Brandon Blache-Cohen is the Executive Director of Amizade, a US-based nonprofit that focuses on global education and social action in 19 communities around the world. Blache-Cohen has organized over 800 global service-learning programs, overseeing life-changing experiences for around 12,000 students, and spearheading sector-changing innovations like The Global Switchboard and the concept of Fair Trade Learning.

In addition to his work with Amizade, Blache-Cohen was a Pittsburgh 40 Under 40 award winner, a Western PA Rising Education Leader, a US delegate to the One Young World Summit, a planning committee member for the Pittsburgh Holocaust Center, and was the President of the Pennsylvania Council on International Education (PACIE). To date, Blache-Cohen has worked, studied, or traveled in around 90 countries.

Yotam Polizer is the Global CEO of IsraAID – Israel’s biggest international humanitarian NGO – leading a team of 300+ currently active in 16 countries including a large-scale operation in Israel following the October 7th massacre.

IsraAID is currently supporting 16 communities across the country including Kibbutz Beeri, Nir Oz, the Nova survivors and the Bedouin villages with mental health support, education and relief.

Yotam Polizer is the 2023 Charles Bronfman award laureate.

Following the August 2021 Afghanistan crisis, Yotam and partners led an operation to evacuate 167 at-risk Afghans from the hands of the Taliban. In the September 2015 refugee crisis in Europe, he led IsraAID’s humanitarian mission in Lesbos, Greece, to support Syrian refugees on the island and also established IsraAID Germany, which provides long-term support for Yazidi and Syrian refugees in Germany.

During the last 15 years, Polizer has also built and led programs in Japan after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, and in South Korea to support the reintegration of North Korean defectors. He has also led missions in Nepal following the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake and in 2014 in Sierra Leone for Ebola survivors.

He has 15 years’ experience in education, humanitarian aid, and international development.

Prior to his work at IsraAID, Yotam worked in the Israeli Embassy in Nepal and was the program coordinator for Tevel Btzedek, an Israeli NGO focused on long term development programs in the Himalayas.

Yotam serves on the board of directors of SID-Israel (Society of International Development) and the advisory board of Justserve, an international service initiative.

Yotam is a Schusterman fellow. He graduated from Tel Aviv University & Israeli Open University where he studied African studies and international relations.

Merrill Zack is Vice President for Community Engagement of HIAS, responsible for ensuring that HIAS harnesses the extraordinary support for its work within the US Jewish community. She leads a high performing team to connect HIAS and the US Jewish community, more deeply engaging congregations, organizations and individuals in our work to improve the lives of refugees, asylum seekers and the forcibly displaced.

Merrill is responsible for high-level strategy development, developing responses to essential, evolving questions for HIAS, such as: How are they educating and organizing their constituent base on HIAS’s work around the world and on refugee issues writ large, so that they can and will make a difference? How does the Jewish community respond to events in the world and show up as a powerful advocacy voice? How do we build power and networks that have impact?

Merrill also serves as the Executive Director of HIAS NY, bringing HIAS’s various streams of NYC work together for greater impact. She has a BA in Religion & Anthropology from Kenyon College (OH), and a master’s degree in Public and nonprofit Management and Policy from New York University.

Lisa Eisen is Co-President of Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. She leads the organization’s US Jewish and Gender and Reproductive Equity grantmaking portfolios.

Leading Schusterman’s US Jewish portfolio, Lisa helps foster joyful and inclusive Jewish communities by engaging young people with Jewish values, deepening understanding of and connection to Israel, and strengthening the Jewish nonprofit sector. In addition to grantmaking, Lisa oversees the Schusterman Fellowship and REALITY Israel program. Lisa was the Founding Board Chair of Repair the World, the iCenter and the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC). She currently serves on the boards of Leading Edge, the Israel Institute and OLAM, and is the Founding Advisory Board Chair of SRE (Safety Respect Equity) Network.

Lisa also oversees Schusterman’s Gender and Reproductive Equity portfolio, which invests in efforts across the US to ensure all women have access to reproductive health care and knowledge, greater political and economic power and leadership, and safety in all aspects of their lives. Through this work, she chairs the advisory board of the Gender Equity Action Fund and serves on the executive committee of the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity.

Lisa has helped to expand Schusterman’s grantmaking for more than 20 years, serving as National Director and Vice President before becoming Co-President in 2019. Before joining Schusterman, she served for nine years as the Executive Director of Project Interchange Seminars in Israel. She also served as the DC Area Assistant Director for the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and as a Legislative Assistant to US Representative Bart Gordon. Lisa graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in history and earned her Master of Arts degree with honors in Israeli and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis is the 11th Chief Rabbi of Great Britain since the office was introduced in 1704. He is the religious figurehead for Jewish communities right across the Commonwealth. He was installed on 1st September 2013 in an historic ceremony attended by His Majesty King Charles III, then The Prince of Wales. 

Born in South Africa, he previously served as Chief Rabbi of Ireland and Rabbi of the Marble Arch and Finchley Synagogues.

As Chief Rabbi, he is a primary representative of the Jewish community to government, other faiths and civil society. He represented the Jewish community at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and participated in the Coronation of King Charles III.

Chief Rabbi Mirvis is known as a principled leader who has broken new ground in the fields of interfaith and social responsibility, as well as tackling a number of particularly complex or controversial issues, including the welfare of LGBT+ students in Orthodox Jewish Schools, antisemitism in the British Labour Party and advocating support for Israel in the aftermath of 7 October 2023. 

Chief Rabbi Mirvis serves as Associate President of the Conference of European Rabbis, President of the London School of Jewish Studies and is a regular contributor to press and broadcast media.

He has launched a number of innovative projects, such as his Centre for Community Excellence, the Ma’ayan female educators programme, the Ben Azzai social responsibility programme and Shabbat UK.

He received a knighthood last year from King Charles III in a ceremony at Windsor Castle.