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Board of Trustees

OFFICERS (2023-2024)

Honi Sanders, Presidenthas had ties to Tremont Street since before he could read.  He is an Alef-Bet graduate and Simchat Torah shoulder dancer. He has led or leyned at all of the minyans in the congregation. Honi really appreciates that we are unique in containing multiple practices in one community, as well as multi-generational relationships that are hard to build elsewhere. When he's not at shul, he is a neuroscience postdoc studying learning in rodents.

 

Barbara Model, First Vice President, is a long-time member of our congregational leadership who also chairs the Tremont Street Shul's Kiddush committee and also serves on our Building Committee. 

 

 

Joe Zissman, Second Vice President, is shortly to reach ten years in Cambridge and at TBS. Along with several others on the Board, he has seen the community revitalize its Friday Night services and First Friday Potluck after the Pandemic. During his three years on the Board, he has also taken the lead on events welcoming new members and has enjoyed reading every application form from a new member, reaching out if requested to provide support for those moving to Cambridge. Joe works in Medford as a Transportation Planner.

Brian Eisenstein, Treasurer, a past president, works in downtown Boston in finance. Among other things, he has co-written the Purim Shpiel for many years and has a reputation as the badchan (shtickmeister/funny guy) at friends' weddings. He plans a road trip every summer to see a baseball stadium he has not seen and at least one State he has not yet visited and is working on a book about baseball.

Lieba Savitt, Assistant Treasurer

 

 

 


BOARD OF TRUSTEES (2023-2024)

 Sarah Adelman 

 

 

 

Ellen Birnbaum has been coming to the Tremont Street Shul for many decades and is happy to return to the board after a long hiatus. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, Donald Altschiller, whose aufruf they celebrated at TBS. Ellen has long been interested in and publishes about Philo, a biblical interpreter who lived in the first century CE in Alexandria, Egypt, a city with many shuls (and perhaps shul boards).


Sarit Eisen  has been attending TBS since she moved to Cambridge in 2019, and is a coordinator for Friday night services at the shul. She is a software engineer at Google and enjoys calligraphy, dance, and learning languages.

 

 Brian Fried 

 

 

 

 Ariel Kagedan 

 

 

 

Shelly Levy lives in Watertown with her husband, Ken Lebowitz. Many years ago after returning to the States from living in Israel, they found a welcoming home at Tremont Street where their children, Liora and Noah 'grew up'; in particular, she enjoys being a member of the Chesed Committee. Shelly works as an Educational Specialist Research Associate at the Institutes of Learning and Development creating curriculum, providing professional development, and helping individuals of all ages with learning challenges learn strategies to help them succeed. She loves discussing literature, and enjoys baking and being outdoors.

 Steve Lewis Steve has a history with TBS going back many decades, while living in Newton and raising his three daughters. As of a few years ago, he now lives down the block in Inman Square, and in addition to attending TBS and its many activities, Steve enjoys sailing on the Charles, attending Groupmuse concerts, and performances by various small opera companies around town.  Professionally, Steve is a Disaster-Recovery planner, and is always interested in sharing disaster stories.

 Inna Pasternak Originally from New Jersey, Inna moved to the Boston area in 2005 for graduate school after spending most of her childhood in rural New Hampshire. She started coming to TBS regularly in 2019, and first met her wife Sarah at our Shabbat Mincha services. Her hobbies include cooking spicy vegetables, traveling to the balkans, and text study with friends. 


 Tom Miller Originally from Baltimore, Tom attended college in Cambridge and moved back in 2020. He has a PhD in Classics but is (for now) a lawyer. A convert to Judaism, Tom loves the diversity of TBS and wants the shul to continue to be a welcoming community for Jews of all backgrounds.

 


Susan Podziba and her husband, Scott Cassel, aka the shofar blower, have been members of Tremont St. shul since 1985.  Their daughter, Sarah, had her naming and bat mitzvah at the shul, and they recently had an auf ruf there just before her wedding.  Susan works as a public policy mediator and has managed complex negotiations for issues across the policy spectrum including environment, education, worker safety, and abortion. She loves reading fiction and non-fiction, kabbalah, yoga, drawing and contemporary art.

 Jacob Sims Speyer 

 

 

 

Peter Squires is the chair of the Ritual Committee. Peter teaches math at Mother Caroline Academy, and sings with the Zamir Chorale of Boston. He is married to Linda Kasten and is the father of Si and Itai Squires-Kasten.

 

 

 Joshua Stadlan was first sold on Cambridge by the vibrant Jewish community back in 2016. He works as a computational social scientist at MITRE and is pursuing a PhD at Tufts University focusing on computer simulation of social interaction. Josh serves on the Cambridge Human Rights Commission and volunteers with Haley House Soup Kitchen in Boston. His Shabbat meal menus consist of puns on phrases from the Torah portion. 

Oren Weisberg 

 

 

 

Abby Zanger has been a member of TBS for thirty years, and a board member for over 9 years, serving on many committees including the long-range planning, membership, CDOC search, and by-laws committees.  She davens in the egal minyan and loves going to morning minyans when able.  In the last two years she has delighted in the fact that family members have moved into the area and daven in various minyanim at the shul, including her adult son, who grew up at TBS, and her niece and nephew, who did not.  When not at TBS, she is a scholar of early modern European literature and culture with a specialization in visual studies, gender studies, and book history. 

 

BOARD OF TRUSTEES – LIFE MEMBERS

   Ed Kahn, a long time member, currently lives in North Hampton.

 

 

 

Ted Kaptchuk  is a Professor of Medicine and Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School. He has attended Tremont Shul since the end of the 70’s and been a board member for over 40 years.

 

 

Linda Kasten has served as President twice, and is active in many areas of the shul, including the kiddush committee and coordinating the Shabbat morning egal minyan and chesed committees. 

 

 

Barbara Model, currently First Vice President, is a long-time member of our congregational leadership who also chairs the Tremont Street Shul's Kiddush committee, and serves on our Building Committee. 

 

 

Arnold Reinhold has been a member since 1991, and a past president. He grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan and came to Cambridge to go to graduate school. He currently chairs our Building Committee

 

 

James Carolan has been a Tremont Street Shul member for nearly 25 years and has served on the board in various roles. Born in Texas and raised in Northern California, James came to Boston for graduate school and has now lived in Cambridge longer than anywhere else. He does computer systems work for a Boston/Cambridge engineering firm and has traveled the world on various projects, including one in Israel. He loves things that roll -- including cycling and autocross (sorry electrified-car owners, he still loves dinosaur-powered cars).

Paul Weiss is a native of Brooklyn NY, but has lived in the Boston area since 1977, when he came to Cambridge to attend MIT, so at this point much more of a Bostonian than New Yorker. He, along with his wife Ruth Weinrib and daughter Anja have been members since Anja was at Alef-Bet, back around 1991 or so. Anja now lives in Brooklyn -- go figure! Paul has been involved in shul leadership way too long and has served as president twice. He is a software engineer working at Google.

PREVIOUS PRESIDENT

Josef Messer,  moved to Cambridge in 2007 after Graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY.    Immediately following that move Josef joined The Tremont Street Shul family and hasn’t been happier since. Growing up Josef was always involved in Shul leadership from an early age. That has not changed,  the past ten years serving on the board of trustees, Vice President and President again for a second term. Josef is involved in the kiddush committee as well as helping to organize general operations around the building. Today Josef works as General Manager of Catering By Andrew, premier kosher catering in Boston. He is always ready to host you for a Shabbos or Yontif meal along with his Partner, Aaron.   

Mon, March 18 2024 8 Adar II 5784