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36 Under 36: TRANSFORMING EDUCATION 
Danielle Josephs, 22 by Jewish Week special report Bridging Jewish and Muslim communities on campus As a college freshman at Rutgers University in fall 2003, Danielle Josephs found herself straddling the throes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The sizeable Jewish and Muslim communities were often pitted against each other, both in silent avoidance and in public protests along College Avenue. The tension became particularly heated when the Palestinian Solidarity Movement decided to hold its annual North American conference at Rutgers. According to Josephs, the New Jersey chapter of PSM was known for advocating violence and suicide bombings, and the conference enraged the University’s Jewish population. “As a young freshman it became really uncomfortable to express any pro-Israel sentiments,” Josephs said. “The campus was just embroiled in this terrible Josephs became increasingly involved in Hillel. She helped reinstate the Israel study abroad program, led an Israeli culture festival and became the president of Hillel by the end of her sophomore year. Yet she was disappointed by the perpetual divide between the Rutgers Jewish and Muslim communities. Together with her friend Sami Elmansoury, the head of the Islamic Society at Rutgers, she found a way to bridge that divide. With university assistance, she established the Middle East Co-existence House, a special floor in a dormitory at Douglass College for Jewish and Muslim women. It opened in the fall of 2006 and now has more members than ever before. After graduating last spring, Josephs was invited to visit the International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan, where the school will be implementing a coexistence dormitory based on Josephs’ successes – but this time, to house Chinese, Japanese and Korean students together. Claim to fame: Josephs was named one of Glamour Magazine’s Top Ten College Women in 2006. Don’t mess with her: She has a black belt in martial arts and Tae Kwon Do. —Sharon Udasin Wendy Amsellem, 34 Jewish scholar, educator and director of Drisha’s high school program After graduating college with a BA in history and literature, Wendy Amsellem, like many so other others, headed off to law school. After one year, she wasn’t completely convinced that it was where she was meant to be, so she took a leave of absence and enrolled in some courses at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education. After a year there, she stayed for another and then a third to finish out the program. She never returned to law school and she never left Drisha. A full-time faculty member at Drisha since 2004, Amsellem is also the director of the Dr. Beth Samuels High School Program there, which brings together teen girls from around the world in summer and winter sessions to delve into Jewish texts in ways women of generations past never thought possible. “We get girls to think of learning as something they can do on their own,” Amsellem told The Jewish Week. “At school they are taught how things are; here they learn you can explore.” At Drisha, Amsellem teaches a class on halacha and helps coordinate internships for students who themselves want to become Jewish educators, while simultaneously pursuing a Ph.D. from New York University in Jewish studies, with a concentration in rabbinic literature. “We have access to texts and skills our mothers didn’t have, and it’s exciting to watch that unfold and to capitalize on that.” Craves: Ben and Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream. Favorite pastime: In-line skating. “You can go really far and it doesn’t hurt like running does. Plus, you get to see all sorts of things on the way.” — Randi Sherman Adam Gaynor, 33 Equipping unaffiliated Jewish prep school students with the tools to forge their own Jewish identities Hebrew school was a miserable experience for Adam Gaynor. “I was never one of those kids who connected with the Jewish community in any meaningful way,” he says. So when it came time to choose a college, Jewish life on campus was hardly a consideration. Ironically enough, it was Gaynor’s profound sense of isolation as one of the few Jews at Bates College in Maine that propelled him to explore his Jewish identity — largely in outrage against the pervasive anti-Semitism on campus. After college, he enlisted in the Israeli army before working in the Israeli Foreign Ministry and then returning to New York. In his current role as deputy director of The Curriculum Initiative (TCI; tcionline.org), Gaynor helps support Jewish life among close to 3,000 Jewish kids enrolled at 75 non-Jewish independent high schools in the United States. “I experienced a similar trajectory to that of most of my students,” he says. “I understand where they’re coming from.” Most of the prep school students he works with reside on the periphery of the Jewish community. They’re Jews of color or Jews with only one Jewish parent. “They’re embarrassed by their lack