Miriam Raider-Roth is the Director of Mandel Teacher Educator Institute. She is a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati where she serves as a professor of Educational Studies and Educational/Community-Based Action Research, and directs the Action Research Center. She is also a founding co-director of the Center for Studies of Jewish Education and Culture at UC. Her research focuses on the relational context of teaching and learning, action research and feminist qualitative research methods. She is author of Professional Development in Relational Learning Communities: Teachers in Connection (2017). Her research interests include how relational learning communities contribute to teachers’ transformative learning in professional development settings.

Gail Dorph is the Founding Director of the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute. Her research interests are teacher development and the relationship between Judaic content and pedagogy. Prior to her work with the Mandel Foundation, she directed the Graduate Center for Jewish Education at American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism). In addition to teaching, she consults with communal organizations, universities, and schools on the creation of professional programs for principals and teachers. Gail is author of numerous articles reflecting the ongoing research on MTEI.

Seymour Kopelowitz is a Mandel Foundation Program Director. His primary area of focus is the Foundation’s Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) program. He joined the Foundation as a consultant in 2005 and moved into his current role in 2013. Prior to joining the Foundation, Seymour served as Director of the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland (JEC), where he frequently worked with the Foundation on various initiatives. He has also served as a teacher, a day school principal, and Director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the national umbrella body for South African Jewry. Seymour holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Kent State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Cape Town. He is a graduate of the Mandel Jerusalem Fellows program and holds multiple endorsements from the Ohio Department of Education, including a superintendent’s license. Seymour is married to Gail Kopelowitz and enjoys classical music.

Barry W. Holtz is the Theodore and Florence Baumritter Professor of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. From 2008 to 2013 he served as Dean of the Seminary’s William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. Barry is a long-time consultant to the Mandel Foundation and has been on the faculty of MTEI since the program first began. His books include Textual Knowledge: Teaching the Bible in Theory and in Practice, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Education in 2004 and was closely related to his work at MTEI.

Elie Holzer is a practice-oriented philosopher of Jewish education, who holds rabbinical ordination and a Ph.D. in Jewish thought. His research attends to the intellectual, ethical and spiritual dimensions of havruta text study; spiritual pedagogies in the teaching and learning of Hasidic homilies & the hermeneutics and spiritual pedagogies of niggun. Elie has served as a faculty member of MTEI since 1997. He co-directed and taught in the Beit Midrash for Teachers in the DeLeT program at Brandeis University. He is the author of the winner of the 2014 National Jewish Book Award, A Philosophy of Havruta: Understanding and Teaching the Art of Text Study in Pairs (Academic Studies Press, 2013) with Orit Kent, which grew out of his work in both of these contexts, and he published Attuned Learning: Rabbinic Texts on Habits of the Heart in Learning Interactions (Academic Studies Press, 2016) and recently Renewed Hasidism: Teaching Hasidic Homilies in a Post-Secular World (Academic Studies Press, 2025). He lives in Jerusalem, serves as Professor at the Faculty of Education of Bar Ilan University, and holds the R. Dr. Ochs Chair for the Teaching of Jewish Religious Studies.

Kathy Simon holds a B.A. in English and Hebrew Literature from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teacher Education from Stanford University. A former high school English and drama teacher, Kathy co-directed the Coalition of Essential Schools, a national school-reform organization. Kathy is the author and co-author of several books on curriculum, teaching, and school reform, including Moral Questions in the Classroom, Teaching as Inquiry, and Choosing Small. Kathy has served on the faculty of the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute since 2006. She also is a certified trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication, and leads communication courses and workshops for couples, parents, teachers, and non-profit organizations.

Jeff Stanzler’s work is focused on simulation design, engaged mentorship and design thinking, with a special interest in how playful approaches to learning can provide students with new kinds of thinking and expressive opportunities. He is project director for the Jewish Court of All Time (JCAT), a web-based simulation that serves middle school students in Jewish day schools across North America. JCAT utilizes imaginative role play to provide a compelling context for students to consider what we can learn from history, and to develop insight into how to live a meaningful Jewish life in a pluralistic society. Jeff holds a Ph.D. in the Social Foundations of Education, and is Lecturer Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Marsal School of Education where he was the longtime faculty lead for the Master of Arts in Educational Studies with Secondary Teacher Certification (MAC) Program. He’s been a member of the MTEI faculty since 2017, and works with Mindy Gold in the Education Leaders as Designers strand.

