Agnieszka Baraszko, Project Manager and Recruitment Officer
Agnieszka Baraszko works as Project Manager and Recruitment Officer at Paideia – the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden.
She is running Hevruta training sessions and lectures on Jewish Folklore.
She works with the One-Year Jewish Study Program, Paideia Mifgash Project and PR.
She is Paideia alumna and an active member at Stockholm and Gdansk Jewish Communities. She graduated from University of Warsaw, Jewish Open University in Warsaw and Autonomous University of Madrid. She holds MA’s in French and Spanish literature and language and specializes in poetry translation.
Lukasz Gorniok, Head of the One-Year Program and Director of Project-Incubator
Lukasz Gorniok is Head of the One-Year Program and Director of Project-Incubator at Paideia. He holds M.A. in Political Science from the Pedagogical University in Cracow, M.A. in History from the Dalarna University, Sweden, and Ph.D. in History from Umeå University, Sweden. His research was about the migration of Polish Jews and Czechoslovaks to Sweden in the late 1960s. He was also a Krister Stendahl Fellow at Paideia (2008/09).
Erik Gribbe, CFO
Erik is the CFO at Paideia, and has been responsible for a number of Paideia programmes, such as the Paideia Project-Incubator, the Paradigm Programme, the Programme for Directors of European Jewish Museums, the Alumni Conference and the One Sweden Project. He holds a BA and an MA in Business and Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics and ESADE in Spain, and a BA in Liberal Arts from Stockholm University. Prior to joining Paideia in 2007, he worked for UNICEF, setting up a municipal statistics office in the Dominican Republic, as a high school teacher, a translator and a volunteer at the Red Cross for many years. His background is in the performing arts, where he was a dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet for 10 years
Noa Hermele, Director
Noa Hermele serves as Director of Paideia, the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden, and Rector of Paideia Folkhögskola, the first Jewish Cultural College in Sweden. He has been a board member of the Forum for Jewish Studies at Uppsala University and chairperson of the Committee for National Minorities at the Swedish Arts Council. He is currently a member of the editorial board of Judisk Krönika, the Jewish Cultural Magazine in Sweden, and is a member of the steering committee for the Yiddish Language Centre at the Institute for Language and Folklore.
Ivana Koutníková, Project Manager
Ivana Koutníková studied Jewish studies and German studies at Palacký University, in Olomouc, the Czech Republic. She holds a diploma in Jewish studies, German studies and History. She is also a Paideia Baruch Spinoza Fellow 2013/2014. Ivana worked at Centropa in Vienna in 2010/2011. She has been involved in the creation and organization of the movie section for the festival The Days of Jewish Culture in Olomouc and in running a school project Forgotten Path of a Town, with focus in research on local Jewish history in the Czech Republic. She was working on a project “Positive Action for Intercultural Understanding and Curiosity” for AFS Interkulturell Utbildning in Sweden. She also worked as a Resident Director at CET Academic Programs in Prague for Jewish and Central European Studies. Currently, Ivana works as project manager and event organizer at Paideia and Paideia Folkhögskola. She is responsible for more than 50 events taking place every year reaching more than 1,000 people.
Barbara Lerner Spectre, Founding Director
Barbara Lerner Spectre is the Founding Director of Paideia. She was formerly on the faculty of the Hartman Institute of Advanced Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, where she taught Jewish Thought. She was among the founders of the Seminary of Judaic Studies in Jerusalem. Her area of research is in models of inference in Christian and Jewish post-Holocaust theology, for which she received a research grant from Yad V’Shem Institute. Barbara’s publications include “A Theology of Doubt” (Hebrew) and, together with Noam Zion of the Hartman Institute, the two-volume “A Different Light: The Hannukah Book of Celebration.” In 2007, she received the prestigious Max M. Fisher Prize for Jewish Education in the Diaspora and in 2016, the Abraham Geiger Medal. In 2018, she received The King’s Medal for her outstanding contribution for Jewish culture in Sweden and beyond.
Frida Schatz, Hebrew Lecturer and Dean of Students
Frida Schatz is Paideia’s Hebrew lecturer at all levels and Dean of Students. She holds a BA and MA in Hebrew and French language and literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She also studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris. After studies Frida held positions as Hebrew lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at Universities in Paris, Frankfurt, and Copenhagen. She also worked for JDC for Russian Jews in Italy. After moving to Sweden, she taught Hebrew as a lecturer at the University of Lund and the University of Stockholm and worked as a translator between Swedish and Hebrew.
Antje Sörenson, PR and Communication Officer
Born in Germany, Antje joined Paideia in 2021. She has previously been responsible for Press and Public Relations at the German Embassy in Sweden, as well as with business intelligence and case administration. She holds an MA in film studies from Université Paris VIII and has also worked as a translator, writer and film production agent. Antje works with PR and Communications and Program Coordination at Paideia.
