PRESENTER BIOS

Dr. Pamela Nadell

Plenary: Antisemitism in America

Dr. Pamela S. Nadell holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History and is Director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University. A specialist in American Jewish history and women’s history, she teaches a variety of courses in Jewish civilization. Dr. Nadell’s books include America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today (W.W. Norton, 2019), named Jewish Book of the Year by the Jewish Book Council. Past president of the Association for Jewish Studies, Nadell’s other titles include Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women’s Ordination, 1889–1985 (Beacon Press, 1998). She consults for museums including the National Museum of American Jewish History and the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream. She lectures widely, frequently appears on podcasts, and has written for, among others, the Washington Post, The Conversation, and Hadassah Magazine. In 2017, she testified before Congress about antisemitism on college campuses. Her new book Antisemitism, an American Tradition, investigates the dark history of how this hate threaded across the American past from colonial times to today.

Sarah Hurwitz

Plenary: Antisemitism in America

For nearly 15 years, Sarah Hurwitz built a career finding just the right words. She served as a White House speechwriter from 2009 to 2017, first as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama and then as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama. Sarah worked with Mrs. Obama to craft widely-acclaimed addresses and traveled with her across America and to five continents.

​Prior to working in the White House, Sarah was in the thick of political campaigns – serving as the chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign and deputy chief speechwriter for Senator John Kerry in 2004 and General Wesley Clark in 2003.

President Andrea Goldsmith

Interlude

Andrea Goldsmith is the seventh president of Stony Brook University, SUNY’s research flagship and the No. 1 public university in New York State.

Appointed in August 2025, Goldsmith also oversees Stony Brook Medicine, Long Island’s premier academic healthcare system; co-chairs Brookhaven Science Associates, which manages Brookhaven National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy; and chairs the board of the New York Climate Exchange, a historic partnership anchored by Stony Brook University to build an international climate solutions center on Governors Island.

With more than three decades of experience in university leadership, teaching and research, Goldsmith has consistently driven transformational impact and excellence. She served as dean of engineering and applied science at Princeton for five years and spent 21 years on Stanford’s engineering faculty. Her research in wireless communications translated into new technologies and two successful start-up companies where she served as chief technology officer: Plume Wi-Fi and Quantenna Communications. Today, she lends her expertise as a board member of Intel (INTC), Medtronic (MDT) and Crown Castle Inc. (CCI).

A champion of access, opportunity and upward mobility, President Goldsmith attributes her entire public-school journey — from K–12 and community college through graduate studies — as the foundation of her professional success. She earned her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of California, Berkeley.

Plenary: Rabbi Joshua & Meghan Gray

Plenary: Judaism’s Greatest Hits

Rabbi Joshua Gray (Rabbi Josh) is the rabbi of Temple Isaiah. A warm, compassionate, and inclusive rabbi, Rabbi Joshua began his career as a professional actor/singer, which led him to his wife, his bashert, Meghan. Joshua and Meghan have two young children, Cameron and Lena. After settling down in Joshua’s hometown in Upstate New York, Joshua began full time work as a Director in the Mental Health field. As a nationally certified trainer in Mental Health First Aid, Trauma-informed Care, and many other programs, Joshua has designed and delivered an array of wellness and mental health training and education to a vast assortment of audiences, including school administration, college students, primary and high school students, social services, clergy, and law enforcement, among many others. Rabbi Josh has created various educational programs, including Through a Jewish Lens: Mental Health and Wellness, which has been delivered at a variety of congregations that span denominations.

Sherwin Gluck

Session: A Family’s Loss, Letters and Legacy

Sherwin Gluck’s work reconstructs the experiences of his extended family across World War II and postwar Europe. He is the author of Private Good Luck (2019), Pappus: The Saga of a Jewish Family (2021) and From the Ashes: The Documents of a Jewish Family (2025). Gluck, a Long Islander and second-generation Holocaust descendent, is the steward of one of the most extensive known Holocaust-era family archives. In 2019, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum accepted the entire corpus as The Gluck Family Collection, now a dedicated Special Collection, calling it “a remarkably comprehensive documentation of one family’s experiences.” Yad Vashem and the National Library of Israel have received selected works from the project in both digital and print form.

Rabbi Philip Kaplan

Session: Judaism and Masculinity

Rabbi Phil Kaplan is a passionate Jewish educator and community builder. He grew up in Queens and Long Island. He earned his B.A. in Jewish Studies from Queens College and received rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in 2019. After ordination, Rabbi Kaplan and his wife Abra moved to Sydney, Australia, where he served as Associate Rabbi and Hazzan of The Great Synagogue. In 2022, the Kaplans returned to the U.S., and Rabbi Kaplan became the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in New Orleans. During his time there, Rabbi Kaplan found his niche in adult education, supporting people through conversion, ritual leadership and pastoral care. Rabbi Kaplan is thrilled to come back to New York to serve as the rabbi of the Stony Brook Hebrew Congregation and the Campus Rabbi at Stony Brook Hillel.