of knowledge about Judaism or being seen as ‘not Jewish enough,’” he says. Gaynor, a big believer in “open tent Judaism,” works with teachers at prep schools to incorporate educational programming into the curriculum, and acts as a resource to support Jewish clubs. In addition to sponsoring a summer institute to train teachers in text-study techniques from the Jewish tradition, TCI also organizes an annual student retreat called Jewbilee, where students spend Shabbat at a New England boarding school, meeting one another and exploring their Jewish identities. Side job while in college: Gaynor worked as a wilderness guide for YMCA (and would frequently go ice climbing). Musically inclined? Gaynor has tried his hand at playing the oud, a Middle Eastern pear-shaped instrument. —Tamar Snyder David Greenfield, 29 Easing tuition crisis by forging inter-communal and governmental relationships People often complain about skyrocketing yeshiva and day school tuitions, but David Greenfield is among the select few actively searching for solutions. From his perch as executive vice president at the Sephardic Community Federation, Greenfield help found TEACH-NYS (teachnys.org), a state-wide coalition that brings educators, business people, rabbis, Catholic bishops and leading African-American Ministers together to advocate on behalf of New York’s 500,000 non-public school children. “The No. 1 domestic priority for observant Jews is education,” Greenfield says. “I don’t believe that the government can solve the tuition crisis, but I also don’t believe that we can solve it without the government’s help.” He’s certainly making inroads. TEACH-NYS’s achievements include the passage of a $600 million tax credit for parents of school-aged children in 2006. And this year, TEACH-NYS secured more than $54.9 million in new funding for non-public schools, plus an additional $6.2 million for computers. Last month, the Deptartment of Education agreed to implement a pilot program that will lead to millions of dollars in new remedial services for struggling yeshiva students. Greenfield is on the DOE’s Non-Public School Standing Committee, which represents all non-public schools in N.Y. He’s the first new member in a generation and the youngest in its history. Well credentialed: Graduated valedictorian of Touro College at age 19, J.D. from Georgetown University, worked on Joe Lieberman’s presidential campaign — and is a certified scuba diver. In his spare time: Greenfield is a frequent guest on the weekly radio program “Talkline” with Zev Brenner. Fuhgedaboutit: He’s a lifelong Brooklyn resident — and proud of it. —Tamar Snyder Jordan Rosenberg, 28 Educating day school students out in the wilderness Jews tend to live in urban environments — and lead largely sedentary lives. Jordan Rosenberg wants to change that. The YU rabbinical student and outdoor enthusiast first took to the call of the wild as a freshman participating in PennQuest, a weeklong wilderness orientation at the University of Pennsylvania. Now he’s determined to bring the “PennQuest” concept to Jewish day schools through his grassroots organization, Traveling on the Path (T.O.P.), which creates outdoor educational programming for Jewish students. “Experiential education is crucial for day schools,” he says. “A beautiful space lends itself to being willing to talk about things that are larger than ourselves, to have conversations about God.” Five-day backpacking trips not only instill an appreciation for the intricate natural world God created, but also foster good character. “We teach conservation and respect; no one eats until everyone gets food,” he says. The trips instill both awe and love of the Almighty. “In an old-growth forest, you get the sense that this is something that you did not create, could not create, I had no hand in it,” Rosenberg says. “Part of the religious experience is to feel humble.” Rosenberg, a Wexner Fellow, has taught Judaic studies, Talmud, and Shakespeare for the past five years at Yeshiva University High School in Manhattan (YUHSB) and Maimonides School in Brookline, M.A. In addition to wilderness trips with his students, he led a desert ecology trip in Arizona for Gann Academy students in Waltham, Mass., and trained students at Yeshiva University. In the coming years, he plans to expand T.O.P. to include Jewish wilderness programming for a variety of day schools across the country. Tigers and lions and bears, oh my: If you are in the unlucky situation of encountering a bear while on the trail, lift up your hands in surrender mode, yell at the top of your lungs and bang on pots. “This will scare them away,” says Rosenberg, who has experience in these matters. Top 3 trails: The John Muir Trail in Calif., The Lycian Way in Turkey, and the Shvil Yisrael in Israel. Rosenberg spent a week trekking through each this past summer (he also climbed Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the continental U.S.). Favorite Shakespeare play: “The Tempest” —Tamar Snyder |
 
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