Jennifer Lewis taught elementary and middle school in public schools for ten years before completing a doctorate in mathematics education at the University of Michigan. Jennifer is a professor of mathematics education and teacher education at Wayne State University in Detroit, and took a leave of absence to serve as the Executive Director of Teacher Excellence for Detroit Public Schools. She currently directs the Program for Academic Leadership in Teacher Education at the Mandel Institute for Leadership in Jerusalem. Jennifer’s research focuses on systemic efforts for instructional improvement to serve nondominant communities. Jennifer and her husband Marc Bernstein have four grown children. She loves to cook, find great coffee, hike, read newspapers of all kinds, swim and garden.

Sivan Zakai is the Sara S. Lee Professor of Jewish Education at the Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. She also serves as director of the Children’s Learning about Israel Project and co-director of the Learning and Teaching about What Matters Project, both housed at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University. She is author of My Second-Favorite Country: How American Jewish Children Think about Israel (2022), co-editor of Teaching Israel: Studies of Pedagogy from the Field (2024), and an associate editor of the Journal of Jewish Education.

Dr. Mindy Gold is the founder and principal consultant of Gold Learning Solutions, a consulting practice specializing in supporting professional learning and organizational change within Jewish educational contexts. As a former elementary school teacher with an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Organizational Development, she brings her classroom and leadership experience to her work with early childhood, K-12, and communal leaders. Mindy is a faculty member of the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI), where she teaches in MTEI’s Education Leaders as Designers strand, focusing on participatory action research and design thinking methodologies. Additionally, she provides instructional design support to the MTEI faculty and serves as the instructor for the MTEI-Hebrew Union College Certificate in Jewish Educational Leadership. Mindy sits on the board of the Network for Research in Jewish Education and serves as Associate Editor, Practitioner Research Portfolio of the Journal of Jewish Education. Based in Nashville, TN, Mindy enjoys the long garden growing season and music venues with her husband as well as being an honorary Hawkeye and ‘Cane in support of her two sons’ collegiate journeys.

Maddie Charles-Carlin is the MTEI Graduate Assistant and a doctoral student at the University of Cincinnati, where she is studying Educational and Community-Based Action Research. She holds a B.S. in Early Childhood Education and an M.Ed. in Urban Education. She worked as an elementary school teacher and K-2 team leader in Charlotte, North Carolina, for several years. Influenced by her classroom teaching experience, Maddie is passionate about equitable outcomes for elementary students. She is particularly interested in teacher-student relationships, sense of belonging and voice for elementary students of color, elementary students as change agents, and disruption of the school-to-prison pipeline.

Robin Kahn (Cohort 6) became the Graduate Program Leader for MTEI in 2023. Since graduating from the MTEI program, MTEI’s principles have been at the core of her work. Robin also works at Hebrew College in Newton, MA, on the Adult Learning and Professional Development Teams and is the Director of the Undergraduate Teaching Fellows Program at Brandeis University’s Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education. In this role, she mentors and teaches undergraduates teaching in Jewish supplemental schools. Previously Robin spent over 25 years working in part-time Jewish education and held leadership roles in the Boston and Philadelphia areas. She has spent summers as a senior educator at Ramah Sports Academy, working with campers, counselors, and coaches to reinforce Jewish values on the field and court. Robin earned a BA and MA from Brandeis University in Modern Jewish History and an EdM from Harvard University in Learning and Teaching. Robin lives in the Boston area and serves on the National Kidney Foundation’s Advocacy Committees.

Deborah Niederman, RJE has been working in Jewish education since 1989. She has worked in four different congregations as Director of Education and served as the Associate Director of the Leadership Institute for the Union for Reform Judaism and Coordinator of Career Services and Alumni Relations for the Schools of Education at HUC-JIR. She holds a BA in Judaic Studies and Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. and a Masters in Jewish Education from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. In 1995 she received the title Reform Jewish Educator and in 2018 an honorary doctorate in religious education. She loves to lead change and bring innovation to all the organizations in which she works.