Dr. Alvin Schiff, of Oceanside, New York, the founding President of the NCHL, has distinguished himself in both the academic and Jewish communal worlds. Currently the Irving L. Stone Distinguished Professor of Education at the Azrieli Graduate School, he was formerly Director of Graduate Jewish Education at Yeshiva University, Executive Vice-President of the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York, past president of the Council of Jewish Education, editor of the Journal of Jewish Education for 30 years, and author of numerous books and articles. His guiding role in the creation of the NCHL stems from his passionate belief that "whenever Jews have ignored Hebrew, they have disappeared." His vision for the NCHL is that it "have an impact on the Jewish people through advocacy, networking and resources." He elaborates: "We need three things in America: Advocacy to the American Jewish public on the importance of the Hebrew language; networking among those who work with Hebrew to feel that Hebrew is a major force; and resources to provide people around the world with information and access to experts."

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Dr. Joseph Lowin, of Rockland County, New York, is Executive Director of the National Center for the Hebrew Language. A Ph.D. from Yale University, Lowin has had faculty appointments at Yale, the University of Miami, Yeshiva University and Touro College. He has been a Fulbright Fellow at the Sorbonne and a Jerusalem Fellow at the Hebrew University. Lowin has also served as National Director of Education at Hadassah, Director of the Midrasha Institute of Jewish Studies, in MetroWest, New Jersey, and Director of Cultural Services at the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. For the past eighteen years, Lowin has written the popular Hebrew-language column for Hadassah Magazine, "About Hebrew," and is the author of the book HEBREWSPEAK. He has also written a book on the literary universe of American-Jewish writer Cynthia Ozick in the Twayne United States Authors Series. He has published more than a hundred articles and reviews dealing with American, European and Israeli Jewish narrative.

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Debra Herman Berger, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, is a mover and a shaker in more ways than one. A scholar, she has an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies, with a sub-specialty in Anthropology, and has written a monograph on "Middle East Research in Israel: Who Is Doing What and Where to Find It." A performance artist as well, she studied at Columbia University School of Dramatic Arts and for ten years was a performer with the Dance Theater of Washington. She has also taught a course on "Anthropology and the Bible through Movement" at the Jewish Day School of Greater Washington. Berger has led more than 45 tours to Israel for VIP American groups. Even more creatively, she was the founder, President and CEO of Project Interchange, a program of seminars in Israel for non-Jewish leaders, which has brought 1,500 people to Israel in a spirit of "interchange." She has served on a number of committees of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and was the founding Chairperson of the Israel Desk of the UJA-Federation of Greater Washington. Together with her husband, Paul Berger, she received the American Jewish Congress "Spirit of Israel" Award in 1990. During a sabbatical year in Israel, Debra studied Hebrew at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Ulpan Akiva in Netanya. She notes that "national interest in Hebrew is growing, and the National Center for the Hebrew Language is on the cusp of that growth."

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Shoshana S. Cardin, of Stevenson, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore, is distinguished for her many "first woman" presidencies, but fewer people know that her first language was Hebrew, and that she was born in Tel Aviv. Shoshana, as she is universally known in the Jewish world, is currently President of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the global news service of the Jewish people. She is a past President of CLAL (Center for Leadership and Learning), a former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the first woman elected president of the Council of Jewish Federations, national Vice-Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, and past Chairman of the Board of the Associated, the Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore. Her love of Hebrew is based on her belief that "Hebrew could and should be the international language for Jews throughout the world, so that wherever we go we can communicate." Her support for Hebrew studies is typified by her endowment of an annual Hebrew lectureship in memory of her parents, the Chana and Sraiah Shoubin Hebrew Lecture at Baltimore Hebrew University.

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Judge Abraham J. Gafni, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a Professor of Law at the Villanova University School of Law, a retired judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia and a former Deputy District Attorney in Philadelphia County. He also taught at the Temple University School of Law and has lectured widely on a variety of legal topics. In addition to his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, he holds a Bachelor of Hebrew Letters (B.H.L.) degree from Yeshiva University, which certifies him as a credentialed Hebrew teacher as well. He has been very involved with the Jewish Federation of Philadelphia, and with the Jewish Agency for Israel, where he has sat on the Allocations and Jewish-Zionist Education committees. His academic and Jewish interests sometimes converge, as when he lectured at the Annenberg Research Institute for Judaic and Near Eastern Studies on attitudes of Jews toward Gentiles in Jewish legal sources.

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Dr. Albert Hornblass, a New York Ophthalmic Surgeon regularly on New York Magazine's Best Doctors List and a hyperactive Jewish lay leader, has accepted an invitation to join the Board of the National Center for the Hebrew Language.

