Board & Advisors

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

 

Gale Mondry

President

Sandee Blechman

Vice President

Dan Wohlfeiler

Secretary

Janet Schneider

Treasurer

Liki Abrams

Susie Coliver

Dana Doron

Steve Fayne

Julie Felner

Meredith Goldsmith

Diana Grand

Spencer Jarrett

Sasha Kovriga

George Krevsky

Adrienne Leder

Susan Mall

Fern Tiger

 

PAST BOARD PRESIDENTS

 

Alan Snitow

Howard Herman

Alan Ramo

Marcia Freedman

Dan Wohlfeiler

Susie Coliver

Doug Okun

Shana Penn

 

FESTIVAL DIRECTORS EMERITI

 

Deborah Kaufman

Founder & Director (1980-1993)

 

Janis Plotkin

Co-director (1981-1993)
Executive Artistic Director (1993-2002)

 

Peter Stein

Executive Director (2003 - 2011)

 

BOARD MEMBER BIOGRAPHIES

Liki Abrams Born and raised in Israel, Liki Abrams moved to the United States in 1970, after serving in the army, the same year she was married. She holds a B.A. in speech communication and spends a great deal of her time on various issues throughout the Bay Area and Israeli Jewish communities. She is a community activist and a mother of 4 boys.

She was a past Board member at the Jewish Community Federation where she was Chair of the Israel and Oversees committee, the Women’s Philanthropy Committee, a member of the JCF Board of Governors, Chair the Israel@60 Arts and Culture committee, the Women’s Alliance President, Campaign Chair of the JCF North Peninsula region, and Chair of Israel In the Gardens. She served on the Board of AIPAC, and the Wornick Day School. She has worked extensively with programs that help teenagers and families as a Board member for the Diller Teen Program, Blue Star, Panim El Panim reversed mission Chair, a phone volunteer for the Suicide Prevention Crisis Center, and a member of the Program committee for Jewish Family and Children’s Services.

She is an avid filmgoer who is an annual cushion-carrying member of the SFJFF community and the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

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 was born and raised in San Francisco and lives on a stairway in the Castro District. She, along with her husband/partner Bob Herman, leads a 14 person architectural practice in San Francisco: Herman Coliver Locus: Architecture/Planning and Design Studio. Their office is unusual in as much as 100% of their clients are non-profit organizations. Most of their work over a twenty five year period has been low-and very-low income housing. Additionally, for the last decade, they have ad the opportunity to design schools and Jewish religious and communal spaces, including a number of synagogues. She inherited her progressive politics and activist stance from her most energetic mother, Edit. Her Grandmother, Hedwig, passed along an abiding interest in Jewish living and learning.

Dana Doron has been a happy East Coast transplant for 15 years. With almost 20 years of marekting experience, Dana has worked as various consumer product companies including Guthy-Renker/Lieberman Productions, Nature's Cure, Sunsweet Growers, and Cott Beverages. 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.

Steve Fayne  is a managing partner at Citi-bank where he leads a group that arranges financings for affordable housing projects. 

In the past Steve served as the Federation Treasurer, chaired the Federation’s Capital Planning Committee and was a board member of JCCSF. He is currently a board member of the Low Income Investment Fund, a nonprofit lender.

Steve was one of the co-sponsors of the 2012 SFJFF Opening Night party. A film lover, he attended several SFJFF films last summer.

Julie Felner  is Vice President of SYPartners, a consulting firm that works with corporate leadership teams during times of transformation. Currently she is heading up an internal discipline at SYPartners that focuses on bringing out the best in the company through learning and development, communications, culture, and marketing.

Before becoming a corporate strategist, Julie was Associate Managing Editor at Ms. Magazine and a freelance writer and editor.

Julie’s past involvement with SFJFF has not been extensive, but she represents a demographic group that we are hoping to engage going forward. Julie’s partner is a filmmaker.

Meredith Goldsmith has been a data scientist at Google since 2004 doing quantitative analysis, software development, and operations research. Before that she worked at two hedge funds doing quantitative portfolio optimization.

A graduate of the Wexner Heritage leadership program, Meredith is now a member of the Federation’s Business Leadership Council’s steering committee.

Meredith, who lives near the Castro Theatre, is a long-time SFJFF audience member, volunteer, and donor.

Diana Grand grew up in Detroit and graduated from the University of Michigan in the mid-sixties. Armed with a teaching certificate she spent several years teaching in inner city schools first in Chicago and then more locally, in Oakland. In the mid-seventies she returned to academia and earned an M.S. in Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley, which launched her second career as a systems analyst and entrepreneur in software development, including working at Hewlett-Packard and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. She eventually retired in order to raise her son, who is now a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University.

For many years she has been a very active volunteer in educational, arts and philanthropic organizations.
Highlights of this work include:

• Running the Parent Education Program at Miramonte High School in the East Bay and was awarded honors for her work with the Acalanes Union High School District.
• Developed a pilot program called Senior Institute Day for graduating high school seniors that was designed to help prepare students for life after high school.
• Chaired the inaugural Adult Advisory committee for the East Bay Jewish Teen Foundation, a program that provides teens with the opportunity to sit on a philanthropic board and practice collective grant making.
• Served on the Women’s Philanthropy Board of the Jewish Federation of the East Bay and am a member of the Board of the Jewish Community Foundation of the East Bay.
• Docent at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for the past 7 years and serve on the SFMOMA Docent Council, and is the creator of a docent blog that provides information about art materials and activities to all the docents.
• Serve on the advisory committee for the Arts and Ideas program at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center.

