Our 2024 Founding Board of Directors
In July 2024, Shtetl 2.0™ became a "Service Group" of Mt. Airy Community Services Corporation ("MACSC"), a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation. Subject to the ultimate authority of the Board of Directors of MACSC, Shtetl 2.0™ is directed by a self-selecting Board of Directors.
Shtetl 2.0™ is guided by the six- to fifteen-member Board, including an Executive Committee that will include a Chair, one or more Vice Chairs, a Treasurer and a Secretary. Starting in the first year, approximately one third of the members will serve 1-year terms; one-third will serve 2-year-terms; and one-third will serve three-years terms, to set up a rotation. Subsequent terms will be three years each, to a maximum of six consecutive years.
A three-person Nominating Committee, created by the 2023-2024 Planning Team*, began seeking diverse Board Members beginning in June 2024, and is still seeking to expand the Board, below.
Meet our Board Members
Sherri Cohen returned to Philadelphia six years ago, after 30 years in New York, Connecticut and California. She was attracted to Mt Airy for its strong community, proximity to the Wissahickon, as well as being closer to her family. Professionally, Sherri is a Leadership Coach, Organization Development Consultant and Meeting Facilitator with over twenty-five years of experience designing workplace solutions that positively impact people as well as business performance. She has extensive expertise coaching leaders, from emerging managers to senior executives. She focuses on effecting behavior change through greater self-awareness, discovery and learning through practice. Sherri has worked in a variety of industries including Non-Profit, Technology, Consumer Products, Publishing and Consulting. In her free time, she loves to walk the neighborhood with her dog Jesse and to travel, most recently to France and Italy. She is a life-long learner and currently enrolled in a year-long coaching program focused on positive intelligence. She is passionate about creatively thinking about positive aging, and is excited to contribute to Shtetl 2.0™ and our Mt Airy community.
Meryl Crean, Treasurer, is a Reconstructionist Rabbi (Reconstructionist Rabbinical College 1996) and a certified Chaplain (Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains) serving elders at a Senior Living Community near Philadelphia, PA. She is a member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, the NAJC, the Philadelphia Board of Rabbis, and the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace. Meryl also holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MSE in Systems Engineering from Penn Engineering. Before rabbinical school, Meryl worked at Morgan Stanley in New York City. She is currently serving on the board of the Rabbis and Cantors Retirement Plan as Treasurer. She is also a board member of Christian-Jewish Allies Working for a Just Peace in Israel/Palestine. She has two grown children and two young grandchildren living in Mt. Airy. [Photo of Kai and his grandmother, courtesy of Meryl]
Karen Forman has been a resident of Mt Airy since 1987. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, she moved to Philadelphia in 1981 to attend law school. Karen has been a member of Folkshul since 1993, where she taught migration of the Jewish people, focusing on immigration to the US and the labor movement. She served as the teacher representative to the Board when her two children (now adults) attended Sunday school. Karen has spent the majority of her career as public interest lawyer and served on the boards of Community Legal Services, Philadelphia Legal Assistance, and the Consumer Bankruptcy Assistance Project. Now, as an attorney for the City of Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, she works to enforce the City’s civil rights laws. Karen brings a deep understanding of how community infrastructure impacts its residents and looks forward to helping launch and build Shtetl 2.0™. [Photo courtest of Karen]
Marsha Freidman has lived in Mt Airy on and off several times over the past 34 years, but even when living further away or in nearby suburbs, she has thought of it as her spiritual home. She has been a member of GJC since 1990, and has served both on the Board and on various committees. Over the years, she has been part of both Dorshei Derekh and Minyan Masorti. Marsha is a single mom of three adult children—Shira, 31, Eitana 27, and Noah, 24. Divorced for about 20 years, the community has been very important for her in raising her family; she is looking forward to being part of Shtetl 2.0™ as a way to give back. Marsha is currently in full-time private practice as a clinical psychologist. She was ordained as a Reconstructionist rabbi in 1996 and has held a variety of rabbinic jobs in congregations, chaplaincy, and Hillel. She continues to be involved in facilitating life cycle events and teaches an ongoing adult education class to older women in the area. [Photo courtesy of Marsha]
