Elissa Strauss is the Artistic Director of LABA BAY (formerly LABA East Bay). From 2012-2017, she co-directed LABA in New York City. In addition to LABA BAY, is the associate director of the global network of LABAs.

She is also a writer whose work explores gender and relationships. Her essays, op-eds, reviews and reported pieces appear in places like the Atlantic, CNN.com, the New York Times, Slate, Glamour, ELLE, and elsewhere. Her first book, When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2024.

elissastrauss.com

Anne Germanacos is a writer, visual artist, activist and educator living in San Francisco. She contributes time and other resources to a wide variety of individuals and organizations through Firehouse Fund: Cultivating Sparks. She invites individuals to form creative communities through the Firehouse—a real place in Cole Valley as well as a concept, a style and a method!

For more information on Anne’s books, teaching and philanthropy, see:

www.mergemerge.com

Tova Birnbaum is a faculty member at the Mandel Institute for Nonprofit Leadership and a Rabbinic Ordination student at the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Tova was born in B’nai B’rak, Israel, in an Ultra-Orthodox home, and was one of the founders of the BINA Secular Yeshiva in Tel Aviv, where she was a faculty member. She is a Judaic studies teacher, Theater Midrash workshop facilitator, and a Secular Jewish Life Cycle ceremonies officiant.

Tova holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Jewish Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a master’s degree in Theater from Tel Aviv University. Tova and her husband live in Palo Alto, California, and are proud parents of two daughters.

Sam Shonkoff is the Taube Family Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union. His scholarship focuses on themes of embodiment, revelation, and interpretation in modern Jewish spirituality.

He is the author of a bunch of journal articles and book chapters, as well as co-editor (with Ariel Mayse) of Hasidism: Writings on Devotion, Community, and Life in the Modern Worldand editor of Martin Buber: His Intellectual and Scholarly Legacy. He is currently completing a book on Buber’s interpretations of Hasidic sources. Sam taught formerly at Oberlin College and holds a PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School.

gtu.edu/faculty/sam-sb-shonkoff