kol isha COHORT 5
Learn more about Kol Isha, an OFJCC Women’s Leadership Program, here.
Julie Arnheim
Julie lives in Los Altos Hills with her husband Buddy and their three daughters. She is a member of Congregation Beth Am and served on the San Francisco Jewish Federation Board from 2015–2020 and chaired the Board’s Leadership Development Committee. In this role, she was responsible for capacity building programs to meaningfully engage and cultivate lay leaders and Board members. Prior to this, Julie participated in the Federation’s Israel Impact Grant initiative where she reviewed and selected social venture enterprises in Israel for funding and mentoring.
Julie is currently on the board of the Jewish Film Institute and runs the Business Growth and Strategy Development for Pink Ribbon Good, a nonprofit that provides meals and rides for women undergoing breast and gynecological cancer treatment. With experience in fundraising, grant making, business strategy and finance, Julie likes to apply the lessons she has learned in the corporate world to ensure that the nonprofits with which she is involved are poised for growth and sustainability. Creating community and building bridges are also extremely important to Julie. In her personal time, she enjoys traveling, practicing yoga, playing tennis and pickleball, reading voraciously and spending time outdoors with her family and friends. During her child-raising years, every Friday night was Shabbat and “movie night.”
Michele Brenner
Michele moved from Portland, Oregon to the Bay Area with her late husband, Robert, 25 years ago. She has two grown children, Jordan (25) who lives in New York and Zach (24) who lives at home. Her involvement in the Jewish community began in high school when she was active in BBYO. Michele became involved in the peninsula Jewish community when her children were little. She started a baby group through the Jewish Federation, was the head of the Parent Committee at the PJCC Preschool and served on the Peninsula Jewish Community Center Board.
Currently Michele is active at her temple, Peninsula Beth El in San Mateo, serving on the Engagement Committee and chairing the Caring Committee. Michele holds an MA from Lewis and Clark College in education focusing on curriculum development and teacher training. She has taught in both public schools and Jewish day schools as well as professional development classes at the college level. Currently, Michele works at Belmont-Redwood Shores School District with English language learners. She lives in Redwood Shores and likes to spend her free time reading, knitting, cooking, traveling and rooting for her favorite sports teams. Michele is looking forward to the Kol Isha experience.
Beth Delson
Beth spent her youth living in Israel’s Negev desert and then in Palo Alto. She holds an MS from the University of Michigan in natural resource management, and her career has spanned from co-founding an environmental nonprofit, working in tech and green start-ups, and in education. Beth taught middle and high school and directed the South Peninsula Jewish Teen Foundation for the SF Jewish Federation.
Beth serves on the board of Camp Kaleidoscope, a camp run by Stanford students that provides summer overnight camp and year-round support for children whose parents have cancer. She is a mom to two competitive sailors, 20 and 23 (Hausner alums). Beth enjoys nature, purposeful travel and making a positive impact.
Linor Eylon
Linor is passionate about Jewish day school education. From educator, program director, preschool founder to board member, she has devoted over 30 years to working with and supporting Jewish children. Linor proudly serves on the Board of Directors of South Peninsula Hebrew Day School (Sunnyvale) and has chaired many events for SPHDS and Kehillah Jewish High School (Palo Alto) raising millions of dollars for the local Jewish community.
Linor’s childhood was spent on a Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz in Israel. She later moved to the United States where she attended an orthodox Jewish high school. She is the recipient of the prestigious Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award which honors outstanding Jewish educators throughout North America. Linor and her husband, Eyran, have lived in the Bay Area for the past 23 years and are the proud parents of three children; all are alumni of SPHDS and Kehillah Jewish High School.
Andi Frenkel
Andi’s passions have been raising her family of two wonderful kids, Ariella (22) and Jonah (19) and volunteering and fundraising for the local Jewish community. She volunteered at Hausner, Kehillah, Camp Tawonga, Jewish Federation teen programs and the JCC Chai Giving Circle and just joined the board of trustees at University of Michigan Hillel. She has been passionate about tikkun olam and social justice since high school.
Andi attended the University of Michigan, where she received a BA in psychology in Jewish studies; the University of Maryland for her MSW; and Baltimore University for a master’s in modern Jewish history. Before becoming a stay-at-home mom, she worked for the Federation, Young Judea Year Course, UCLA Hillel and the New Israel Fund. Her eight years of working with the Chai Giving Circle have opened her eyes to so many pressing needs in the greater community.
She is excited to work on a social justice project for her second year with Kol Isha. Andi lives in Palo Alto with her husband Rick and their dog Daisy and loves hiking, reading, cooking and traveling.
