Who We Are

 

Wendy Rosov, Ph.D., Principal

Wendy is the Founder and Principal of Rosov Consulting, LLC. She serves as a senior-level consultant to philanthropic foundations and Jewish communal non-profit organizations throughout North America and in Israel, offering skills that maximize philanthropic and programmatic impact. Her keen analytic skills, knowledge of all facets of Jewish education and identity-building sectors, as well as her expertise in research and evaluation techniques have made her a sought-after expert on program design and evaluation. Her outstanding teaching and coaching skills place her in great demand as a presenter of workshops and seminars covering all aspects of evaluation and intelligent program design to diverse audiences, including foundation professionals, individual philanthropists, Jewish community federation and central education agency professionals, and lay leaders.

 

Over the years, Wendy has worked as an evaluation consultant, facilitator and strategist with an array of grantmaking and operating foundations, including: the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, the AVI CHAI Foundation, the Jewish Community Endowment Fund of San Francisco, the Legacy Heritage Fund, the San Diego Jewish Community Foundation, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, The Koret Foundation, the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture, the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, the Covenant Foundation and the Jim Joseph Foundation. Wendy has also worked closely with many of the grantee-partners of these philanthropies including: Repair the World, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, ROI Community, the Israel on Campus Coalition, BBYO, Inc., the Center for Leadership Initiatives, and more.

 

For nearly a decade, Wendy was a member of the senior staff at JESNA, the Jewish Education Service of North America, Inc. She served as the Director of JESNA's Berman Center for Research and Evaluation where she grew the Center's visibility, scope, and revenues exponentially. Before joining the Berman Center staff in 1999, Wendy served as Associate Director of the Conference on Rabbinic Education. She taught for more than 15 years in all types and at all levels of Jewish formal and informal education and identity-building programs, giving her a deep "insider" understanding of both the content and context of these fields. Wendy holds a Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University, an MA in Jewish Education from the University of Judaism, and a B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University.

 

Wendy is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. Wendy and the firm are based in Berkeley, California.

 

 

Sarai Brachman Shoup, Director, Philanthropic Advising, Senior Consultant

 

Sarai joined the professional staff of Rosov Consulting in early March, 2012 after several years of serving as a strategic consulting partner to the firm. For many years Sarai has served as a trusted advisor to individual philanthropists, family and community-based foundations as well as non-profit organizations. In her position as Director, Philanthropic Advising, Sarai serves as the Director of the Mandell and Madeleine Berman Foundation, a position she has held for the past seven years. Trained as a policy analyst and in Russian studies at Harvard and University of Michigan she excels at research and writing offering a particularly keen ability to synthesize vast amounts of information - both conceptual and logistical - toward the production of coherent and well-reasoned recommendations. Sarai has published on a wide variety of topics, including public policy grantmaking, Detroit philanthropy, Jewish life in the former Soviet Union and Jewish philosophy.

 

 

Jonathan Wexler, CPA, Chief Financial Officer

Jonathan Wexler, CFO, is a CPA with over 30 years business experience in the for- and not-for-profit sectors. His passion is helping guide small businesses and start-up entities to achieve their greatest potential. He has spent the past twenty years guiding the business side of major musical recording artists. Prior to that, Jonathan worked in an array of financial management and audit firms. It is Jonathan's passion for Jewish education and philanthropy that brought him to Rosov Consulting in 2010. Jonathan holds a Masters in Business/Taxation from the Golden Gate University and a BS in Accounting the California State University at Northridge 1978.

 

 

 

Tobin Belzer, Ph.D., Senior Project Director

Tobin Belzer PhD joined the staff of Rosov Consulting in Winter 2011. A well-known sociologist of contemporary American Jewry, Belzer has written numerous articles and regularly speaks to audiences of academics, and Jewish community leaders, around the country. Belzer's research and program evaluations have focused on young adults' Jewish identity, Jewish organizational culture, Jewish education, gender, and congregational studies. She has worked with numerous Jewish organizations and foundations including: the Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, The Koret Foundation, the Jim Joseph Foundation, Berman Center for Research and Evaluation in Jewish Education at JESNA, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, and the Covenant Foundation. Belzer earned her PhD in Sociology from Brandeis University in 2004. With Rabbi Julie Pelc, she is the co-editor of Joining the Sisterhood: Young Jewish Women Write Their Lives (SUNY Press, 2003). Belzer was awarded the Hadassah Award for Excellence in Writing about Women from the American Jewish Press Association. She was a 2007-08 Fellow of the Congregational Studies Team's Engaged Scholars Program, funded by the Lilly Endowment.

