YAHEL BOARD
Maggie Bar-Tura
Maggie Bar-Tura is an independent consultant with deep understanding of both the American Jewish community and Israel, living and working on both sides of the ocean. She has done extensive research on service learning programs in Israel and abroad, including developing an innovative cost-benefit model for national civic service in Israel.
Maggie has extensive knowledge of nonprofit organizations in Israel. She has served as Secretary-General of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism; she was director of special projects for the National Kibbutz Movement; and executive director of the Carmel Institute for Policy Studies. Maggie works with non-profits and social change start-ups in Israel, as well as with American organizations involved in Jewish and Israel education, on strategic planning, program design and development, branding, marketing, and communications. She also works with leaders of nonprofit organizations on issues of vision, leadership, and change management.
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Neil S. Mitchell
Neil S. Mitchell works at Morgan Stanley in New York where he is Managing Director in Private Wealth Management. Neil and his team provide banking, lending,and investment advice to prominent families and individuals, private foundations and endowments.
Before joining Morgan Stanley in 2008, Neil spent two decades at Lehman Brothers in Wealth and Asset Management. Neil graduated from Lehigh University in 1980 with a B.S. in Economics from the School of Business and Economics.
Neil is active in a number of nonprofit organizations including Project Renewal, where he is Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Project Renewal is one of New York City’s largest non-profit organizations. They provide housing, healthcare, job training and placement to homeless New Yorkers. Neil also serves on the board of Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. As an active member of Central Synagogue, a large reform congregation in Manhattan, Neil served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees and is the former Chairman of the Investment Committee.
Neil and his wife, Shelly, are actively involved with the I Have a Dream Foundation of New York. The Foundation provides after school support to 1st and 2nd Graders in an East Harlem public school and assures financial support for their further education. Neil and Shelly are also donors to various charities whose missions include Education, the Arts, Israel and Jewish causes. They have three children and live in New York City.
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Rabbi Sid Schwarz
Rabbi Sid Schwarz is a senior fellow at Clal: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership where he directs the Clergy Leadership Incubator (CLI), a program that trains rabbis to be visionary spiritual leaders. He is also the director of the Rene Cassin Fellowship Program, a year long fellowship on Judaism and human rights for young professionals with hubs in New York, London and Jerusalem.
Sid founded and led PANIM: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values for 21 years. He is also the founding rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, MD where he continues to teach and lead services. Dr. Schwarz holds a Ph.D. in Jewish history and is the author of two groundbreaking books--Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of Jews Can Transform the American Synagogue (Jewish Lights, 2000) and Judaism and Justice: The Jewish Passion to Repair the World (Jewish Lights, 2006).
Sid was awarded the prestigious Covenant Award for his pioneering work in the field of Jewish education and was named by Newsweek as one of the 50 most influential rabbis in North America. Sid's newest book is Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future (Jewish Lights, 2013).
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Shelly Mitchell
Shelly Mitchell lives in Manhattan with her husband, Neil, and their 3 children. Erica, their oldest child, participated in the Yahel Program in Gedera in 2013.
Shelly serves on the Board of Central Synagogue, a large Reform Congregation in NYC. She heads a Social Justice Initiative that the Synagogue does with the Educational Alliance on the Lower East Side. Central Synagogue sends volunteers to a Head Start Program twice a month to work with children in an underserved school. She also serves on the Board and Grants Committee of The Jewish Women's Foundation of New York, which awards grants to programs that help Jewish women and girls in Israel and the New York Metropolitan Area.
Shelly and Neil sponsor 1st and 2nd Graders through the I Have A Dream Foundation in East Harlem, New York. The aim is to motivate children from low - income neighborhoods to reach their education and career goals by providing mentoring, tutoring, and tuition assistance for higher education.
In her spare time, Shelly enjoys reading, going to the theater, and collecting contemporary art.
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Lee Sherman
Lee Sherman became President/CEO of the Association of Jewish Family & Children’s Agencies (AJFCA) on March 1, 2009. Lee came to AJFCA from Associated Catholic Charities in Baltimore, Maryland, where he served as Director of Strategic Development in the Community Services Division. Prior to working at Associated Catholic Charities, Lee was the President and COO of American Sports Classics, Inc., an archival-quality sports memorabilia and collectibles company with retail locations at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore and in downtown Denver, Colorado, that he co-founded in 1991.
Lee is an attorney and a Past Chair of the AJFCA Board of Directors. He has served in various leadership roles in the Jewish community over the years, including President of the Board of Directors of Jewish Family Services of Central Maryland (2002-2004), founding Board Member of Jewish Community Services in Baltimore, Maryland (2007 – 2009), Member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Jewish Education in Baltimore, Maryland (2005 – present), and Member of the Board of Directors of THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore (2002 – 2004; 2007 – present).
Lee is the recipient of a number of awards, including a Mayor’s Citation (2002), a City Council of Baltimore Recognition Award (2001), the Jewish Family Services Board Development Award (1997), and the AJFCA President’s Award (1999), and has given a number of presentations at national conferences and workshops on capacity building in health and human services agencies and moving organizations toward an “outcomes-oriented” model. Lee provides consultation on a number of topics, including strategic planning, community partnerships and collaborations, and executive search. Lee has a B.A. and M.A. from The University of Virginia and a J.D. from The College of William & Mary School of Law. Lee lives in Baltimore with his wife Nancy. His two children, Jordan and Josh, attend college in North Carolina and Ohio, respectively.
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Harris Engelmann
Harris Engelmann currently serves as a New Israel Fund/Shatil Social Justice Fellow. In this capacity he is the Outreach and Volunteer Coordinator for The Social Guard, a non-profit dedicated to strengthening Israeli democracy by promoting socioeconomically conscious legislation and the accountability of elected officials. Born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Harris graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in May, 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in German Language and International and Area Studies.
Harris participated in the Yahel Social Change Program from September 2013 until June 2014, living and volunteering in the predominantly Ethiopian-Israeli neighborhood of Shapira in Gedera. During his time on Yahel, Harris worked for Friends by Nature, Yahel’s partner in Gedera, as a resource development intern in addition to volunteering at local community gardens and tutoring neighborhood children and teens in English. Harris currently resides in Tel Aviv; in his free time, he enjoys running, traveling, and going to live music shows.
