From Cooperation to Confrontation: The Rise and Fall of the Synagogue Council of America.

He has participated in the Schusterman Center Summer Institute for Israel Studies which in 2022 included participants from Abraham Accords countries (Morocco, Bahrain, UAE), and has taught the Myra Kraft Seminar on Israel to first year students of the Hornstein program at Brandeis University.