Edmund Case, Chief Executive Officer

Edmund Case graduated from Yale in 1972 and from Harvard Law School in 1975. He practiced law for 22 years and was chairman of the business litigation department of Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, a large Boston law firm. He served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of Greater Boston Legal Services, the major provider of civil legal aid to the indigent in Greater Boston. In 1997 Case enrolled in the Heller-Hornstein Program at Brandeis University, graduating in May 1999 with a Master's in Jewish Communal Service and a Master's in Management. Case's fieldwork placements at the Hornstein Program involved working at Jewish Family & Children's Service on intermarriage programming, and staffing a new services to the intermarried committee at Combined Jewish Philanthropies. In June 2000 Case completed a three-year term as president of Temple Shalom of Newton, a 1,000-family Reform synagogue. He has served as a member of the URJ (Reform Movement) Northeast Regional Outreach Committee since 1993, and he and his wife and daughter have been panelists at outreach programs at URJ conventions. Case was a member of CJP's 1996 Task Force on Intermarriage and of CJP's 1997 Strategic Planning Sub-committee on Vibrancy and Inclusiveness.

Case is co-editor of The Guide to Jewish Interfaith Family Life: An InterfaithFamily.com Handbook (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2001) and has written widely on intermarriage issues, including "Redefining Jewish Peoplehood" in the Spring 2000 issue of Reform Judaism; "Discouraging Intermarriage Doesn't Work," a May 18, 2001 op-ed in The (New York) Jewish Week; "How Should American Jewry Respond to the National Jewish Population Survey: Reach Out to Intermarrieds," in The Forward October 25, 2002, op-ed page; "Learning from Interfaith Families," an October 10, 2003, op-ed in The (New York) Jewish Week; "Social Science and the Intermarriage Debate," an April 2004 op-ed in The (New York) Jewish Week re-printed in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, the Detroit Jewish News, and other papers; "The Next Big Thing is Now," a Feb. 6, 2006, op-ed for the New Jersey Jewish News; and numerous articles that have appeared in InterfaithFamily.com.

Case also co-authored, with Micah Sachs, "Enough is Enough," about conversion, an April 2006 article in the New Jersey Jewish News, and "Don't Write Off the Intermarried," a Feb. 12, 2007, op-ed for JTA published in the Washington Jewish Week, New Jersey Jewish Standard and many other papers. He also co-authored, with Kathy Kahn, Director of Outreach and Membership, Union for Reform Judaism, "Engaging the Intermarried," a Nov. 17, 2006. op-ed in The Forward.

In November 2001 Case was named to The Forward 50 list of top Jewish leaders. He is a frequent speaker on outreach issues, including in November 2002 at the United Jewish Communities' General Assembly, in June 2004 at the UJC's Hadesh West conference, in June 2005 at the American Jewish Press Association conference, in April 2006 at the Jewish Funders Network conference and in January 2007 at the conference of RAVSAK, the association of Jewish community day schools.

Heather Martin, Chief Operating Officer

Heather has extensive marketing and operations experience in both the for-profit and non-profit worlds and a diverse background in consulting, project management, e-business, and web development. Prior to coming to InterfaithFamily.com, she was Vice President at Jewish Family & Life! and the Project Director for JFL's JSkyway online learning program. Martin's positions prior to JFL include Vice President of Marketing and co-owner of PeopleSite.com, an online search community helping reunite birthparents, family members, missing persons and friends, and Executive Vice President of Custom Internet Development, an Internet consultancy where she oversaw NewVantage's efforts to rapidly design, develop and deploy world class Internet solutions for their clients. Martin gained information technology strategy and consulting experience at IBM's Consulting Group where she worked with large Fortune 100 retail and consumer packaged goods clients. She holds a Masters of Science in Industrial Administration (MBA) from Carnegie Mellon's Graduate School of Industrial Administration and a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from McGill University. Martin is intermarried and lives in Franklin, Mass., with her husband Scott and sons Ryan and Asher.

Karen Kushner, Chief Education Officer

In August of 2003, Karen began developing resources for synagogues in a newly funded organization known as Project Welcome. For five years, Project Welcome worked with congregations of all denominations to help them increase the warmth of their welcome to Jews, interfaith families, the LGBT community and everyone seeking a home in Judaism. Project Welcome evolved into the Jewish Welcome Network in the fall of 2008, continuing to provide training workshops and resources to the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish community. In August 2010, InterfaithFamily.com added the training workshops and resources of the Jewish Welcome Network to its offerings and brought Karen on as the Chief Education Officer.