 

 

Matthew Fitzgerald, Associate

 

Matthew Fitzgerald is a nonprofit project manager and climate activist from Berkeley, California. After graduating from Yale with a (surprisingly useful) degree in English, he completed Americorps service as Director of the Youth Philanthropy Project at United Way of Greater New Haven. In 2006 Matthew joined a start-up California nonprofit called Planning for Change where he worked to build the capacity of social justice organizations to plan and measure the results of their work. During his time at PFC he coordinated multiple evaluation and strategic planning projects with field-leading groups working to promote smart regional development, provide education and job training to low income youth, and reduce racial disparities in juvenile justice systems, among other issues. In the summer of 2009, Matthew joined 350.org as Grassroots Communications Director to work on communications strategy, organizer training and media outreach for the October 24th International Day of Climate Action -- later described by CNN as "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history." Matthew came to Rosov Consulting in early 2011 after partnering with the firm as an independent consultant.

 

 

Frayda Gonshor Cohen, Associate

 

Frayda Gonshor Cohen a pursuing doctoral studies in Education at Mills College, under the supervision of Prof. Anna Richert, and is the recipient of the Wexner/Davidson Graduate Fellowship. She also teaches Jewish text in a variety of communal settings in Berkeley, California. She taught third grade Judaic Studies at Oakland Hebrew Day School. Frayda received her BA Honors in Jewish Studies from McGill University, an MA in Educational Leadership from Mills College, and a certificate in education from Michlelet Emunah in Jerusalem, Israel. She studied in the Scholar's Circle at Drisha Institute for Jewish Education in New York, as well as Midreshet Lindenbaum and Nishmat in Israel. She served as Congregational Intern at Hebrew Institute of White Plains, taught at Shaar Ami Hebrew Afternoon School in Montreal for 5 years and worked in a variety of informal Jewish educational settings including summer camps, birthright Israel, and the Jewish Agency for Israel in Kiev, Ukraine.

 

 

Rafael Cashman, Associate

 

Rafael (Rafi) Cashman is the Department Head for Rabbinics at TanenbaumCHAT's Wallenberg Campus (TCW) in Toronto where he is deeply engaged in curriculum and pedagogy development. He is also pursuing a doctorate in education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, as part of which he is a Wexner/Davidson Graduate Fellow, and this year's recipient of the Emerging Scholar Award from the Network for Research in Jewish Education (NRJE). Rafi received his Honors BA from the University of Toronto, a Master's of Science in education from Yeshiva University's Azrieli School for Education and Administration, spent four years learning in kollel in Israel, and received smicha (rabbinic ordination) in 2005.

 

 

 

Daniel Held, Associate

 

Daniel Held is a doctoral candidate in education at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a Wexner/Davison Graduate Fellow. He coordinates the educators' track at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, training rabbinical students for careers in formal and nonformal education. Prior to moving to New York, Daniel served as Director of Student Activities at TanenbaumCHAT, Toronto's Jewish community high school, and as a senior member of the educational staff at Brandeis University's Office of High School programs. He holds a BA (Hons.) in business, a B.Ed. in Jewish education, and an MA in Humanities from York University and has studied at Bar Ilan University and the Melton Center for Jewish Education at Hebrew University. Daniel has held a variety of lay leadership roles including serving on the boards of Yeshivat Maharat, the Bathurst Jewish Community Centre and Canadian Jewish Congress. He writes a monthly column on Jewish education for the Canadian Jewish News.

 

 

Elana Naftalin-Kelman, Associate

 

Elana Naftalin-Kelman is the Tikvah Director of programs for children with special needs at Camp Ramah in California and the Director of Special Education at the East Bay Federation. At Camp Ramah she helped start the vocational education program for young adults with special needs and started the Ohr Lanu camp for families that have children with special needs. She received her MSW from Columbia University and her Masters in Special Education at Bank Street College in New York City. Elana has taught in both public and private school settings, in Day Schools and After-School programs for typically developing children as well as for children with special needs. She has served as a behaviorist, supporting students in their mainstream classrooms as well as served as a play therapist with young children with special needs. Elana has helped to create multiple models for supporting different types of learners in varied Jewish Educational settings, including at multiple Synagogue schools in the Los Angeles area. She has given professional development seminars to Education directors, teachers and volunteers in the synagogue school setting, for Day School faculty and at the American Jewish University for education students.

 

 

Brittany Waxman, Assistant

Brittany graduated from UC Berkeley in the Spring of 2011 with a degree in Sociology. During her time in school, Brittany held internships at the UC Berkeley Gender Equity Resource Center and the Marcus Foster Education Fund as well as holding leadership positions in several student organizations. She also worked over the summers at the Children’s Discovery Museum as a counselor at the Summer of Service community service camp. Brittany came to Rosov Consulting in Fall 2011. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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