Strategic Board and Board of Directors

Strategic Board

Michael Berenbaum

Michael Berenbaum is a writer, lecturer, and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and the development of historical films. He is director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) where he is also a Professor of Jewish Studies.

Christina von Braun

Christina von Braun is a German cultural scientist, gender theorist, writer and filmmaker. She has been professor of cultural studies at Humboldt University, Berlin since 1994 and writes, makes films and researches into the links between intellectual history and gender roles, as well as on media, religion, modernity and the history of anti-Semitism.

Arnold Eisen

Arnold Eisen is one of the world’s foremost authorities on American Judaism, is chancellor emeritus of The Jewish Theological Seminary and professor of Jewish Thought. Professor Eisen was chancellor of JTS from 2007 to 2020 and before coming to JTS, Professor Eisen served on the faculties of Stanford, Tel Aviv, and Columbia universities. Professor Eisen is the author, among other works, of Galut: Modern Jewish Reflection on Homelessness and Homecoming, and Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community, and co-author of The Jew Within.

Konstanty Gebert

Columnist and international reporter with Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw. Associate Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations. Advisory Board member, Einstein Forum, Potsdam, and Jewish Humanitarian Fund, The Hague. Media consultant, Media Investment Loan Fund, New York. Board member, Remembrance and Future Foundation, which sponsors the future monument to Poles who saved Jews during WWII. Founder and first editor of the Jewish intellectual monthly Midrasz. Former Polish democratic underground activist. Author of twelve books, on i.a. the Polish round table of 1989, the Yugoslav wars, the wars of Israel, the European 20th century, contemporary Polish Jewry, and Torah commentary. His essays have appeared in two dozen collective works in Poland, Japan, US, UK, Italy, France and Belgium, and his articles in many newspapers in Poland and around the world. Frequent lecturer at universities in Poland, US and Israel. Currently working on a book on comparative genocide.

Moshe Halbertal

Moshe Halbertal is the John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at the Hebrew University and the Gruss Professor at NYU Law School, and a member of the Israel’s National Academy for Sciences and the Humanities. Among his books are “Idolatry” (co-authored with Avishai Margalit); “People of the Book: Canon, Meaning and Authority”, both published by Harvard University Press. His books “On Sacrifice” and “Maimonides: Life and Thought” were published by Princeton University Press. His latest book “The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical book of Samuel” (co-authored with Stephen Holmes) was published by Princeton University press at 2017.

Noa Hermele

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.

Barbara Lerner Spectre

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.

Lena Posner-Körösi

Lena Posner-Körösi is the chairwomen of Paideia Folkhögskola. She is also the chariwoman of Amanah, a Malmö based educational project building trust between Jews and Muslims. In 2019, she was appointment by Swedish government as an Ambassador for Democracy – Sweden celebrates 100 years of Democracy in 2021.

Göran Rosenberg

Göran Rosenberg is a journalist, author and documentary film maker. Rosenberg founded the Swedish monthly magazine of essays and opinion “Moderna Tider”. He studied at the University of Stockholm, with a BA in mathematics, philosophy, political science and journalism. He holds an honorary doctorate from Göteborg University. He worked as a reporter and foreign correspondent for Swedish radio and television, essayist and columnist in major Swedish newspapers and magazines, producer of documentaries and writer of books.

Assaf Sharon

Assaf Sharon is a Senior Lecturer of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University and head of its Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law program. He is also co-founder and senior fellow at Molad: The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy.

Gabriel Urwitz

Dr Gabriel Urwitz is the founder and executive chairman of Segulah Advisor AB, a leading Nordic mid-market private equity company. He has a Ph.D in financial economics from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. Dr Urwitz has been an assistant professor at Graduate School of Business, Columbia University and also an adjunct full professor of financial economics at the Stockholm School of Economics. Dr Urwitz has been CEO of several financial companies (stock broker, listed investment company. Dr Urwitz has since more than twenty years been involved in the Stockholm Jewish Community as treasurer, president, and deputy president and is since its inception in year 2000 chairman of Paideia. He is also chairman of several foundations which supports Jewish activities.

Board of Directors

Sophie Bigot Goldblum

Sophie Bigot Goldblum is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has studied at various progressive yeshivot in Israel and the US. She is part of the Talmud faculty at Hillel Deutschland and works as a Jewish educator for JEM, an umbrella organization of progressive Synagogues in Paris.