Previously, Karen worked as a family educator and therapist, specializing in the self-healing power of families for 27 years, and has lectured widely. For over twenty years, she taught religious school to teenagers and primary students and designed a Hebrew curriculum for second graders learning with their parents. She has co-authored, with Anita Diamant, How to Raise a Jewish Child: No Experience Necessary. And, with her husband, Lawrence Kushner, she has written Because Nothing Looks Like God, Where is God, What Does God Look Like and How Does God Make Things Happen. She is the mother of three adult children and grandmother of three.

Joanna Rothman, Director of Development

Joanna Rothman joined the staff of InterfaithFamily.com in the summer of 2011 after spending the past ten years working and volunteering in the Boston Jewish community. Prior to working at IFF, Joanna was Director of Development at Jewish Vocational Service (JVS), where she was responsible for board relations, marketing and fundraising. In 2007, she joined the development staff of WGBH (Boston’s NPR and PBS station) as Volunteer and Marketing Manager. During her tenure, Joanna received the PBS Development Award for Innovation and supervised 5,000 volunteers. She is also an avid public speaker and fan of social media. Currently, Joanna serves on the Board of Directors for the Boston Jewish Film Festival (BJFF).

Joanna received her bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University, her master’s degree from The George Washington University and a certificate from Christie’s Education, London. Most recently, Joanna earned a certificate in nonprofit management and leadership at Boston University’s School of Management.

In her free time, Joanna enjoys traveling abroad, photography and spending time with her friends and family.

Benjamin Maron, Managing Editor

Benjamin Maron has been known as the wandering Jew for many years now, but is excited to be putting down roots in the Boston area. He has an educational background in Judaic Studies, has worked as a Jewish educator and communal worker, and most recently funded his wanderings through freelance writing and editing. He's looking forward to bringing his skills together as he tackles the Managing Editor role at InterfaithFamily.com. When not sitting at the computer, he can be found in a kayak, at a curling club, or challenging friends and strangers to a game of Scrabble.

Adina Matusow Davies, Director of Network Activities

Adina Matusow Davies brings experience from her previous position as Program Director and Introduction to Judaism Coordinator at the Union for Reform Judaism in New York. Adina holds a Masters of Arts in Jewish Communal Service and a specialization in Jewish Non-Profit Management from Gratz College. While attending school, she worked as the Teen Director of a major Conservative synagogue on the Philadelphia Main Line. Adina was also Program Coordinator for The Chevra, a group for Jewish professionals in their 20's & 30's. She also wrote The Dating Dance, a bi-monthly column in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, in which she gave commentary and advice on dating and relationships.

Adina is a passionate Zionist who loves spending time in Israel. She has been fortunate to travel to Israel six times as a student, a professional and simply to enjoy the country. She is proud to say she received her Scuba Certification in the Mediterranean Sea during one of these trips. She is a Philadelphian native and holds a Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in Journalism from The George Washington University. In her spare time, Adina loves hiking, bowling, softball, watching movies, going to Broadway shows and playing the game Taboo.

Rabbi Ari Moffic, Director, InterfaithFamily/Chicago

Ari Poster Moffic was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2007. A graduate of Indiana University, she received Master's Degrees in Jewish Education and Jewish Studies from Baltimore Hebrew College. A native of Newton Massachusetts, Rabbi Moffic has an extensive background in Jewish family education -including writing for a Jewish family magazine, leading family retreats, and helping to start a family centered religious school. She has a special interest in working with interfaith couples and families. Identity formation, modern interpretations of culture and religion and making Jewish living accessible, relevant and meaningful are the areas that drive and inspire Rabbi Moffic. She believes in learning through doing and engaging the entire family in transformative Jewish experiences. She is married to Rabbi Evan Moffic, senior rabbi at Congregation Solel in Highland Park, Illinois. They are parents to Hannah born in 2007 and Tamir born in 2009.

Susan Edni, Administrative Assistant

Susan Edni was born and raised in London, where she was a medical defense legal executive for over 10 years. Edni then spent a few years in Israel where she taught English prior to meeting her Israeli husband Udi in New York on a two-night stopover. They returned to Israel for a year but since May 2002, Susan and Udi have lived very happily in Needham, Mass., with their daughter Roni and son Oliver. Susan has managed to hold on to her British accent and so too, she believes, her British sense of humor.

