Board of Directors

Board Members for 5785 (2024-25)

Executive Committee

Sharon Gornstein
President

Sharon Gornstein is a retired attorney who, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, spent her career in the public interest law arena. She spent nearly 12 years at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia and the rest of her career as a partner in a small law firm that limited its practice to representing people seeking Social Security Disability and/or SSI benefits. She was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, but has been a proud Philadelphian since 1981. Sharon has been a member of Mishkan Shalom since the early 1990s, and both of her daughters were bat mitzvah’d at Mishkan. She loves spending time with her family, including a daughter who lives in D.C. and a daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter in Pittsburgh. Sharon is an avid Phillies fan and, much to her husband Jeff’s frustration, wants to fulfill a bucket list of visiting every baseball park in the country. This is Sharon’s second stint serving on Mishkan’s board.

Mindy Fernandez-Sheinbaum
Co-Vice President

Mindy and her husband, Odamis, have been involved with Mishkan for fifteen years, since their oldest child, Ben, was a toddler, participating in monthly Tot Shabbats. Over this time, Mindy has served as a High Holiday Bimah Director, on the New Member Committee, and for the past three years on the Acts of Caring Committee. Mindy is a non-profit leader with in-depth experience at start-ups building systems, best-practices, organizational strategy, leadership capacity, and partnerships at the intersection of impact and empathy She has spent the past 15 years building and facilitating people-centered processes, systems, programs and talent strategy as an independent consultant and EdFuel Leadership for Educational Equity and as a founding Director of Alumni Affairs Teach For America. Mindy enjoys collaborating with others as a relationship builder, program and people manager, coach, trainer and facilitator, and strategic problem solver for social impact and equity. Mindy got her start as a K-5 SpEd teacher in South Louisiana, holds an MSW with a concentration in community organizing and program planning from Hunter College, CUNY.

Rivka Jarosh
Co-Vice President

Rivka Jarosh has been a member at Mishkan Shalom for 30 years. She came because Rabbi Brian, rabbi emeritus, asked her to teach in the new school. She stayed on as a teacher for 28 years and was the principal for 13 years, in addition to teaching. Rivka thinks of Mishkan as her dear community. She attends services regularly, coordinates summer services and reads Torah often. She organizes Mishkan members who are providing meals for people at the Eastern Delaware Valley Life. She makes sure to meet every member of Mishkan. She has enjoyed serving on the board with the education portfolio as liaison to the Congregational School, Lifelong Learning Committee, and Library Committee, and loves the challenge in her current role as vice president. Rivka is a retired Philadelphia School District teacher. She enjoys doing activities with her partner, Craig, now that he is retired. She also spends fun time with her three grandchildren. She is involved politically with POWER, serving on the organization's education strategy team. She is the Democratic precinct leader in her Havertown area.

Elissa Goldberg
Secretary/Communications

Elissa Goldberg, Board Secretary, and her spouse, Anndee Hochman, have been members of Mishkan Shalom since 1993. Mishkan has been their spiritual home as they welcomed their daughter, Sasha, into the world, as she celebrated her bat mitzvah, and as they have lost parents. Elissa has served on two rabbinic search committees and was Co-chair of the Spiritual Life Council two different times. She has planted many trees and bulbs as a member of the Site Stewards and is happy to be a regular player in the Monday Mah Jongg circle. She is in her second term as Secretary of the Board. Outside of Mishkan, Elissa is a social worker by training, working as the Program Director in the Office of Community Engagement at Drexel University College of Medicine.

Maria Veneziano
Treasurer

Maria and family (wife Marcy Boroff, daughter Hannah) have been members of Mishkan since the late 1990s. After a long career in Fundraising and Development for various non-profit organizations, Maria now owns and operates a fine art/craft event planning business. For the past 9 months, Maria has served as Assistant Treasurer of Mishkan Shalom under the guidance of Janet Garretson.

Members at Large

Meredith Barber
Membership

A proud Mishkan member since 1999 with her husband, Michael Schwager. Meredith Barber has served Mishkan in a variety of roles, currently as a Board member with the membership portfolio, as Lead Levite, and as facilitator of the Monday morning drop-in spiritual direction group. When not engaged in Mishkan activities, Meredith works as a clinical psychologist and enjoys making art.

Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer
Development

Nancy is a professor (emerita) from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where she was ordained in 1982. Nancy also holds a PhD from Temple University in Interreligious Studies. She is a proud founding member of Mishkan Shalom where she raised her children. Nancy now teaches, very part time, at the Aleph Ordination Program (on line) and is co-chair of Philadelphia Sisters Waging Peace, as well as being an early member of Rabbis for Cease Fire. She and her partner, Seth, have participated in half marathon races (walking) in 29 states.

Marc Jacobs
Spiritual Life

With a Bachelor of Arts degree from Temple University, Marc’s career included non-profit and small business marketing and management. As a second phase of life, Marc moved into the world of behavioral health and Life Coaching. His current involvements feature organizing and facilitating Jewish Men’s Groups for Menschwork, developing group processes to help improve Radical Relationality, and writing both spiritual and secular poetry. He has been a member of Mishkan for going on 30 years. He has two adult children and lives in Valley Forge with his partner, Joy.

Ali Michael
Education

Ali Michael joined Mishkan Shalom 15 years ago and has since celebrated a commitment ceremony, two baby namings and a bat mitzvah in the Mishkan community (and social hall). Ali has a Ph.D. in teacher education from the University of Pennsylvania; and her work focuses on working with teachers to build more equitable schools and classrooms. Ali is the co-founder and co-director of the Race Institute for K-12 Educators. Her writing and speaking, which can be found at alimichael.org, focuses on addressing the questions that teachers ask about race, racial inequality, Israel-Palestine, and more.

Jayson Tonkon
Building and Aesthetics

Jayson Tonkon joined Mishkan Shalom with his wife and three children in 2014 and spent many years as an active member of the Education Committee before joining the Board in mid-2024. Jayson was raised in a Conservative Jewish home in Southern California, with roots in Philadelphia, and moved east to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Wharton School of Business. Jayson subsequently received his Masters in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and began his career as a commercial real estate lender in Los Angeles before moving back to Philadelphia in 2008. Jayson is currently a Senior Managing Director with Webster Bank’s Commercial Real Estate Group, where he focuses on institutional real estate lending opportunities.

Sharon Weinman
Tikkun Olam Portfolio

“My wife, Pat Quigley, and I have been members of Mishkan for more than 30 years. Mishkan has been core to our lives. We’ve celebrated our most important life cycle events here—our two children’s and Pat’s b’nai mitzvot, and our wedding. I spent five years on the Mishkan board in the early 2000s and more recently have been POWER Interfaith’s liaison with Mishkan, leading our participation in POWER’s racial and economic justice work and voter engagement. I am inspired that our community takes to heart the Pirket Avot’s admonition to do our part to heal the world. I would be honored to fill the Tikkun Olam portfolio on the Mishkan board.”

Rabbi Shawn Zevit
Ex officio