Adele Gershater
Adele is an active member of the OFJCC and Congregation Kol Emeth. An accountant by training, she is currently the CFO for a small company. Having lived in Europe and Latin America before coming to university in the U.S., she learned new languages and how to be comfortable in various cultural environments.
Adele has served as the treasurer for the founding board of Kehillah Jewish High School, which both her children attended, as well as on the board of Congregation Kol Emeth and South Peninsula Hebrew Day School (Sunnyvale). She is now the treasurer for the Jewish Democratic Coalition of the Bay Area. Adele loved participating in Cohort 4 of Kol Isha and decided to join Cohort 5.
Julie Kanel
Julie was born and raised in the SF Bay Area. She is a seasoned traveler and taught in China for three years. Currently, she is the reading specialist and English language learner coordinator at a local elementary school.
Julie has two grown children and is still hoping to become a grandmother one day! In her free time, she enjoys hiking, water aerobics and reading. She is excited to be part of the Kol Isha community.
Lori Krolik
Lori has been a member of the Kol Isha community since 2023. She is a parent/alumni of the OFJCC preschool, an active member in many of the OFJCC Giving Circles, a member of Congregation Beth Am, a volunteer for She-Can and on the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award committee. She is the owner of More Time For You, a full-service professional organizing company that works with residential and small business clients to create systems out of their most serious clutter challenges.
When Lori is not helping people get organized, she loves to exercise, spend time outdoors and hang out with friends and family. Lori and her husband Rob have been Palo Alto residents since 2002 and have two adult children Hayley (27) and Jack (24).
Karin Milman
Originally from Ukraine and raised in Israel, Karina now lives in California with her husband, three boys and their dog. In her work as a senior manager in tech, she loves bringing creativity and helping people and teams connect, something she also brings into her volunteer work and community life. The Jewish community is an important part of who she is, and she cares deeply about building connections across generations. Karina learns from older community members, supports younger ones and values the meaningful relationships that strengthen Jewish life. Living out Jewish values and contributing to a vibrant, connected community is central to the impact she hopes to make.
Karen Orzechowski
Karen moved to Menlo Park in 2018 from New York City, where she was a children’s book editor, school librarian and a mom to her two daughters, Jamie and Allie. Karen has been active in social justice and social action for many years through her synagogues and organizations like The Ravenswood Education Foundation.
Karen is the founder and manager of the first Jewish affinity group for Menlo-Atherton High School families. She is thrilled to continue volunteering and learning with Kol Isha, and she and her husband Daren look forward to expanding their Bay Area Jewish community.
Shelley Rosenthal
Shelley is a native of Los Altos, has an MS in nursing and is a retired RN. She has used her sports medicine background to become a certified personal trainer for women over 50 for over seven years and has been involved with various areas of Jewish community since moving back to the Bay Area almost 30 years ago. She continues to be an ongoing consistent volunteer for the JFCS food pantry since its inception and has been an active member of the JCC’s Kol Isha cohort group 3 since 2023.
Shelley also keeps busy with her fitness routine, hiking, visiting her two grown daughters and spending time with friends. These past few years have been filled with a lot of travel, and Shelley is looking forward to many more adventures. She lives with her husband Dan and their fur baby Stella Blue in Los Altos.
Aviva Saitz
Aviva is an East Coast transplant to Northern California, via a five-year stop in Denver which she still sorely misses. After raising two boys, now 23 and 26, and volunteering at both their schools and Kol Emeth, she is looking for some new inspiration in how to connect with Judaism as an empty nester.
Aviva enjoys playing pickleball and Mah Jongg, walking her dog Lucy, volunteering in the community and spending time with family and friends both local and far away. She has also started Israeli dancing again, which brings her joy and great memories of summer camp.
Jennifer Schellenberg
Jennifer grew up in Ventura and then headed to Northern California to study business at San Jose State where she met her husband Marc. She spent 30 years in commercial banking, mainly in Palo Alto at Wells Fargo and recently retired. She is currently teaching group fitness classes at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center and enjoying her ability to travel and take each day as it comes.
Jennifer has two children, Hannah (22) and Sam (19). Both are currently in San Diego.
Lauren Segal
Lauren retired in 2023 after a career as an attorney for high tech companies. She served as a Palo Alto Utilities Commissioner for seven years and is on the advisory council of WGCN, a professional and social group of women general counsel that she helped form and grow from five to more than 2000 members.
