Meet the outstanding Jewish educators we've selected to develop the curriculum for the Shapiro Family Fellowship program. This team's programs and materials will be designed to cultivate the fellows' relationships to Israel, to the Jewish community in New York, and to each other.

Rabbi Dara Z. Klarfeld

Dara Klarfeld is currently project director for the Shapiro Family Fellowship. Prior to this, Dara was executive director of JEXNET (formerly the North American Alliance for Jewish Youth), program director for the Panim Seminar in Washington, D.C., and a field worker for Koach College Outreach. Dara has extensive experience as a Jewish educator in both formal and informal settings. She has been a teacher at the Solomon Schechter High School in Long Island, at the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, and for many years in conjunction with United Synagogue Youth and Camp Ramah in the Berkshires.

Dara holds a master's degree and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and is the author of the revised edition of the sourcebook Community Responsibility in the Jewish Tradition.

Dara and her husband, Simon, live in Teaneck, New Jersey, with their two sons, Harry and Isaac.

David Bryfman (Educator, Class One)

David Bryfman is an Australian-born Jewish educator who has worked in formal and informal Jewish educational institutions in Australia, Israel, and North America. He completed his undergraduate degree and Master of Education in Melbourne, and graduated from the Melton Senior Educators Program at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Pardes Institute of Jewish Study. In Australia, David was the director of informal Jewish education at a large Jewish day school, a Hillel, birthright israel in Australia, and several other Israel experience programs. David lived in St. Louis, Missouri, for two years, where he was director of the Central Agency's Community Supplementary High School and Teen Initiative programs.

David is a graduate of Brandeis University's Informal Jewish Education Leadership Seminar and a doctoral student in Jewish education at New York University, focusing on Jewish adolescent identity development and experiential Jewish education. David is also a fellow in New York University's Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. He has most recently worked for JEXNET and Makom as an Israel educator.