Our Board

Anne Sherman joined the Kolot board in 2016.  She, her husband Russell Langsam, and their two children have been members since 2011, when their son enrolled in the Children’s Learning Program. He became a b’nai mitzvah in 2016, and their daughter will begin the b’nai mitzvah journey this fall.  Anne finds the Kolot community fascinating and is very grateful for the opportunities for spiritual, intellectual, and emotional growth that it offers.  She currently co-chairs the Kolot fundraising committee. Contact President@kolotchayeinu.org.

Anne Sherman, President

Rebecca Vilkomerson, Vice President

Billy Weitzer has been a member of Kolot since 2014, not long after he and his wife, Rabbi Lisa Grant, moved to Brooklyn. They explored a variety of options for participating in a Jewish community and found that Kolot and Kolot’s community fulfill so much of what they were seeking. Billy has experience in strategic planning for non-profits and has been involved in fundraising and communications activities at Kolot. He believes strongly in supporting Jewish organizations and has served on other Boards, including the Five College Hillel in Amherst, the Jewish High School of Connecticut in Stamford, and the American Friends of the Jordan River Village in Israel. Billy is formerly the Executive Director of the Leo Baeck Institute, the archive of German-Jewish history, located at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.

Billy Weitzer, Treasurer

Laura Wernick has been a member of Kolot since 2012, and an occasional visitor at Kolot since the late 1990s. They are thrilled to be a part of a community where they can bring together their traditions, politics and spirituality, and where their multiracial, multifaith family is affirmed and embraced. They are a member of the White Anti-Racist Affinity group and their son attends the Children’s Learning Program. Laura is an associate professor at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Service and life-long organizer and activist. They have been active in Jews for Racial and Economic Justice for 30 years, where they have engaged in leadership roles in many JFREJ campaigns including the NY Caring Majority. Laura sits on the national steering committee of Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employer’s Network, has engaged in Palestine solidarity activism since the late 1980s, and has worked as an organizer of LGBTQ+ youth. Laura is dedicated to supporting Kolot to become an anti-racist congregation.

Rebecca Vilkomerson has been a member of Kolot since she moved to Brooklyn in 2009.  She was thrilled to find Kolot: a place where she could bring her full political and spiritual self and be surrounded by a warm community dedicated to building a better world. Her commitment to Kolot has only deepened over the years and she currently is on the Shamas team, and is very devoted to the Kolot knitting circle!  Both of her daughters went through the CLP. After ten years as the Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, Rebecca is currently working as an independent consultant, and is excited to bring her organizational development, strategic planning and organizing skills to the board.

Sandra Abramson has been a member of Kolot since 2011. She and her wife, Terry DeFiore, joined after Cantor Lisa married them. Kolot was a natural shul for Sandy to join. She has worked in the not-for-profit affordable housing world in New York since the late 70’s and Kolot’s focus on both Gemilut Chasidim and social justice appealed to her as places she would want to put her energy. Also, her desire for a strong Jewish community that posed, rather than answered, questions led her to give up some of her skepticism and jump in. She joined both committees and hasn’t regretted a moment of her work on them. Sandy is also a Torah study and Shabbat regular, again in spite or, perhaps because of, her skepticism.

Sandra Abramson, Secretary

Laura Wernick, Member-at-Large

Directors (Board Members)

Sally Charnow has been an active member of Kolot since 2003 and a fellow traveller since the beginning. A Professor of Modern European, Postcolonial History, and Women’s Studies at Hofstra University, she brings together her interdisciplinary training in Performance Studies and History writing on issues related to cultural production, art and politics, and minority subcultures in modern France and beyond. She is the author of Theatre, Politics and Markets in Fin-de-Siècle Paris: Staging Modernity (Palgrave, 2005), Edmond Fleg and Jewish Minority Culture in Twentieth-Century France (under contract with Routledge, UK), editor of The Great War and Artistic Expressions, A Hundred Years On (Peter Lang, forthcoming). Her articles and reviews have appeared in the collected volume Revising Dreyfus: Art and Law  (Brill 2014) and Europe through the Eyes of the Other (Wilfred Laurier, 2013), Radical History Review, American Historical Review, French History, Modern and Contemporary France, and H-France. Along with family and work, nurturing vibrant communal Jewish life has been a mainstay of her life.


Sally Charnow

Cynthia (Cindy) Greenberg (she/her) has been so delighted to find mishpukhe, community and a spiritual home at our beloved Kolot for 20+ years. She was honored to serve three terms as Kolot’s President (2009/5769-2015/5776), and has been involved in numerous congregational teams, including our membership, anti-racism, fundraising, safety, capacity-building, leadership development, and founding rabbinic transition efforts. An organizer and activist, she works as a consultant and strategist in the progressive sector. Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and Jewish Voice for Peace are her alma maters and longtime Jewish political homes, and she lives in Flatbush. 

Cynthia (Cindy) Greenberg

Yonii Bock was raised in Brooklyn and has lived in CT, MD, and AL, as well as in Windham, ME where she currently resides with her five-year-old son, Oliver.

Yonii has been a member of Kolot since 1994, when, at the age of four, she and her mother became two of Kolot’s very early “Shabbat regulars.” She began talking about becoming Bat Mitzvah at the age of six. 

Over time, Yonii has established meaningful multi-generational relationships and deep friendships with members of the community, clergy, board members, and staff. She has been an active participant in the Member Engagement Committee and the Race Working Group. She was instrumental in the start of the Knitting Circle, seeing it as an opportunity for members to connect, regardless of the fact that she cannot knit a stitch! 

As a young single mother and “Lash Artist” raised up in our community, she has always brought her diversity of opinion along with her extraordinary gift of laughter to our table, reaching and enriching us.