Lauren is excited to explore Torah from a feminist lens and loves all kinds of learning, hiking, running and traveling. She lives in Palo Alto with her husband Glen and dog Buster. Her two adult children grew up in Palo Alto but now live in Los Angeles and New York.
Susan Sims
Susan is a seasoned broker associate for The Agency in Los Altos. She has served on several local boards including the Jewish Community Federation as Past President of the Women’s Division. She is currently a producer for the Jewish Plays Project, which is celebrating its 12th contest in Silicon Valley.
Susan has been named Favorite Real Estate Agent for the Peninsula by JNEWS since 2004. She lives in Los Altos with her husband Ken and has three adult children living in Los Angeles.
Judith Sklar
Judith is a native New Yorker educated at Yeshiva and the Jewish Theological Seminary. A Queens College graduate and New York Times stringer, she came to California in 1980 from Missouri where she studied philosophy and got a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Judith was a VISTA volunteer attorney at Legal Services in Clayton and an assistant public defender in Saint Charles, Missouri.
After 40 years as a deputy district attorney in Santa Clara County, Judith retired after the unexpected death of her husband three years ago. She’s the proud mother of a lawyer daughter in Chicago and a techie son in San Jose and grandmother of seven. Judith enjoys mountain living in Santa Cruz.
Deborah Sloss
Deborah was born and raised in Washington, DC. She attended college at Stanford and holds a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University. Before going into private practice as a psychotherapist, she spent a number of years as a Jewish communal professional working for Hillel at Stanford and in New York, the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation and JFCS.
Deborah has lived in Los Altos for the past 30 years and attends Congregation Kol Emeth. She looks forward to joining other members of Cohort 5 in Jewish study and social action.
Jennifer Taxay
Jennifer is an elementary school educator who has worked in both public charter schools and Jewish day schools for the past 20+ years. This is her third year working with the nonprofit Peninsula Bridge, teaching highly motivated, first-generation students academic and social-emotional skills to support them for long-term success, with the goal of college graduation.
Jennifer holds a BA from the University of Michigan and a master’s in teaching from the University of Pittsburgh. She and her husband Marc have two children (ages 20 and 23), both of whom attended Jewish day school. She lives in Belmont and is an active member at Peninsula Temple Beth El. She regularly volunteers with Samaritan House in San Mateo, helping in their kids’ clothing store and school programming. In her spare time, Jennifer loves hiking, yoga, travel, live music and a cozy movie night at home.
Rachel Tirosh
Rachel moved to the Bay Area from Israel with her husband in 1994. Initially, she pursued her career as an electrical engineer. Over the years, she discovered her voice in non-representational abstract and interdisciplinary conceptual art.
Based in the Bay Area with a studio at the ArtBias artist community, Rachel is actively engaged in the local art scene, participating in various co-op galleries and art groups. She has exhibited widely throughout San Francisco and Northern California and recently completed her Master of Fine Arts in visual art. Rachel resides in Sunnyvale with her husband, while her two children have flown the nest to live in New York and Colorado.
Lisa Wachtell
Lisa has been an active member of the Jewish community throughout her life, grounded in learning, service and women’s leadership. She has served on the Executive Board of the Peninsula JCC and the Board of Wornick Jewish Day School and is an alum of the Wexner Heritage Program. A long-time member of Peninsula Temple Beth El, Lisa is part of the Membership Acquisition Committee and leads a community outreach circle. She is also a member of the Bay Area Diller Teen Fellows Advisory Committee.
Lisa raised her two sons in the local Jewish community at the PJCC, Wornick, Kehillah, PTBE and Camp Tawonga.
Professionally, she runs an independent consulting practice specializing in leadership, culture, DEI strategy and executive coaching. Her work also includes post-investigation culture repair and leadership alignment to help organizations rebuild trust and inclusion. In addition to her consulting business, Lisa serves as a course facilitator for executive education programs at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and is a California State Bar Continuing Legal Education trainer in elimination of bias. Lisa holds an MBA from Stanford and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Veronique Zerbib
My family and I have been living in the Bay Area for more than 20 years. I worked in different fields back in France where I’m from and studied sociology at SJSU. I am a stay-at-home mom and have been volunteering for a long time. Three years ago, I decided that I wanted to give back to my community in a deeper and more meaningful way. I got involved in my son’s school, both in the classroom and as the parent association president. I also volunteered in my synagogue. Today I continue volunteering for my new son’s school and my synagogue. I love to meet new people through my volunteering and learn more about their own paths. I hope that through this work, I will be able to better understand the needs of our community and help create the social bonds and bridges we all need. My ultimate goal is a strong, proud and true Am Echad.