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David Silber is the founder and dean of Drisha Institute for Jewish Education in New York and Israel. Rabbi Silber received ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He is a recipient of the Covenant Award, for excellence in innovative Jewish education, and is the author of A Passover Haggadah: Go Forth and Learn (Jewish Publication Society 2011), For Such a Time as This: Biblical Reflections in the Book of Esther (Koren Publishers 2017), and Malkhut Adam: Iyunim Bsefer Shmuel (Maggid 2021). He is also a nationally acclaimed lecturer on the Bible. Rabbi Silber is married to Dr. Devora Steinmetz. They have eight children and live in New York City.

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Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern serves as the senior advisor to the provost as well as the deputy director and chief strategy officer of the Zahava and Moshael J. Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. He has lectured across the US, Europe, Israel and Australia and is the editor of nineteen books, including the newly released Jewish Roots of American Liberty, as well as The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada, Esther in America and Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States. His award-winning writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, Newsweek, the American Bible Society, Tablet, Jewish Review of Books, Tradition, First Things, The Washington Free Beacon, Sapir, City Journal, ARC, The Jewish Journal, JTA, and The Jerusalem Post.

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Dr. Rabbi Joshua Kulp is a Senior Scholar at the Conservative Yeshiva. He is the co-author of The Schechter Haggadah and Reconstructing the Talmud Volume 1 and Volume 2. He received his Ph.D. in Talmud from Bar-Ilan University and his semicha from the Hadar Institute.

Rabbanit Shimoni has learned at Migdal Oz, Matan, and the Susi Bradfield Women’s Institute for Halakhic Leadership at Midreshet Lindenbaum. She holds a BFA from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and a BEd in Torah Shebe’al Peh and Jewish Thought from Herzog College. She is currently studying towards an MA in Jewish Thought Education at Herzog College. Rabbanit Shimoni taught gemara and halakha at Pelech High School and served as a ramit for shana bet at Migdal Oz. She directs Meshivat Nefesh, the online responsa program of the rabbaniyot of Beit Hillel. She is also a plastic artist and member of “A Studio of Her Own.

Dr. Rachel Slutsky, Ph.D., is the Monsignor (Mahn-SEEN-yor ) John Oesterreicher (oste-richer) Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Jewish-Christian Relations in Antiquity at Seton Hall University. She completed her doctorate in ancient Judaism at Harvard University in May 2022. She is currently working on her first monograph, tentatively titled The Gentile Enigma: Divine Law and Identity in Early Judaism, based on her dissertation.

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Rabbi Jonathan Ziring is a Ram and the Educational Coordinator at Yeshivat Migdal HaTorah. Rabbi Ziring received semichah from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University. He also received an MA in Jewish Philosophy from Bernard Revel Graduate School and a BA from the Honors Program at the Yeshiva College of Yeshiva University.

Rabbi Ziring studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion and continued his learning there as a member of the Kollel Gavoah. He was also a fellow at the Tikvah Fund and Center for Modern Torah Leadership’s Summer Beit Midrash. Rabbi Ziring has previously served as Sgan Rosh Kollel of the Yeshiva University Torah miTzion Beit Midrash Zichron Dov and as the Rabbinic Assistant of BAYT in Toronto. He has taught in many contexts in the US, Canada and Israel, focusing particularly on the Halakhic Process.

Ms. Rachael Gelfman Schultz is a teacher and writer. She has taught in a variety of formal and informal Jewish educational frameworks in Israel and in the US, including high school, Hebrew school, adult education, and one-on-one tutoring. She specializes in teaching students in the process of conversion. Rachael writes, edits, and translates for Jewish non-profit organizations and publishers, as well as writing Jewish educational curricula. Rachael has a BA from Harvard University in Religion and an MA from Hebrew University in Jewish Thought. She also studied in the Bruriah Scholars program at Midreshet Lindenbaum and the Advanced Kollel at Pardes Institute. Originally from Sharon, MA, Rachael now lives with her family in Mitzpe Netofa in the Galilee.

Until his recent retirement, Avraham (Avie) Walfish taught Talmud and Jewish Thought at the Herzog College in Alon Shvut, and headed the M.Ed. program in teaching Talmud and Jewish Thought in Michlala College in Jerusalem.  At Yeshiva University he completed his B.A. in philosophy, while studying Talmud with Rav Aharon Lichtenstein and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik. After making aliyah, he received his rabbinic ordination from R. Zalman Nehemiah Goldberg and completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at Hebrew University, writing his dissertation on literary features of Mishnah. He has taught and lectured in many frameworks in Israel and abroad, including Pardes Institute, Bar Ilan University, and Drisha. His extensive publications in different areas of Jewish studies include the Iyun Mishnah website and a recently published commentary on Mishnah Berakhot, Mishnaic Tapestries. In 2005 he was awarded the Prize of the Israeli Minister of Education for creative work in Jewish culture.

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