Sara Cohen, Chair

Sara Cohen is a native Washingtonian and practicing dentist in a 50+ year old D.C. family practice founded by her father and grandfather. Her grandparents were active members of the EDCJCC in its early days. Inspired by the combination of art and science in her work, she believes art and film in particular are the perfect emissaries to give voice to the Jewish experience. She is an active fundraiser for Jewish education and culture, working with the development office of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School and the Capital and Endowment Campaign Committee of the DCJCC. She is married to Norm J. Rich, Vice President of the DCJCC and with four grade school children, is doing her best to create Jewish leaders of the future!

Janet Abrams

Janet Abrams is Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Smithsonian’s central digital technology group, working to share the Institution’s vast collections, research, and educational resources with the world.  An Atlanta native, Janet earned her B.A. in History at Harvard and an M.B.A. at Stanford.  She serves on the EDCJCC Board of Directors and also holds leadership roles with the White House Fellows Foundation and Association and Girl Scouts of the Nation’s Capital.  Janet is excited to be part of the JxJ Council because she believes in the power of music and film to inspire, inform, and bring people together.

Alison Baraf

Charles Both

Charles recently retired from the fulltime practice of law, where he was a principal partner at Yablonski, Both & Edelman, a Union-side Labor Law Firm, which he founded in 1975. His practice was on behalf of working people and their organizations and included international human rights and political work in the former Soviet Union, primarily in Kazakhstan. He is an active member of Adas Israel Congregation, a previous Board member and committee chair. He fondly remembers swimming at the “J” while attending Georgetown Law Center between 1965-1968. He currently volunteers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Ito Briones

Dr. Ito Briones is a physician from the Philippines with a PhD in cell and molecular biology. He took his post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute-National Institutes of Health (NCI-NIH). Aside from being a biomedical science researcher, Ito is actively engaged in the arts as a member and previous board officer of the Arts Club of Washington where he was chair of the Marfield Prize, a literary competition for non-fiction works about the arts. He is also a fellow of the Sinai and Synapses a Jewish organization based in New York discussing the relationship of science and religion. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

Morgan Genderson

Morgan is the managing partner of Verdehouse, which she originally founded by finding underutilized real estate for artists, events and pop-ups in DC. Today, Verdehouse has evolved to offer creative solutions to real estate development challenges. Prior to exploring ways to connect creative and corporate communities, Morgan held diverse roles within architecture and interiors at Gensler, a global architecture and design firm. She is a LEED-accredited professional, on the advisory board for the Dupont Underground Arts Coalition and active with the ADL’s NextGen. Along with a variety of past roles within Young Leadership, Morgan is currently on the Board of Directors for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.

Dina Gold

Dina Gold was born and raised in the UK and is now an American citizen living in Washington, DC. She is on the board of the EDCJCC and a council member of JxJ. She began her career at the Investors Chronicle in London as a financial journalist after postgraduate studies at London University and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. She later worked as an investigative journalist and television producer at the BBC.

Jennifer Loew Mendelson

Jennifer Loew Mendelson, the daughter of a Survivor, has a passion for Holocaust education and Jewish community. She was founding staff member of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and currently serves on the Education Committee. Jen serves on the board of the Defiant Requiem, a foundation that honors the bravery and defiance of Terezin and shows the role that music and art play in confronting contemporary challenges. She also serves on the Charles E Smith Jewish Day School Strategic Advisory Cabinet.

Jen is co-leading a strategic initiative with 3G (grandchildren of Survivors) chapters in 9 states to build a national organization devoted to growing the 3G community and training 3Gs to tell their grandparents’ stories. Speakers are deployed into classrooms and organizations to combat intolerance and hate. Their experience and their unique moral voice help them become impassioned leaders devoted to Holocaust memory and education for the next generation.

Jen is married to Dan Mendelson and are very proud of their three daughters, Claire, Eliana, and Dora.

Manny Schiffres

A native of Havana, Cuba, Manny spoke Spanish and Yiddish when he arrived in the U.S. at the age of 3. He has forgotten nearly all of the Spanish but, growing up in a Yiddish-speaking home, he developed a love for the mamaloshen and Yiddish culture.

Manny retired in 2017 after a 44-year career in journalism, the last 30 of which were spent at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. Since 1981, he has been a member of Adas Israel, where he regularly leads weekday services, serves as a member of the Budget Committee and has twice chaired the synagogue’s Investment Committee.

Richard Solloway

Richard Solloway has worked with nonprofits as a grantmaker, consultant, board member and active volunteer for over 40 years. He is President of Solloway & Associates specializing in strategic planning and grants management with a foci on federal grants and international programs. He is a former Board Member of the EDCJCC. Richard has a particular interest in exploring Jewish culture throughout the world and is excited to bring his interests to WJFF. He is a retired Foreign Service Officer and has lived and travelled extensively outside the US.

Susan Rubin Suleiman

Susan Rubin Suleiman is Professor Emerita of French Civilization and of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, where she taught for more than 35 years. She is the author of many articles and books about modern literature and culture, including the Némirovsky Question: the Life, Death, and Legacy of a Jewish Writer in 20^th-Century France and the memoir Budapest Diary: In Search of the Motherbook. Her book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Moment, The Atlantic, and other popular publications. In 2018 she was awarded France’s highest honor, the Légion d’Honneur.

Heidi L. Wachs

Heidi L. Wachs, Vice President at Stroz Friedberg, an Aon Company, helps clients prepare for and respond to data breach and cybersecurity incidents and develop and implement data privacy and information security programs. Wachs, whose experience includes serving as a technical analyst and Chief Privacy Officer for a major research university, frequently speaks and writes on data privacy, information security, information governance, and best practices for data privacy and breach response. She is a co-founder of 3GDC, a DC-based group for grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and the WanderingJews, a project to document Jewish history, people, and places around the world.  She is an active member of Mesorah DC.