"Albie," as he is called since his days at Hebrew-speaking Camp Massad, is currently President of Keren Or, a Jerusalem-based center devoted to the rehabilitation of multi-handicapped blind children. He has been chairman of the Young Leadership Division of New York UJA-Federation, Assistant Treasurer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and for four years was President of the Board of Jewish Education (BJE) of New York. That's where he worked closely with Dr. Alvin Schiff, former Executive Vice President of the BJE and currently NCHL President who tendered the invitation. Dr. Schiff says, "In each of his leadership roles, Dr. Hornblass was extraordinarily effective - totally committed and distinguished." Dr. Hornblass's belief in the centrality of Hebrew stems from his upbringing, his education and his yichus; his great uncle, Rabbi Pesachya Hornblass wrote seforim in Hebrew, which Dr. Hornblass has lovingly published. His role at the NCHL will be to help articulate a vision for the future of Hebrew in America.

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Southern California’s Mark Lainer learned his Hebrew growing up in Mexico City, where he attended the Colegio Israelita. As President of the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA), he recently played a dynamic role in solidifying the structure of this educational coordinating, planning and development agency. At JESNA, as well, he has taken a visionary approach to assuring the future of Jewish education by creating the Lainer Fellows, a program for junior-year North American students at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Tel-Aviv University. The Lainer Fellows program mentors and guides students toward careers in Jewish public service and Jewish education. Lainer was the founding president of the Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School in Northridge, CA., chairs the board of the Ziegler Rabbinical School of the University of Judaism and is Vice President of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation. Not least, his family has created a set of awards for outstanding religious school and early childhood teachers in the Los Angeles area.

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For Herbert Neuman, of New York City, CEO of I. Neuman and Sons, Inc., the connection to Hebrew is literary. His participation in the NCHL board is a continuation of his lay leadership in the Histadrut Ivrit and the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York. His family has long had an interest in Hebrew letters. His father, Irving Neuman, was the founder and a major supporter of the Hebrew language journal, Hadoar, and since the early 1960’s, the family has presented annually the Irving and Bertha Neuman Literary Prize for Excellence in Belles Lettres in Hebrew Literature, whose presentation in a major cultural event in Israel. The first Neuman Prize went to Israeli author S.Y. Agnon a number of years before his talent was recognized with a Nobel Prize for Literature. The prize is administered under the auspices of Bar Ilan University, and among its recipients have been Uri Zvi Greenberg, Haim Hazaz and T. Carmi.

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The Zionist connection is vital to Ruth Popkin, formerly of Great Neck, New York, residing now in New York City. This is not surprising, since she is a past National President and currently Honorary Vice-President of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, and a past President of the Jewish National Fund. She is the first woman in the 90-year history of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) to be elected Chair of the Presidium and President of the World Zionist Congress. Deeply concerned with the development of a vibrant Jewish youth, she is Chair of the Young Judea Scholarships Committee, was National Chair of Youth Aliyah, Chair of the Hadassah Zionist Youth Commission, and Chair of the Annual Dance Festival and Salute to Israel Parade that attracts thousands of people to Fifth Avenue in New York City. For Mrs.Popkin, Hebrew is a Zionist mitzva. She points out, "According to the Jerusalem Program, one of the Zionist tasks is the ‘preservation of the identity of the Jewish people through the fostering of Jewish and Hebrew education.’" Thus, one way to fulfill the Jerusalem Program is through support for the Hebrew language.

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Melvin Salberg, an attorney residing in New York City, is immediate past Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the

"Presidents’ Conference." Today, Mel is President of the American Zionist Movement, the umbrella organization for all the Zionist organizations in North America. He is also a past national Chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, Executive Vice-President of the Anti-Defamation League Foundation, Vice Chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Council and a past Executive Committee member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He has also served on the Boards of Governors of B’nai Brith International, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), and Israel Bonds, New York, where he won the Jewish Week’s Man of the Week award in recognition of $11 million in sales of Israel Bonds to pension funds. A lifelong Zionist, he is also active in the Jewish National Fund and Mercaz USA. Having worn so many hats to defend and preserve the Jewish people, it is not surprising that he also wants to preserve and promote the language of the Jewish people.

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Ivan Michael Schaeffer, of Bethesda, Maryland, was the co-chair of the first General Assembly (GA) of the United Jewish Communities, held in November, 1999, in Atlanta, Georgia. In that capacity, he was instrumental in facilitating the multiple ulpanim which took place the day before the conference opened—an educational first in the programming of a General Assembly—and is largely responsible for the continuation of that program at GA 2000 in Chicago. "Being able to bring together Jews from all our communities, backgrounds and religious streams was a powerful experience," he noted, "…and Hebrew is a common link for all of our people." Mr. Schaeffer, the president and chief executive officer of Woodside Travel Trust, is the immediate past President of the Jewish Federation of Washington In the educational realm, he is a past Director of the Hebrew Day Institute of Rockville, MD, and currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington in Silver Spring. He also serves on the boards of Jewish Agency for Israel, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and the Washington Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values.