Spencer Jarrett is a creative director and strategist who works with Fortune 100 companies in the high-tech, pharma and financial sectors. Spencer was the VP of Creative at Caribiner's New York Office and Director of Creative Services at InVision. He has designed major corporate events, and creative directed high-profile corporate videos and media campaigns. Spencer was one of the subjects of an independent documentary focusing on Jews in the arts which was aired on NBC. He has served on the boards of two synagogues. Spencer is also a performing blues musician who has worked with artists such as Otis Rush and Big Mama Thornton. His band has been featured at the Monterey Bay Blues Festival and the San Jose Jazz Festival.

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-Schriner is an attorney and works as Senior Corporate Counsel at The Clorox Company in Oakland. Active in San Francisco's Jewish community, Adrienne served as a board member of the Young Adult Division of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco from 2006 - 2010 and has been a long time supporter of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Originally from Texas, Adrienne has been a Bay Area resident since 2003 an lives in Berkeley with her husband and daughter. In her free time, Adrienne loves to cook, travel and explore the great hiking trails the Bay Area has to offer.

Susan Mall has worked as a professional in the Jewish community for the past 25 years creating and producing large and small-scale events, fund-raising, managing donor relations and marketing. She has worked for the Jewish Community Federation, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Jewish Vocational Service and the Jewish Community Relations Council. Her most recent special project was consulting with the San Francisco Jazz Center in preparation for the opening of their new building.

For many years, Susan has studied photography in various locations and has had several exhibitions throughout the Bay Area. Susan lives in Hayes Valley with her husband Jay. They are avid moviegoers.

Gale Mondry has had a long career as a professional and lay leader in the nonprofit community. 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, Gateway High School, where she was also a co-founder and Board President, the Koret Foundation, and UpStart Bay Area. 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. Currently she is a board member of UpStart and board chair of Education Pioneers, a national educational organization that is focused on attracting leadership and management talent into the public educational sector. Gale was honored by the Bay Area Jewish community as its Volunteer of the Year in 1998.

Janet Scheider has a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and a Masters degree in Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy (UC Berkeley). Janet served ten years as the Executive Director of a regional government agency in Contra Costa County, which ensured environmental compliance and oversaw environmental programs in the area of recycling for five cities and Contra Costa County. Prior to that, she worked in the Walnut Creek City Manager's office where she administered several grant programs that funded community service and civic pride projects. Janet recently left the position of Administrative Chief for the City of Richmond that she held for nearly 5 years. There, she developed Hand in Hand, a program sponsored by the City of Richmond to develop local leadership and build the capacity of non-profits serving  the Richmond community. She's been a supporter of the SFJFF for 15 years, loves to read and write fiction, ride her bike, and watch movies. She has attended the Contra Costa Jewish Film Festival, Mill Valley, and Sundance Film Festivals in the past to watch primarily Jewish-themed films.

Fern Tiger An artist by training, Fern’s early interest in the importance of integrating diverse disciplines in order to address contemporary issues, led to a career as a strategist – combining the innovative, perceptive, and holistic insights of an artist/designer with the practical and systemic tools of planners and researchers.

Fern is president and creative director of the Oakland, CA-based Fern Tiger Associates, FTA,(www.ferntiger.com) and is a Professor at University of Washington Tacoma (Urban Studies Program). For three decades, FTA has focused on the human aspects of problems and solutions; on the impact of public policies on communities and mission-driven organizations; and on the means by which the successes of one community or one organization can be incorporated into programs in other communities. The firm’s history is filled with projects that have influenced the direction of scores of communities, organizations, and public agencies – helping each to be strategic, effective and to grow and mature. While the client base is varied, the firm has long been known for its work with organizations, foundations, and governments focused on improving the lives of low-income families and children, increasing civic engagement, improving public education, building community, and supporting philanthropy. With deep roots in progressive issues and a long-standing commitment to the purpose and value of the nonprofit sector, FTA has integrated a unique set of creative and pragmatic skills into all of its work.

Both in her capacity as a professor and as the spearheading force of Fern Tiger Associates, Fern has been focused on five core areas of work, all of which she believes must be seamlessly integrated: community-based research; strategic planning and communication; advocacy documentation; civic engagement; and public policy and evaluation. The firm’s unique interdisciplinary skills (including graphic design, photography, web development, and writing) blur the edges and traditional definitions of planning, research, community development, evaluation, and public affairs. Fern is a frequent speaker at conferences dealing with both nonprofit and urban issues, and has also published and been cited in publications addressing these topics as well as civic engagement, community-based decision making, and the use of visual tools to inform communities. FTA, under Fern’s guidance, has won scores of awards for its innovative design, communications, and community planning strategies. While it may appear that Fern has moved far from her roots in the world of art, she sees her work as the logical extension of that training, which resulted in problem-solving skills, creative and holistic thinking, and innovative approaches to policy and civic engagement. She believes strongly that investigation, engagement, and participation are essential to address today’s ever more complex problems.

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.