Reena Bernards
Reena Bernards is the mother of two Jewish children of color who have attended JMN retreats since they were young. Reena was one of the founding board members and has been active with the organization since she and her family attended the third retreat. She is a licensed family therapist, working in Maryland with families on issues of multiracial families, adoption, divorce, leaving home and other life transitions. She has worked for many years as a diversity trainer and organizational development consultant. She is on the board of Fabrangen Cheder, a parent-taught alternative Hebrew School and progressive Jewish community in the DC area. Reena can be reached at rbernards2@gmail.com.
Tanya Bowers
Prior to being voted President of JMN’s Board, Tanya served for a year on the executive committee of JMN’s Board. Tanya Bowers came on as the Director for Diversity at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in January 2009. For over eleven years Tanya has been a diversity practitioner and a consultant in organizational development designing programs and leading workshops in diversity training, strategic planning, leadership development, and teambuilding. Tanya received her Master’s Degree in Psychology with an Applied Community Psychology specialization from Antioch University Los Angeles. In addition to graduating with honors from Wesleyan University as an interdisciplinary University Major in Urban Studies, Tanya completed programs at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation, Columbia Business School’s Institute for Not-for-Profit Management, and North Carolina’s Outward Bound School.
Howard Brown
Jen Chau
Tanya Gold
Tanya Gold joined the JMN Board of Directors in 2009. Her notoriety comes from her familial connections to her popular sisters Marissa (board member) and Jasmine (unofficial staff) Tiamfook. They raved so much about JMN, she became a counselor in 2007. After that amazing experience, she made it a priority to return yearly. Tanya studied at Yeshiva R’tzahd in Brooklyn. Her birth mom’s white and Jewish family originated from a shtetl in Eastern Europe and her Black and Asian father grew up in the Caribbean raised Christian. Her diverse background helps her appreciate and respect all cultures. Tanya volunteers for Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Humane Society, and Chai Impact, a volunteer organization through the Jewish federation. Tanya likes to write and travel, and created a JMN coloring book. In her spare time, she practices medicine and is a yoga instructor.
Tiffany Gordon
Tiffany Gordon is a third year student at the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College. Most recently, she was a teacher in and director of the Beit Rabban Youth Program at Temple Beth Zion in Brookline and the director of children’s programming for Isabella Freedman in 2009. In her spare time, she volunteers with MAB Community services, reading to elderly blind women and leads Shabbat services at an assisted living home. Spending time with both children and the elderly gives her a full view of life which helps her engage her own wise discernment and appreciate the beauty and complexity of the gift of being. Currently, she is headed to Israel for a year of study in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Julie Greenberg
Rabbi Julie Greenberg has been a member of the JMN Board since 2008. She is the Rabbi of Congregation Leyv Ha-Ir~Heart of the City in Philadelphia (www.leyvhair.org) and has a private counseling practice, Counseling with Soul. She is ordained as a Reconstructionist Rabbi and trained and licensed as a family therapist specializing in helping families and individuals cope with special needs children, navigate family transitions and grow spiritually. Julie is mother of five children in a multiracial family. She can be reached at JulieGberg@gmail.com.
Shahanna McKinney
Minna Scherlinder Morse
Minna Scherlinder Morse comes to the Jewish Multiracial Network as mom of Sara Penina, born in January 2005, and Gilad Martin, born in March 2009. She has been involved in JMN leadership since early 2007 when she began co-chairing the strategic planning committee. Later that year, she joined the board and executive committee, and became an at-large member of the board this past year. Currently a Career Advisor for documentary (and narrative) filmmakers, journalists and other communication students at American University, Minna was previously Founding Director of the DC Program of AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps; a founding board member of Jews United for Justice in Washington, DC; and is a Selah/Rockwood Leadership alum. She also spent a decade as a writer and editor at Smithsonian, and a freelance writer for Utne Reader and other magazines. She and her husband, Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, are active in the Reconstructionist movement.
Alexandra Newman-Kofinas
Alexandra Newman-Kofinas comes from a Jewish family with diverse backgrounds. During her undergraduate years, she majored in Judaic Studies and worked as a diversity trainer. Helping to staff JMN retreats since 2005, Alexandra was asked to join the JMN board in 2008. Alexandra and her husband are residents of Queens, NY and beginning the Fall of 2010, she will attend the CUNY Hunter’s Graduate School for Social Work. She can be reached at alexandrabethnewman@gmail.com.
Jesse Saltzman
Marissa Tiamfook
Marissa Tiamfook grew up in Brooklyn, NY, with an Ashkenazi Jewish New Yorker mother and a half Black, half Chinese Catholic father from Trinidad. She was always active in her Jewish community, on the board of Hillel at UNC-Chapel Hill, and currently volunteers with her synagogue in Los Angeles, CA and with Jewish World Watch. She spent four months in Uganda in 2009 volunteering through American Jewish World Service and misses her Abayudaya Jewish community there. Marissa attended her first JMN retreat in 2005, wishing an organization such as JMN existed when she was a child. She returned as a Youth Counselor and Head Counselor, brought other family members along, and joined the board in 2008.