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Phillip Schatten, of New York City, is a man of many parts: one thing is never enough. In his professional life, he is President and CEO of both RAI Credit Corportation, a computer and credit card company, and Retail Automation, Inc., a retail computer and consulting company. His volunteer service to the Jewish community is just as varied and far-reaching. He is a past president and chairman of the board of the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York, a past president and chairman of the board of Westchester Day School. and chairman of the board of Gesher, an Israeli organization that strives to establish a dialogue between secular and religious youth. At the UJA-Federation of New York he is a member of the Board of Directors, of the Continuity Commission, of the Overseas Committee and of the Joint Distribution Committee-Jewish Agency for Israel Committee. His membership on the board of the National Center for the Hebrew Language is his way of demonstrating his interest in "increasing awareness and use of the Hebrew language."

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Dr. Elizabeth Sterenberg Shulman, of Palm Beach, Florida, joined the Board of the NCHL for visionary reasons. She believes that the future of the American Jewish community is intertwined with its knowledge of Hebrew. Dr. Shulman established the first Department of Jewish Education for the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County. She has also chaired the community-wide task force on Jewish education that led to the creation of the autonomous Commission for Jewish Education in Palm Beach and continues to be active in the Commission. She also chairs the Adult Education Committee of her local synagogue. Her communal involvement began with participation in the UJA Young Leadership Cabinet, and she went on to participate in the Business and Professional Women’s Cabinet. A psychologist by training, with an active practice, Dr. Shulman became interested in a method of treating autism called Options and established a small non-profit agency in Israel to promote this approach.

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  HONORARY BOARD

For Cynthia Ozick, of New Rochelle, New York, a prize-winning author of fiction and essays and an American Jewish cultural icon, the Hebrew Language has become a necessary ingredient of her creative imagination. Her novel, The Puttermesser Papers, nominated for a National Book Award, is peppered with Hebrew words and phrases. Her heroine, Ruth Puttermesser, finds poetry in making subtle distinctions between the hiphil and the hophal. Both God and the Angel of Death gain entry into Ozick’s novel via the Hebrew gate—God as Hashem and the Angel of Death as an Irish mayor of New York City, Malachy Mavett (i.e., malakh ha-mavet). For Ozick, as for her heroine, Hebrew is "not so much a language for expression as a code for the world’s design." When Puttermesser thinks of the permutations of the three-lettered Hebrew root, her brain turns into a Vatican where one walks "from one resplendent triptych to another."

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Few people are aware that Elie Wiesel, a true man of the world who lives in New York City, teaches in Boston, and can often be found in Paris and Jerusalem, began his career as a writer as the Paris correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot. His regular column, written in Hebrew, "Nitsotsot me-Ir ha-Orot" (Sparks from the City of Lights), was very popular with his readers back in Israel and no less admired by his journalist colleagues. It is also not well known that Wiesel’s The Jews of Silence, the book that launched the Soviet Jewry movement, was written originally in Hebrew, as a series of articles for Yediot. Today, when Wiesel speaks of Hebrew, he speaks of its "depth and beauty," and calls it an "ancient tongue that has remained alive and amazingly modern."

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Ruth R. Wisse, of Cambridge, Massachussetts, is Professor of Yiddish and Comparative Literatures at Harvard University and has written and edited several landmark books on Yiddish literature. Her book, The Modern Jewish Canon, is forthcoming. She has been President of the Association for Jewish Studies and Director of Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies, where she was instrumental in the development of Hebrew and Its Culture, an intensive Hebrew program at Harvard Summer School. In her other life, Ruth Wisse is an essayist of great renown and some bite. She makes a strong intellectual case for Hebrew in "The Hebrew Imperative" (Commentary, 1990) where she asserts, "Hebrew alone can give a child unmediated access to his heritage. English leaves him forever at the mercy of second-rate interpreters." Professor Wisse is a member of the Board of the Avi Chai Foundation, where her educational expertise is much valued.

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Neal Kozodoy, of New York, is the editor of Commentary Magazine. Few of the readers of that magazine are aware, however, of Kozodoy’s expertise and scholarship in Hebrew. He is the author of an important essay, "Reading Medieval Hebrew Love Poetry," published by the Association of Jewish Studies in its 1977 AJS Review, and has translated from the Hebrew Elie Wiesel’s book on Soviet Jewry, The Jews of Silence. In accepting the invitation to join the Honorary Board of the National Center for the Hebrew Language, Kozodoy writes—from both the head and the heart—"I have my misgivings about serving on boards, including honorary ones, but I’m persuaded of the importance of what you’re doing and honored to be asked."

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