Board & Advisors
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Dana Doron
President
Frederick Hertz
Vice President & Treasurer
Gale Mondry
Secretary
Ron Blatman
Sandee Blechman
Susie Coliver
Gail Dolgin
Cary Kletter
Sasha Kovriga
George Krevsky
Adrienne Leder
Pam Rorke Levy
Doug Okun
Rachel Pfeffer, Ph.D.
Scott Rubin
Naomi Seidman
Dan Wohlfeiler
PAST BOARD PRESIDENTS
Alan Snitow
Howard Herman
Alan Ramo
Marcia Freedman
Dan Wohlfeiler
Susie Coliver
Doug Okun
Shana Penn
FESTIVAL DIRECTORS EMERITAE
Deborah Kaufman
Founder & Director (1980-1993)
Janis Plotkin
Co-director (1981-1993)
Executive Artistic Director (1993-2002)
BOARD MEMBER BIOGRAPHIES
Ron Blatman is executive producer and creator of the upcoming Saving the Bay public television series. He is also planning to produce a television series about why cities are important and how to help make downtowns and surrounding neighborhoods better places. Ron previously worked in real estate development and finance in his native San Francisco and on Wall Street in New York, as well as serving as Director of Business Development in the San Francisco mayor’s office in the early 1990s. He earned an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School and a concurrent Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a BA in Architecture from UC Berkeley.
Sandee Blechman has been a non-profit leader and executive in San Francisco for over thirty years. Most recently, she served as Executive Director at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, where she worked for 13 years as CFO, COO and CEO and played an instrumental role in the JCCSF's financial turnaround, planning for its new facitlity and the successful opening and growth of programs in the new building. Earlier in her career, Sandee served as business manager for the clinical laboratories at Mount Zion Hospital & Medical Center and was Vice President for Finance and Adminstration at the San Francisco Art Institute. Sandee has served on the boards of Jewish Vocational Services and San Francisco Day School, where she was Board President from 1999-2001. Sandee has a BA from Yale and a MBA from Stanford.
Susie Coliver bio to come
Gail Dolgin has been producing and directing documentary and educational films for the past twenty years. Her most widely exhibited film is “Daughter from Danang”, winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Award and an Oscar nominee. After a theatrical release and international festival run, the film had a national broadcast on the PBS American Experience Series. She has served on the selection committee and as a juror for many film festivals including Sundance. Originally from New York, she earned a B.A. in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania, teaching certification from San Francisco State and an M.A. in Instructional Technology from the University of Oregon. She moved to San Francisco and then Berkeley, raised her daughter and transitioned from teaching to filmmaking. She has an office and production studio in the Zaentz Media Center..
Dana Doron has been a happy East Coast transplant for 15 years. With almost 20 years of marketing experience, Dana is a vice president at Lieberman Productions, an SF-based subsidiary of Guthy-Renker -- a global leader in direct marketing of health, beauty and other products. Dana was born to Israeli parents and spoke Hebrew as her first language. She grew up visiting Israel on a bi-yearly basis, and attended Solomon Schechter Day School, as well as Hebrew School and Midrasha through her High School years. She went on to earn a BA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Stanford. Dana’s previous volunteer work includes a Junior Achievement steering committee, Stanford Alumni Consulting projects to Bay Area non-profits and one-on-one student tutoring. Dana enjoys volleyball, singing, swing dancing, plays, board games, film festivals (of course!) and sampling San Francisco’s fine cuisine.
Frederick Hertz is an attorney and mediator, specializing in the formation and dissolution of non-marital and extended family partnerships, especially involving real estate. He also helps non-profits and small business property owners. He was a co-founder of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel, and has been on the SFJFF board for two years.