Yonii Bock

BC Craig has been a social studies teacher and teacher educator in New York City for more than 30 years. As an activist, BC has been fighting for economic, social, and racial justice with groups such as ACT UP, JFREJ, and Rise and Resist mostly through the organization of protests and as a trainer of nonviolent civil disobedience. BC has been a member of Kolot Chayeinu with Ruth Finkelstein since 1994, when they joined the first adult B’nai Mitzvah class. Following several years of study with Rabbi Lippman, BC converted to Judaism in 1996.

BC Craig

Elana Lancaster joined Kolot in 2015, after attending services and events starting in 2011 and realizing how grateful he was to have found a welcoming Jewish community that’s committed to justice, engaged with tradition, and where people grapple deeply with the values and questions that are important to them. He works as a curriculum developer, workshop facilitator, and technical assistance consultant specializing in transgender health and inclusion, and sexual and reproductive health. He's also a storyteller who hosts the monthly show Take Two Storytelling and teaches workshops on storytelling as a tool for art, activism, and community advocacy.


Elana Lancaster

Jessica Roff (she/her) was born and raised in so-called Brooklyn, occupied Lenape territory. She is a climate and environmental activist who has fought to ban fracking in New York state, to stop fossil fuel infrastructure build-out, and to support environmental justice and climate justice work. In her past life Jessica practiced Federal Indian law in Washington DC before moving back to Brooklyn. She has been involved to varying degrees with Kolot since 1993, though she didn't live in NYC for about half of that time. Jessica is a member of the Israel/Palestine Working Group, the White Anti-Racist Affinity Group, the Race Working Group, and was a member of the Social Justice Committee and of Planet A that moved Kolot to divest from Chase Bank because of its fossil fuel investments and in solidarity with the Standing Rock Water Protectors. Jessica has always felt drawn to Kolot because of its commitment to social justice, which is core to her Jewish identity. And, its commitment to music and food. She is an avid baker and cook and loves riding her bike whenever possible.

Jessica Roff

Nancy Workman (she/her) is honored to share in and serve this deeply caring and uniquely open-minded community, which she joined in 2009. As both a licensed psychologist who works with children, adolescents and families at New York City Health + Hospitals/Kings County, and as a former Bank Street-trained special education teacher who continues to teach and write, Nancy feels committed to helping to “repair the world” by supporting people as they find their voices, tell their stories and take their places at the “welcome table.” At home and in her family, this “table” includes a Grammy Award-winning audio engineer and a software engineer.

Nancy Workman

Barbara Gross has been a member of Kolot since we had Shabbat services in a circle in the balcony at Gethsemene. In her experience, no other synagogue is as truly committed to action for social justice, to the full participation of all that are willing, and in recent years, to racial justice. She has worked as a community and education justice organizer, trainer, and TA provider and through that work has gained experience in organization building, leadership development, facilitation, supervision of staff, and occasional proposal writing. She hopes to bring her ever-evolving understanding of race and racism and what it means to be white in a racist system, continuing to build upon the work of the Race Working Group as we strive to be an anti-racist congregation. For those of us who are white: what we have inherited, benefit from, and internalized is not our fault, but it is our responsibility to change our ways of being in our synagogue, city, and world. 

Barbara Gross

Autumn Leonard (she/they) inherited a love of equality from her parents who braved laws against interracial marriage and got legally hitched in 1960. Her love of storytelling began when she was eight years old and accidentally stumbled into a stage debut at the Edinburgh Fringe. That combination of justice and story has infused her work ever since. 

Autumn has been leading racial and social justice trainings since 2001. A mother of two, Autumn believes avidly in the importance of play in education, that liberation begins in our bodies, and that you're never too young or too old to start talking and taking action about race! She applies playfulness and progressive education techniques to leading workshops and conversations for parents and kids about race, using yoga and mindfulness techniques through Body Get Free. 

A former chair of the Race Task Force at Kolot Chayeinu and previous Kolot K'tanim early childhood teacher. Autumn is a member of the Jewish Women of Color Resilience Circle, an Elder member of the Jew of Color Caucus at Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and a core member of the Black Jewish Liberation Collective. 

Autumn is a RYT 500 yoga teacher who graduated with a BA in Theater Studies at Yale and holds an MFA in Film from UT Austin. Autumn is an anti-racism trainer and facilitator with Body Get Free, the founder of Angry Momma Yoga and teaches in NYC schools through the Urban Yoga Foundation.

Autumn Leonard

Dana J. Schneider has been engaged in building progressive Jewish communities since high school, and has been a part of the beloved Kolot community for over 20 years. She's grateful for a congregation that welcomes everyone to show up as our full selves, and has served Kolot in various capacities over the years: as a member of the fundraising committee, as a high holiday coordinator, and as a consultant. As a parent since 2019, Dana is especially grateful for Kolot as a place for Jewish families of all kinds. Her professional work has always been in non-profit fundraising, event planning, and organizational development (in the Jewish, arts and culture, and social change sectors) and she is excited to get to help continue to build and grow Kolot. Born and bred in Brooklyn, Dana lives with her wife Kathleen, their daughter Esperanza, and their elderly chihuahua mix Kaylee in Canarsie.

Dana Schneider

Kolot has had so many incredible leaders over the years. Here are our former Board Presidents:

  • Andrea Arzt

  • Ruth Finkelstein

  • Adrienne Fisher

  • Cindy Greenberg

  • Carolyn Klaasen

  • Natalie Levy

  • Phillip Saperia

  • Andy Stettner

  • Arthur Strimling

  • Lisa Zbar

Want to learn more about how Kolot is structured? See our organization chart here.