Josh Goldblum has been an active leader of Germantown Jewish Centre, serving as president, officer, and board member for many years. He has also served as a Board Member of A Woman's Place, the domestic violence program in Bucks County for over twenty-five years. Recently, Josh was named as a Board Member of Childspace, the day care program that provides support for children in Mt. Airy and Germantown. Josh has retired as an attorney. He had his own practice for over thirty years in Bucks County and more recently, served as a managing attorney for Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania. In his law practice, Josh specialized in representing individuals in bankruptcy, landlord-tenant issues, and family matters. Josh is looking forward to many more years as an active participant as Board Member of Shtetl 2.0™. [Photo courtesy of Josh]
Tobie Hoffman has been a P'nai Or Philadelphia member and leader since 1992, uplifted by the community's wholehearted participation in prayer, the deep discussions of Torah, and the opportunities to create new rituals and liturgy. She incorporates her own music into the many roles as a Shabbat and holiday davvenen leader and Torah leyner (reader). Tobie is part of the Beit Midrash (adult learning) committee, the High Holyday planning group and participates in Tikkun Olam social justice activities. She was previously the chair of People's Music Network for Songs of Freedom and Struggle. Her latest project is helping to launch SHTETL 2.0™ in Northwest Philadelphia that will support older Jewish residents. She previously was the Director of the English Language Center at Drexel University, teaching English as a Second Language. [Photo courtesy of Tobie]
David Rosenberg, Secretary, is a nonprofit executive and geriatric care manager with over 25 years of experience in the field of aging, focusing on program development, implementation and evaluation, as well as working with seniors and their loved ones and caregivers to develop care plans and advocate for them in home and residential settings. David is currently a Care Manager for Kith Elder Care. Prior to that, David focused his career working for aging service nonprofit organizations, including Jewish Family and Children's Service of Greater Philadelphia and the Wilf Campus for Senior Living. He has secured multiple grants to help older adults safely age in their communities, including the collaborative Rhawnhurst NORC program, a federal NORC demonstration project grant, and multiple grants to provide trauma-informed care for Holocaust Survivors and other older adults affected by trauma. [Photo courtesy of David]
George Stern was ordained in 1974, at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. For much of his career, he served as rabbi of Temple Beth Torah in Upper Nyack, NY, where he established strong social justice and interfaith programs; taught Jewish-studies courses at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, NY; served as president of the Nyack Interfaith Clergy Association; spearheaded the establishment of a Pastoral Care Department and Clinical Pastoral Education program at Nyack Hospital; organized interfaith support of Black churches during a spate of church burnings in 1995-96; assisted in clergy training around issues of domestic violence; and represented the faith community on the Multicultural Task Force of the Nyack Public Schools. A Philadelphian by birth, George returned in 2002, and became the executive director of Neighborhood Interfaith Movement (NIM), followed by part-time stints as coordinator of a support program for older adults in Center City and director of the Jewish Social Policy Action Network, a progressive social-justice organization. Currently, George is on the Tikkun Olam Coordinating Team of Germantown Jewish Centre and dedicates much time canvassing to ensure the election of progressive candidates local, throughout the state, and nationally. [Photo courtesy of George]
Rivkah Walton, Chair, moved to Mt Airy in 1978, attracted by the vibrant progressive Jewish community and an opportunity to attend Tyler School of Art to create Jewish ceremonial art. Having spent a formative year as a volunteer at Koinonia, a Liberation Theology community in southern Georgia, she has an abiding interest in both intentional community and Tikkun Olam (healing the world). Rivkah has been instrumental in building community in the GJC Minyan, National Havurah, and Jewish Renewal movements since 1978. She been a program and project director for diverse progressive Jewish and interfaith organizations, including the Institute for Contemporary Midrash, which she founded in 1995 - and where she trained hundreds of participants in the improvisational art of Bibliodrama. She recently was the Administrator of Northwest Village Network (NVN), another local senior Village, and was a member of the Shtetl 2.0™ Planning Team in 2023-24. When not applying her creative problem-solving skills to building Shtetl 2.0™, she indulges her introverted side with long walks in the Wissahickon, a camera in hand. [Photo by Sharon Gershoni]