Consultant

Rabbi Lev Baesh, Director of the Resource Center for Jewish Clergy

Rabbi Lev Baesh was ordained by the Reform Movement in 1994 in Cincinnati. He can also be found teaching Introduction to Judaism Courses for the Outreach division of the Reform movement in the Boston area, as well as national and world traveling to celebrate interfaith-Jewish weddings. Baesh served as rabbi for Temple Israel of Dover, N.H., from 1994-2006 and served as interim rabbi for Congregation Beit Ahavah in Northampton, Mass., in 2006 and 2007.  While serving the congregation in Dover, Lev was also the Jewish chaplain at the University of New Hampshire and a member of several interfaith councils. His focus throughout his congregational work was welcoming all who wanted "Jewish" as part of their lives. InterfaithFamily.com is a natural fit for this high-spirited, knowledgeable and welcoming rabbi.

Baesh lives with his partner Andrew, who joined the Jewish world a few years into their relationship. You can read about their early life in The Guide to Jewish Interfaith Family Life: An InterfaithFamily.com Handbook in the chapter about "Gay and Interfaith." Baesh has contributed several articles to our web site and has been helpful in the creation of our wedding guide for interfaith couples.

Prior to life as a rabbi, Baesh was an attorney with the Children's Aid Society in New York, and coordinated their Manhattan project of PINS Mediation with parents and teens. Baesh is a graduate of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Class of 1994, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University class of 1987 (accepted in the New York and Connecticut Bar Associations) and Clark University class of 1984. Baesh was accepted and attended Bangor Theological Seminary's Doctor of Ministry program until he decided to leave congregational work.

And for those who knew Baesh prior to 1998, when he changed his name after attending a Jewish story-teller's retreat, you will remember him as Wesley Michael Odell. Baesh is a fifth generation rabbi in the United States--of which three are Reform and two Lubavitch--on his mother's side and a second generation attorney on his father's side.

Former Editors

Ruth Abrams, Former Editor

Ruth Abrams completed a B.A. at Oberlin College in 1988 and a Ph.D. at Brandeis University in 1997. The subject of her dissertation was the role of Jewish women in European feminism from 1880-1920. She taught Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst from 1996 to 2000. She has wide-ranging experience as a Jewish educator, from work with children in religious school to adult education programming, and has a background as an academic editor and as a writer in non-profit contexts. She is a member of Havurat Shalom in Somerville, Mass., where she lives with her husband and son.

While Editor, Ruth wrote many of InterfaithFamily.com's Resource Guides, how-to articles and discussion packets.

Micah Sachs, Former Editor

Micah Sachs is the former editor-in-chief and managing editor of the San Diego Jewish Journal, an award-winning monthly Jewish lifestyles magazine in San Diego. He helped found the magazine in 2001, and it has since grown into one of the largest Jewish publications on the West Coast. Prior to his work at the Journal, he was assistant editor of the Natick Bulletin & Tab and editor of the Westwood Press. In 2000, he received a New England Press Association award for his feature writing. He has also written for The Boston Globe and The MetroWest Daily News.

Sachs is a frequent contributor to the IFF Network Blog, and has written "How to Market Community Day Schools to Interfaith Families" in the December 2006 issue of Ha-Yidion, the magazine of RAVSAK, the association of Jewish community day schools, "Latest Surveys Are Responsible for Good News, Not Bad," in the Jan. 19, 2007, issue of j, the Jewish news weekly of northern California. He has also co-authored, with Ed Case, "Enough is Enough," in an April 2006 issue of the New Jersey Jewish News, and "Don't Write Off the Intermarried," a Feb. 12, 2007, op-ed for JTA reprinted in numerous publications.

Sachs is a 1999 graduate of Georgetown University with a degree in English.

Ronnie Friedland, Founding Editor

Ronnie Friedland is the Founding Editor of InterfaithFamily.com, co-editor of The Guide to Jewish Interfaith Family Life: An InterfaithFamily.com Handbook (Jewish Lights Publishing) and also two books on parenting: The Mothers' Book (Houghton Mifflin Company) and The Fathers' Book (Hall). In addition, she has written for the The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, Parenting Magazine, Boston Woman and other magazines. She has a B.A. from Barnard College and a Master's in English Literature from New York University. Ronnie was intermarried for nearly 20 years and has two grown children who were raised as Jews.