The Team

Founders

Dóra Koranyi

Psychologist and tour guide in the Jewish quarter of Budapest. After completing her studies in Israel, Dóra returned to Hungary. where she worked actively in different Jewish organizations and also took an active role in a grassroot, egalitarian Jewish community.

Sebastian Mizrahi

Originally from Venezuela, Sebastian has lived most of his life between Israel and Europe. He studied Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and History and Tourism in Salamanca, Spain. Sebastian is currently based in Budapest, Hungary.

Speakers

Victoria Atlas

Victoria is PhD in medieval Spanish culture and history from the University of Alcalá (Spain) and M.A. in Spanish and Latin American Cultures from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She's the only official Hebrew guide in Spain

Joseph Benatov

Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches Hebrew. Joseph is originally from Bulgaria and a member of Sofia's Jewish community. Every summer takes groups to the Balkans.

Gavriella Bigio Dahan

Gavriella is an American/Israeli of Yemenite heritage. She is a "shlicha" (emissary) to Greece and has worked with various Jewish communities around the globe in informal education and programming.

Debra Brunner

Debra is originally from London and has been working in Belarus for over ten years growing The Together Plan in order to empower local Jewish communities and give them skills to rebuild and revive.

Miriam Camerini

Theatre director, writer, singer, actress, journalist and published author. Miriam is the founder and artistic director of Benhashmashot, the first professional Jewish Theatre in Italy, based in Milan. She's also a rabbinical student at Beit Midrash Har'El.

Lasha Shakulashvili

Lasha was born in one of the most multi-faith cities of the world - Tbilisi (Georgia). PhD in Jewish Studies Currently he is a lecturer of Yiddish at the Tbilisi State University in Georgia and is undertaking research at the National Library of Israel.

Judith Cohen

Canadian ethnomusicologist and singer. Born in Montreal, based in Toronto - Judith may frequently be found in Spain, Portugal, and wherever else her fieldwork, concerts, conferences, research and general curiosity and love of travel take her.

Merci Czimbalmos

Mercédesz is a researcher at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and project coordinator in the project "Reconstructing the Fate of Hungarian and Bačka-Serbian Victims of the Holocaust". She is an active member of the Jewish Community of Helsinki,

Łukasz Godlewski

Lukasz gradutated in Psychology of Intercultural Relations at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland. He is a volunteer in the Jewish community of Warsaw and official city guide.

Louise Arwas

Originally from London, Louise's father, grandparents and great-grandparents were all born in Egypt. She is involved in several related education projects, including organizing heritage tours to Cairo and Alexandria with former community members.

Nisya Isman Allovi

Nisya is Director and Curator of The Quincentennial Foundation Museum Of Turkish Jews. Graduated from the International Relations Faculty of Bilgi University and in Cultural Heritage and Tourism.

Manashe Khaimov

Community organizer, serial entrepreneur, and social innovator based in New York. Manashe is Adjunct Professor in Jewish Studies, with a specialty in History and Culture of the Mizrahi and Central Asian Jews at Queens College.

David Laor

David is a professional pastry chef from Israel. He studied in Paris in "le Cordon Bleu" and owns a boutique pastry factory and shop located in the Jerusalem mountains. His expertise is blending French classics with Israeli-oriented tastes and shapes.

Felipe Lichand

Felipe is a Brazilian historian, researcher and tour guide with a focus on South American Jewish heritage. He is an active member of São Paolo's Jewish community and part of the local "Hashomer Hatzair" youth movement leadership.

Artur Livshyts

Born in Minsk, as a child of the Soviet Union, Artur discovered Jewish life while staying in the US, where he studied Hebrew and had a bar mitzvah. Arthur has made it his life's work to strive for a revival of the Jewish community in Belarus.

Valeriya Nakshun

Originally from Dagestan in Russia, Valeriya is a Kavkazi Jewish culture writer and marketer. She's a Community Outreach Fellow at Sephardic Heritage International DC (SHIN-DC) and a former dancer at Silk Road Dance Company (SRDC).

Shoshana Nambi

Shoshana grew up in Uganda's Abayudaya Jewish community. She graduated in BBA at Kampala University before spending two years studying in Israel. Now she serves as a Student Rabbi for North Fork Reform Synagogue, New York.

Dóra Pataricza

Originally from Budapest, Dóra is a Post-doctoral researcher in History, research fellow at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and project director at the Szeged Jewish Community in Hungary, she is also a board member of WIZO Finland.

Ruben Shimonov

Social entrepreneur focusing on Jewish diversity and pluralism, Ruben has lectured throughout the world on the culture and history of the various Sephardic and Mizrahi communities. He is also a visual artist specializing in multilingual calligraphy interweaning Arabic, Hebrew and Persian.

Edwin Shuker

London-based businessman born in Baghdad, Public speaker campaigning on behalf of Jews from Arab countries, Edwin is the Vice President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and a former Vice President of the European Jewish Congress.

Zehava Tesfay

Zehava was born in Israel to a family that made Aliyah from Ethiopia. She graduated in Education, Sociology and Anthropology as well as having an MA in Community Organization Management, Zehava is currently a Jewish Agency emissary in New York.

Dominique Tomasov

Born in New York, raised in Argentina and based in Barcelona, Dominique is an architect specialized in Jewish heritage. She is an independent researcher, educator and activist as well as a founding member of the first egalitarian synagogue in Spain.

Joseph Vardakis

Originally from Greece, Joseph has lived and studied in the UK, South Africa and Israel. M.A in Psychobiology and currently completing his M.Sc in Clinical Psychology, he offers themed tours in Athens, including sites of Jewish interest.

