Rabbi Andrew Kaplan Mandel (he/him) has spent his career dedicated to developing leaders for social change. A seventh-grade English teacher in South Texas after graduating from Harvard College, Andrew spent 16 years designing the national leadership programming at Teach For America and earned his doctorate at Teachers College in adult learning and leadership. In 2014, he co-founded Strong East Ramapo, a volunteer advocacy organization addressing educational inequity in his hometown. Seeking to grow Jewish communities that live out the Biblical call for justice, Andrew entered rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College in 2018 and has served Union Temple, Orangetown Jewish Center and Temple Sinai of Newington as a pastoral intern, adult educator, service leader and social justice coordinator. He began developing Tzedek Box in 2018, receiving support from his Wexner Heritage Program cohort, the "Be Wise" Fellowship and the Atra Rabbinic Fellowship. Co-curator of the recent “Justice You Shall Pursue” exhibition at the Bernard Heller Museum and one of the “36 to Watch” in 2023 by New York Jewish Week, Andrew is now a Rabbi and Director of Online Community Engagement at Central Synagogue in New York City. He lives with his partner, Mozart, in Long Island City, Queens, and is uncle to two Brooklyn nephews.

Jill Rodde currently serves as Senior HR Strategist for the Division of Student Affairs at UC Berkeley. She grew up in Minnesota, where she graduated from Carleton College in 2009. Jill has over a decade of experience in strategy, operations, and talent management in the education sector. She also served as the founding Strategy and Operations Manager for Revolve, a peer-led community dedicated to personal, professional, and spiritual growth through the lens of Jewish values. Jill lives in Portland, OR with her husband.

Rabbi Heather Shore was ordained by HUC-JIR in 2023, and is currently pursuing an additional master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling & Spiritual Integration through Fordham University’s Graduate School of Religion. She is passionate about integrative, creative, and accessible modalities of Jewish spiritual support that foster personal resilience and communal care. Whether serving individuals, communities, experiential programs, or clinical clients, Heather strives to support spiritual ecosystems through sustainable, values-aligned strategic thinking. Combining pastoral support and her clinical studies, Heather’s recent areas of research include spiritual care for climate-related grief and anxiety. In all of her work, Heather aims to provide holistic, psycho-spiritual support through a Jewish lens. Heather holds undergraduate degrees in Judaic Studies and Studio Art from Binghamton University, and spent the years leading up to rabbinical school working for a variety of Jewish experiential programs as an educator, program developer, and logistics coordinator. 

She is a certified Yoga Teacher and avid plant-lover, and wrote her rabbinic thesis on Biblical Botany. When not at work, Heather enjoys tending to her many (many) plant babies and spending time with her very enthusiastic pit mix, Luna. 

Edon grew up in South Florida and the Chicago suburbs, before spending 4 years in the city of Chicago studying at Columbia College Chicago. At CCC, he got his degree in Music Technology, focusing on audio, music, and iOS app development.

A lifelong Conservative Jew, Edon first sparked an interest in Jewish learning during his time at various Jewish day schools throughout elementary and middle school. Edon is a proud Ramahnik, having spent two summers as a camper and six on music staff at Camp Ramah Wisconsin, where he taught lessons in various instruments and audio tech. He describes his time at camp as “instrumental” to his Jewish identity and particular love for Jewish music.

When he’s not helping create a space for online social justice, Edon works as a freelance video editor, audio engineer, and podcast producer, and spends his time free time playing video games, watching TV, and hanging out with his partner Agnes.

Lisa Gaetjens grew up in Seattle and attended Carleton College in Minnesota where she majored in Spanish and education. She moved to NYC in 2011 and earned a masters degree in Bilingual (Spanish/English) Elementary Education at Bankstreet College of Education. In her 6 years as a teacher she taught students from 3 years old to high school in public, private, charter, and home school settings. Most recently she worked as the Chief of Staff and Household Manager for a family in Manhattan where she learned how to solve just about any kind of problem. 

She served on the first National Board of Advisors for Base, a pluralistic Jewish community rooted in radical hospitality, learning, and service. She lives with her husband and toddler in NYC. She can usually be found chasing her son around Central Park with an everything bagel in one hand and coffee in the other. 

Jodie Sadowsky is a lawyer and freelance writer. She graduated from Cornell University and Boston University School of Law, then spent fifteen years working in commercial real estate and the affordable housing industry. Jodie now practices as a freelance writer and resides in Connecticut with her husband and their three children where they are happily involved with the reform congregation, Temple Sinai of Newington. You can read about Jodie’s introduction to Tzedek Box at Kveller.

Dena Robinson is a daughter of the warm Caribbean seas between Jamaica and Barbados. She is a first-generation Black, Jewish, and queer woman who organizes, educates, lives, works, and plays in Baltimore, MD, and the DC Metro area. 

Dena is passionate about collective and individual liberation and healing, storytelling (in all its forms), and centering joy, play, and pleasure in everything she does. Leading from her values and lived experience, Dena has worked as an organizer around the areas of race equity, education, and campus sexual assault, taught immigrant and refugee students English, designed social justice and race-equity focused curricula, taught students how to tell their stories in front of the camera, and facilitated workshops around race, white supremacy, and identity. 

When she's not busy working as a civil rights attorney and enforcing Title VII, Dena can be found nurturing her passions. Dena runs a  DEI facilitation and consulting practice, Radical Roots, alongside her co-founder, a fellow Jewish woman of color. Through her DEI work, Dena has facilitated or consulted with BBYO, Avodah, the Safety, Respect, and Equity Network (SRE), Netflix, and Reddit, among others. She also is the DEI Manager for the Revolve Community, a peer-led Jewish community. When Dena isn't wearing multiple hats, you'll find her hiking all over Maryland with her partner, Tia, and their two dogs, Moose and Stanley, lifting heavy things while training for Strongwoman competitions, cooking, or reading good books. 

Professionally, Dena graduated cum laude from the University of Maryland Carey School of Law with a healthcare law certificate. She has over 10 years of experience in community organizing around race equity, education, and campus sexual assault. Dena also holds an M.S.Ed. from The Johns Hopkins University. Currently, Dena works as a Trial Attorney for the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.

Darin Lim Yankowitz grew up in the Bay Area, where he attended some of the best and worst public schools in California. One of his most vivid childhood memories is his father sitting him down in the fourth grade to say, “If you want to get into college, you need to earn straight As. And even that might not be enough. Because an A in Oakland isn’t even worth a C in Piedmont.” When Darin’s family later moved from Oakland to Piedmont, it changed his life—and demonstrated to him with utter clarity how racism and poverty shape educational opportunity, setting children with equal potential on vastly different life trajectories. Those experiences, alongside the Jewish values of tzedakah and tikkun olam, motivate Darin to make educational equity his life’s work.

Darin works for Teach For America, leading human capital for their national recruitment team. He graduated from UC San Diego with highest distinction, writing his undergraduate thesis on our moral obligations to the global poor. Darin also holds an MA from Teacher’s College at Columbia University in educational leadership, and he is in the final year of doctoral studies at Vanderbilt University, where he is researching how quantitative analysis can be used to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion in multicultural organizations. Outside of work, Darin enjoys high-altitude trekking, practicing handstands, and learning about nutrition science.

Darin lives in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, with his partner, Naomi, their two children, Akemi and Takashi, and their dog, Genki. He is acutely aware of the fact that he is the only one in the family whose name does not end in the letter “i.”