Cary Kletter is an attorney practicing with the Kletter Law Firm in San Francisco focusing mainly on the the areas of employee representation and civil rights. Cary lives in San Mateo with his wife and two young boys. Originally from New York, he moved to the Bay Area in 2000 and has grown deep roots in the local community. Cary was previously a Habonim Dror summer camper, American Israel Public Affairs Committee ("AIPAC") young leader and Israeli kibbutz volunteer. Prior to joining the SFJFF Board, he was a member of the Board of Trustees of Peninsula Temple Beth El, where he remains active in the Ganon Education Center, and the Board of the Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project. Cary attended Brandeis University, where he took classes in Middle East politics and Judaic studies. Cary is a Jewish film fan and Judaica aficionado, who enjoys learning about the life and times of Jewish sages through the ages.
Sasha Kovriga is a partner at Osterweis Capital Management involved in managing a number of investment products including separately managed accounts, mutual funds and long-short equity hedge funds. Sasha is a co-founder of Inspire Inc. a consulting firm serving educational non-profit organizations, a trustee of the Summer Search Foundation, a leadership development program for low income high school students and an officer of the Harvard Business School Alumni Association of Northern California. Sasha is a graduate of Leadership Emanu-El program at Temple Emanu-El and has worked with the temple on developing an outreach program for mid-career professionals. An immigrant from the former Soviet Union, Sasha came to the Bay Area at the age of 16 with his mother. He holds a BA in Philosophy and History from Brandeis University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
George Krevsky a native Pennsylvanian, he is currently the owner of the George Krevsky Gallery in San Francisco's Union Square District and has been an art dealer since 1978, after earning an MSW from Yeshiva University. Krevsky worked at JCCs in Harrisburg, Fort Worth, the 92nd St. Y (NY), and Nashville, and was recruited in 1972 to serve as Executive Director of the Brotherhood Way JCC in SF. For three years in the late 70's, he produced the entertainment portion of Israel Independence Day at Stern Grove. While working part time in the Nathan Gallery in San Francisco, he developed a one woman theatrical production called "An Evening With Golda Meir" and went on to produce theater in San Francisco, Chicago, Northern California and New York, and to work as a production assistant on two Movies of the Week for Cypress Point Productions. He has served on the baord of the Pacific Jewish Theater, and, from 1998 to 2009, on the board of the San Francisco Art Dealer's Association. His service on the Regional Board of the New Israel Fund earned him their Guardian of Democracy Award in 2006. He joined the Board of SFJFF in 2010. He lives in Oakland, California with his wife of 29 years, Doris, and has one daughter, Shani, who is an architect.
Adrienne Paige Leder is an attorney and works as Corporate Counsel at The Clorox Company in Oakland. Originally from Texas, Adrienne has been a San Francisco resident since 2003. Active in San Francisco’s Jewish community, Adrienne has served as a board member of the Young Adult Division of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco since 2006 and has been a long time supporter of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. In her free time, Adrienne loves to cook, travel, and to explore the great hiking trails the Bay Area has to offer.
Pam Rorke Levy has been producing, writing, and directing documentaries and other television programming since 1979, in addition to creative directing large scale corporate events for leading technology companies such as Intel, HP, Sun, and Seagate. Much of her work as a producer has focused on the intersection between art, culture, and history, including KQED's weekly art series Spark and the nationally distributed PBS series on independent film, Independent View. Pam has also produced or executive produced other documentaries and series for The Discovery Channel, National Geographic, A&E, The History Channel, TLC, HGTV, national PBS, and the local network affiliates. For 10 years she worked in commercial broadcasting at KRON-TV, where she became executive producer of local programming and program development, followed by a brief stint in the educational software industry and the formation of her own production company, Ant Hill Productions. She serves on the board of the Bay Area Video Coalition and Z Space Studio, a theatrical development company, and lives in San Francisco's Mission District with her two daughters. Pam is a graduate of Swarthmore College and UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, where she received the Eisner Prize for Creative Achievement. Her work has received eight regional Emmy awards and prizes from many other organizations including the New York, San Francisco International, and Chicago Film Festivals.
