Keynote Speakers
Allan Finkelstein | President of the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America
Allan Finkelstein assumed the position of president of the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America in 1994, culminating a 20-year career in the JCC field. His previous positions include executive vice-president of the JCCs of Los Angeles, executive vice-president of the Leo Yassenoff Jewish Community Center of Columbus, Ohio. He began his JCC career with the JCC of Greater Buffalo. Allan was a faculty member of the Kaplan Seminar for Emerging Professionals at Brandeis University from 1995-2007. He also served as a faculty member of the Irwin Daniels School of Jewish Communal Service at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles.
Daniel Greyber | Rabbi, Beth El Synagogue in Durham, North Carolina
Daniel Greyber is the rabbi of Beth El Synagogue in Durham, North Carolina. He grew up in Potomac, Maryland and spent the first 21 years of his life focused competitive swimming. A gold medalist and Captain of the U.S. Swimming Team at the 1993 World Maccabiah Games, Rabbi Greyber holds a Masters in Speech and Communications Studies from Northwestern University and was ordained in 2002 at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies of American Jewish University.
During rabbinical school, he founded The Neshama Minyan at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles and Minyan Nifla at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, soulful, egalitarian, Friday night services using the melodies of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. While in rabbinical school, Rabbi Greyber also founded LISHMA, an innovative learning program of Ramah and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies (ZSRS) where young adult Jews spend the summer exploring traditional Jewish texts, prayer and practice in the beautiful setting of Camp Ramah in California. In 2002, Greyber became the executive director of Camp Ramah in California.
After a nine-year tenure at Ramah, Greyber spent the 2010-11 academic year as a Jerusalem Fellow at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Israel. In July 2011, he became the rabbi of Beth El Synagogue, a Conservative and Orthodox synagogue that welcomes many intermarried and gay and lesbian families. Greyber is the author of Faith Unravels: A Rabbi’s Struggle With Grief and God (Wipf and Stock Resource Publications).
Most of all, Daniel is a husband to his wife, Jennifer, and an abba to their three boys, Alon, Benjamin, and Ranon.
Dr. Ron Wolfson | Fingerhut Professor of Education at the American Jewish University
Ron Wolfson is a visionary Jewish educator whose enthusiasm for bringing Judaism alive in homes and synagogues has shaped his work in the community. An author of many books, his most recent is Relational Judaism: Using the Power of Relationships to Transform the Jewish Community. He is a member of the Shevet: Jewish Family Education Exchange and President of the Kripke (KRIP-kee) Institute for Jewish Family Literacy.
Ron is currently the Fingerhut Professor of Education at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in Los Angeles where he has been a member of the faculty since 1975. He has also served as Dean of the Fingerhut School of Education, Vice President and Founding Director of the Whizin Center for the Jewish Future and the Whizin Institute for Jewish Family Life. The book, First Fruit: A Whizin Anthology of Jewish Family Education, which he co-edited with Adrianne Bank, won the 1999 Jewish Book Award.
Over the years, Ron has visited hundreds of Jewish institutions across North America and around the world as a consultant, teacher and scholar-in-residence widely recognized for his passionate, insightful and often humorous presentations. Ron is a co-founder of Synagogue 2000 (with Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman) and currently serves as President of Synagogue 3000/Next Dor, a catalyst for excellence, empowering congregations and communities to create synagogues that are sacred and vital centers of Jewish life.