Staff
Fred Rosenbaum, an award-winning author, teacher, and educator, is the Founding Director of Lehrhaus Judaica. He has also been a faculty member at the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where for five years he taught a semester-long course on the Holocaust to Christian seminarians. He has lectured widely in the United States and abroad, in such cities as Prague, St. Petersburg, and, most recently Shanghai.
He has written six books on modern Jewish history, including Visions of Reform (Magnes Museum, 2000), a full-length study of San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El, acclaimed by Professor Jonathan Sarna in the Forward as “a sign of a new spirit of candor in American Judaism.” His Taking Risk, co-authored with Joseph Pell, (RDR Press, 2004), describes Pell’s exploits as a Soviet partisan and was hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as “transcending the genre” of Holocaust memoirs. His recent work, Here, There are No Sarahs (RDR Press, 2009), co-authored with Sonia Orbuch, tells the woman’s side of the Jewish partisan saga. He has also written numerous articles including five entries in the award-winning second edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica published in 2006.
Rosenbaum’s most recent book is Cosmopolitans: A Social and Intellectual History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area, published by the University of California Press in 2009. According to Kevin Starr, “no single community has contributed comparably to the to the rise and development of this region—and no book tells this story better than Fred Rosenbaum’s.”
He has received the S.Y. Agnon Gold Medal for Intellectual Excellence from the Scopus Society of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, and the Award for Exceptional Jewish Educators from the Covenant Foundation in New York. He has also held Ford, Fulbright, and Woodrow Wilson Fellowships. Fr747@aol.com
Jehon Grist, Ph.D., Executive Director of Lehrhaus Judaica, has been with the school as a faculty member and administrator since 1985. He received his doctorate in Near East Studies and a California State Teaching Credential from the University of California, Berkeley. A veteran of excavations and field research in both Israel and Egypt, Dr. Grist has published articles and presented papers on a variety of topics, from research identifying an obscure Egyptian queen, to the conflict between Egypt, Israel and the Philistines at the beginning of Biblical history.
Over the last several years, he has spearheaded the development of the Digital Classroom format: live courses enriched with vivid presentations incorporating texts, images, and audio/video clips custom-designed to enhance the learning experience. More recently, he has developed Lehrhaus-to-Go, fully narrated, multi-session courses on CD-ROM that include all the Digital Classroom features plus recommended readings as pdf files and hyperlinks to web pages that allow students to dig deeper into each topic discussed.
Digital innovation also plays a role in the Lehrhaus Traveling Classroom study tour program. Jehon develops live pre-tour courses for many of these tours, including CD-ROM courses that thoroughly introduce students to the history, culture and sites of the countries they visit.
Jehon’s favorite current project is The Museum Partnership, courses that provide in-depth previews of major exhibitions of Jewish interest. Working with the de Young, Legion of Honor, Contemporary Jewish Museum and other venues, he has developed digital course content for exhibits on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Queen Hatshepsut and King Tutankhamun, Louise Nevelson, the James Simon Collection, and many other subjects.
Jehon’s other life is his family of four children, two grandchildren, his less-than-perfect garden, and his totally perfect Mazda Miata. jehong@aol.com
Elena Aronson is the Director of Administration and Human Resources for Lehrhaus Judaica. Elena received her BA from Smith College and MA in Jewish history from the Jewish Theological Seminary. She grew up in Chicago and now lives in Berkeley with her husband. elena@lehrhaus.org
Erika Staiti, Associate Director, received a BA in English from Binghamton University and an MFA in creative writing at Mills College. She grew up on Long Island, spent four years in upstate New York and another four years in Portland, Ore. She lives in North Oakland. erika@lehrhaus.org
Debbie Rosenfeld-Caparaz, who assumed the role of Director of Communications for Lehrhaus Judaica in July 2009, has 15 years of public relations and marketing experience, including in Jewish education, sports, and technology. Rosenfeld-Caparaz received her bachelor’s of science degree in radio/TV/film from Northwestern. She was born in Skokie, Ill., and resides in Albany, Calif., with her husband and two daughters. debbie@lehrhaus.org
Vernita Lyons, Student Services Manager for Lehrhaus Judaica, was born in Oakland, and raised in Alameda. She received her AA degree from Vista Community College, and her BA degree in business management from Holy Names College. She is also the owner of a small home business, specializing in personalized gifts, novelty items, and custom screen printing. She is also a huge sports fan, who enjoys all sports. She resides in Alameda with her family. vernita@lehrhaus.org