Gale Mondry is Vice President of UpStart Bay Area, a new nonprofit that cultivates and supports new ideas to engage Bay Area Jews in Jewish life. Prior to this position, she was the Chief Program Officer for the San Francisco-based Koret Foundation. Trained as an attorney, with a BA from Brown and JD from Harvard Law School, Gale has worked in non-profit development and administration for Stanford University, California Pacific Medical Center, Huckleberry Youth Programs and Gateway High School, where she was also a co-founder and Board President. She has been the President of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, and co-chaired the capital campaign for the new JCCSF facility that opened in 2004. She has also been a board member of the Jewish Community Federation and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Gale was honored by the Bay Area Jewish community as its Volunteer of the Year in 1998.
Doug Okun has been attending the Jewish Film Festival for nearly twenty years, and has been on its board since 2000. In his work life he focuses on online financial services, having worked at companies included Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo and numerous start-ups. Doug grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, received his B.A. from Columbia University and his MBA from Stanford. Having volunteered and supported numerous organizations, Doug’s introduction to the San Francisco Jewish community began as a professional at Jewish Vocational Service in their refugee resettlement program, and then in planning and allocations at the Jewish Community Federation. He lives in San Francisco with his partner, Eric, and their two daughters, Elizabeth and Sophia.
Rachel Pfeffer After founding and co-founding award-winning youth development organizations and transitioning out with skilled young people directing the organizations, Rachel began a consulting business to support progressive organizations and leadership. Rachel advises young leaders in particular and facilitates social change locally nationally and internationally. Rachel's consulting business includes executive management transitions. She has served as interim executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, GirlSource, Inc, Jewish Voice for Peace and Nuestra Casa.
Scott Rubin is a freelance writer, editor, and translator. He writes about politics and culture. His writing has appeared in national publications in the United States and Europe. His most recent book is In Every Tongue: The Racial and Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People. He is currently at work on his next book, The Twisted Textbook: Politics and Propaganda in American Education (Fall, 2007). He also works in film and is completing a documentary about the journey of an Ethiopian Jew (a co-director of the film) to recover the identity he lost when he and his family fled Ethiopia for Israel in 1984. Scott holds an A.B. from Harvard University and an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University. He is fluent in Spanish and conversant in several other languages. He lives in San Francisco with his partner, Stephen Moore, and their seven-year-old son and three-year-old daughter.
Naomi Seidman is Koret Professor of Jewish Culture and Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. She grew up in a Yiddish-speaking, Orthodox home in Brooklyn, and graduated from Brooklyn College before moving to California for her graduate studies. She received a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 1993 from the University of California, Berkeley, and served for two years as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University before coming to GTU in 1995. Her first book, "A Marriage Made in Heaven: The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and Yiddish" (University of California Press) appeared in 1995. Her second book, "Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation" (University of Chicago Press), appeared in 2006. She has also translated two books from the Hebrew and Yiddish, "The First Day and Other Stories" by Dvora Baron, and "Conversations with Dvora: A Biography of the First Modern Hebrew Woman Writer," by Amia Lieblich, and co-edited the volume on Israel for the series "A Traveler's Literary Guide." She is presently working on a collection of short stories entitled "Raised by Jews" as well as an academic book on "The Sexual Transformation of Ashkenaz." She teaches in the summer internship program at the National Yiddish Book Center, leads Torah study at Congregation Netivot Shalom, and is on the Academic Advisory Board for the Posen Foundation for Secular Jewish Culture.
Naomi Seidman lives in Berkeley, California, with her musician husband, John Schott, and their eleven-year-old son, Ezra.
Dan Wohlfeiler
is a Berkeley native, alumnus, and resident. A former documentary filmmaker working in a variety of roles and settings from Mono Lake to Barcelona, he has been active in HIV and STD prevention since 1986. He was education director of San Francisco’s STOP AIDS Project from 1990 to 1998, and since then has worked for the STD Control Branch of the California Department of Public Health. Dan has also served on Frameline’s board of directors. Dan was on the JFF Board from 1995 to 2005, and happily rejoined in 2007.
