Yated:
Cultivating Resilience

Ayal Beer is the Israel Program Director at M². An experienced Jewish educator, Ayal has been managing a pre-Army leadership educational program focused on Jewish Israeli identity and social change since 2017. Prior to that, he participated in training educational staff for a variety of Jewish organizations in the U.S and Canada for over 5 years. Ayal earned a B.A in Social Work at Bar Ilan University and a Masters degree in Talmud and Religious Law from Shechter Institute. A licensed tour guide, Ayal lives with his wife and four kids in Kibbutz Hannaton in the Lower Galilee and is a graduate of SEC 1.

Rabbi Lisa Goldstein is a teacher, consultant, and certified practitioner of NARM, a modality of healing complex trauma. She teaches a wide variety of online courses with an emphasis on spiritual wisdom, prayer and meditation, and the teachings of R. Nahman of Breslov. She also works one-on-one to support people in their journeys of healing and spiritual growth.

Educated at Brown University and Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Goldstein has almost 25 years of executive experience, having served as the director of Hillel of San Diego, and the executive director of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. She is a mentor for M2’s Senior Educator Cohort and a Teaching Assistant for NARM’s Online Basic Training.

She lives in New York City with her husband, Igal Harmelin, and their foster son, Seydou.

Clare Goldwater is a Jewish educator and leadership coach with expertise in professional and organizational development and experiential education. Working in close partnership with a wide range of organizations,  Clare oversees the development, dissemination of M²’s approach and ideas about experiential Jewish education, through consulting projects to Jewish organizations, publications, curricula materials, and more. Clare has a BA in English Literature from Oxford University, an MA in Jewish Education from Hebrew University, and a Certificate in Leadership Coaching from Georgetown University. She also holds passports from those three countries and lives in Jerusalem with her family.

Jessica Lott is the Campus Rabbi at Northwestern Hillel. She has worked in the Hillel world for fifteen years – both on campus and at Hillel International – specializing in Jewish education, student engagement, student wellbeing, professional development and curriculum development. She was an M² 18×18 Fellow and focused her work on how we talk with college students about God. Jessica’s interest in stories, how we tell them, and what we learn from hearing and telling them is what led her to the rabbinate. A deep investment in pluralism and the relationship between tradition and innovation led her to a career in Hillel.

She enjoys singing, baking, puzzles, hosting, and gardening. Jessica lives in Chicago with her husband and children.

Abby joined M² in 2022 as Program Director of the Center for Values in Action and spent her career prior to that working in a variety of settings including Jewish camping, academia, and as a clinical therapist. Abby is a graduate of M²’s Camp Educator’s Cohort and the current community coordinator for M²’s Chicago Educator’s Cohort. Abby lives in Evanston with her partner Zach, her 3 adorable kiddos Max, Ayla, and Asa, as well as her mini shih-tzu Badger.

Shlomit Naim Naor is the Israel Program Director at M² and a published poet with over 20 years of international experience in Jewish education. Previously, she was a training and content specialist at Makom, the educational content unit of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and advised the Jerusalem Education Bureau. Shlomit has served as a Jewish Agency community emissary in London and as chair of the Israeli Batei Midrash Network. She is the author of two award-winning books of poetry, No End in Sight (2016) and The Things We Are Not Talking About (2020). Shlomit strongly believes in creative writing as an impactful tool in experiential education. Shlomit is a graduate of the Mandel School of Educational Leadership, holds a bachelor’s degree in Hebrew literature and philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a master’s degree in creative writing from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.