Professor Eric Miller

Session: Sabbatai Zevi: The False Messiah Who Almost Brought Down Judaism

Eric Miller is an adjunct professor in the History Department at Stony Brook teaching survey courses on Jewish History (from Antiquity through the Early Modern World), Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, Jewish Mysticism, and more.

Miller’s undergraduate studies were at Queens College with a degree in Jewish Studies. His graduate studies were at the Graduate School of the Jewish Theological Seminary and his doctoral dissertation is entitled The Rise and Metamorphosis of the God-Fearers: Their Place and Meaning in Jewish and Christian Writings, 200 B.C.E- 200 C.E. in which he analyzed the impact that an increasing number of Gentiles attracted to Judaism (known as God-fearers) had on Jewish authors, both in Judea and in the Diaspora, shaping Judaism in an unanticipated way as these authors envisioned a new target audience of non-Jews, adapting their concepts and writings accordingly.

Mark Oppenheimer

Session: Jewish Judy

Mark Oppenheimer is a prominent American journalist, author, and educator specializing in religion, culture, and Jewish life. He is the creator and host of the popular podcast Unorthodox and previously wrote the “Beliefs” column for The New York Times. As of May 2024, he serves as Professor of Practice and Executive Editor for Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, while maintaining a strong background in academia, including teaching at Yale.  In addition to his recent biography of Judy Blume, he is author of Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and The Soul of a Neighborhood.

Dr. Sarah Bunin Benor

Session: How Jews Got Their Names

Sarah Bunin Benor is Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Hebrew Union College (Los Angeles campus) and Adjunct Professor in the University of Southern California Linguistics Department. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in Linguistics in 2004. She has published and lectured widely about sociolinguistics, Jewish names, and Jewish languages, especially Jewish English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino. Her award-winning books include Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism (Rutgers, 2012) and Hebrew I and beyond. And they will hear about names Jews select for their dogs, cats, and other pets.

Rabbi Lisa Rubin

Session: Choosing to be Jewish

Rabbi Lisa Rubin joined Central Synagogue in 2010 as the Director of the Center for Exploring Judaism, where she welcomes anyone interested in learning about Jewish tradition. Her passion for outreach and interfaith work was partially born of her early leadership role with Project Understanding, a Long Island foundation that sends Catholic and Jewish teens to Israel after a period of interfaith study.

Rabbi Rubin was ordained from the New York campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2006 after a first career in youth marketing and advertising at Leo Burnett in Chicago. She is originally from Atlanta, and graduated from the University of Michigan with honors.

Outside of work, Rabbi Rubin is an avid tennis player and fan. She is the COO of her Westchester household where she lives with her husband, three children, dog, goldfish, and hermit crabs.

Dr. Charlotte Jacobs (Panelist)

Session: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Jonas Salk

Charlotte D. Jacobs, MD is the Ben and A. Jesse Shenson Professor of Medicine(emerita) at Stanford University, where she spent her entire academic career. In addition to teaching, clinical research and patient care, Jacobs served as Senior Associate Dean and as Director of the Clinical Cancer Center. Mid-career, she began studying creative writing at Stanford. Jacobs’ first biography, Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin’s Disease (Stanford General Press, 2010) recounts the story of a controversial physician-scientist whose remarkable discoveries and vehement drive to cure cancer changed the course of cancer therapy. Jonas Salk: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2015) is the first full account of one of America’s most beloved and decorated scientific heroes. Salk’s polio vaccine all but eradicated a crippling disease from the face of the earth, and the scientific community never forgave him. Jonas Salk was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography. Her third biography, 90 Seconds to Midnight: A Hiroshima Survivor’s Nuclear Odyssey focused on 13-year-old -old Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow. who lost almost everything except her indomitable will with which she set out to abolish nuclear weapons, pitting her against leaders of nuclear-armed states, resulting in a United Nations treaty banning them and recognition with acceptance of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Sharon Nachman (Panelist)

Session: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Jonas Salk

Professor Nachman is the Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. She is also the Associate Dean for Research at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook, and directs the Office of Clinical Trials at the institution. As the PI and Chair of the IMPAACT Network, she has developed and directed the maternal and child HIV and TB clinical trial agendas for the past 10 years. She has had leadership roles in over 25 clinical trials, including 20 as either protocol chair or vice chair. All studies have enrolled, analyzed, and published results that have changed the way we evaluate and treat a host of infectious disease illnesses affecting children and women worldwide. In addition to her focus on HIV and TB, she also developed studies helping to define the dose and PK for new antibiotics and antivirals, evaluate new vaccines, and understand the long-term issues that develop in infants born to HIV+ women worldwide.