Peninah Zilberman

Born in Israel to holocaust survivor parents, Peninah served the Toronto Jewish Community for over 40 years. Founder & CEO of "Fundatia Tarbut Sighet- Cultura si Educatie Iudaica" (FTS) and speaker at all programs sponsored by JDC in Romania.

Daniel Gurevich

Daniel was born in Vilnius and made Aliya to Israel before returning to Lithuania and becoming an expert in the travel industry. Today he runs his own travel agency with tours conducted in Hebrew, English, Russian and Lithuanian, and focusing on Jewish heritage, religion, history and culture.

Omar Mohammed

Omar is a historian from Mosul, Iraq, named by THE ALGEMEINER on the list of The Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life in 2020 for his work on the recovery and preservation of Mosul's Jewish histrory and cultural heritage. Known until recently only as the anonymous blogger 'Mosul Eye', through which Omar set out to inform the world about life under ISIS.

Yona Abeddour

Born in Morocco and based in Israel, Yona is a researcher examining identity formation among second and third generation Jewish-Moroccan immigrants in France and Israel. As a documentary filmmaker, his films explore Moroccan and Sephardic Jewry and highlight the dynamics of Muslim-Jewish relations.

Pablo Faivel Levinton

Originally from Argentina, Pablo is a fluent Yiddish and Chinese speaker. He studied for three years in Beijing, China, from where he started the popular traveling YouTube channel "A mole around the world" dedicated to show faraway places where there are, or have been, Jewish communities. He currently teaches Economics at the University of Buenos Aires.

Moisés Hassán-Amselém

Spaniard of Moroccan heritage, Moisés is an honorary lecturer on Holocaust Studies and Antisemitism at the University "Pablo de Olavide" in Seville, Spain. He is also the founder of "Jewish Spain Tour", a fully licensed Tour Operator specializing in Jewish travel inside the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco.

Nachshon Rodrigues

Nachson is the community leader and cantor of the Bendigamos community in Amsterdam. His family has been part of the local Portuguese Jewish community for four centuries. He works for the Jewish Seminary, teaches bar- mitzvah students, writes for a Jewish news website and organizes Jewish concerts.

Micki Weinberg

Micki was born in LA and currently lives in Germany. With a BA from the University of California and studies in Talmud at the Mir Yeshiva, he is the founder of SHIUR, a Berlin based international project and community innovating text-based discourse and other Jewish traditions for the 21st century.

Ruth Behar

Ruth was born in Havana, Cuba and grew up in New York. She is a cultural anthropologist, poet, and writer of fiction. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and is the James W. Fernandez Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Jono David

Jono David is an American-British independent photographer based in Tokyo who, since the 1990s, has traveled the globe to amass what is perhaps the most extensive archive of contemporary images of Jewish heritage and heritage sites in the world - a growing compendium of more than 120,000 photographs from 116 countries and territories.

Alan Niku

Alan Niku is a filmmaker, writer, and scholar of Mizrahi culture based in Los Angeles. A native speaker of Persian, he spends his time learning related Jewish languages, deciphering Judeo-Persian manuscripts, and interviewing community members about their stories. He is also a musician and an amateur chef, teaches history and Jewish heritage.

Sarah Benor

Sarah is Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion (Los Angeles campus) and Adjunct Professor in the University of Southern California Linguistics Department. She has published and lectured widely about Jewish languages, linguistics, Yiddish, American Jews, and Orthodox Jews.

Gregory Touretsky

Gregory was born in Novisibirsk, Russia. He was an activist in the raising Jewish community during the 90s. A few years ago Gregory relocated to the US, where he works as Product Manager and Architect. In his rare spare time, he continues to explore his family history - and the overall Jewish history of Siberia.

Alexander Vard

Alexander was born in Dublin into a once prominent furrier family. After studying History in Trinity College and the University of Edinburgh and many years traversing the globe, he settled in his hometown to found a walking tour company focusing on the history of Dublin's Jewish quarter, known locally as "Little Jerusalem".

Gloria Ribeiro

Glória was born in Lisbon and completed her university degree on National Tourist Guiding, becoming a Portugal's official guide in five languages in 2004. There's nothing that makes her happier than to show her country and its history, especially Portuguese Jewish history,

Eliaz Reuben-Dandeker

Eliaz Reuben-Dandeker is a 4th generation Israeli, descendant of leaders of the Bene-Israel community. Eliaz is the founder and owner of the "Kammodan Mocadem" publishing house. He is also a co-founder of the "Next generation group" of Jewish-Indian activists in Israel.

Emmanuelle Stein

Emmanuelle is from Paris, France. She graduated from Sorbonne's Master of International Relations, Humanitarian Aid and International Development. In April 2018, she set up the NGO "Exilophone" dedicated to the integration of refugees through arts and music.

Evgenia Kempinski

Evgenia has been an official St. Petersburg tour guide for over 15 years and is the owner of St. Petersburg Jewish Tours - a company offering Jewish travelers a unique experience of showcasing the best of the former USSR from a Jewish point of view. She currently lives in Haifa, Israel.

Yaffi Lvova

Yaffi is an experienced Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and has published several books on feeding kids. She is the creator of Toddler Test Kitchen, an early childhood cooking program that aims to introduce children to unfamiliar food in a creative and fun way.

Levi Meir Clancy

Originally from L.A. in 2014 Levi moved to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. In 2020 he incorporated "Foundation of Ours", which supports Jewish expression in Kurdistan and provides platforms for reconciliation and coexistence between all communities.

Rafram Chaddad

Born on the island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia, Rafram is an artist working between Tunis and New York. Rafram's work reflects on his personal life experiences and comments on broader socio-political issues including migration and displacement, identity and belonging.

Yale Strom

Yale is a professor in the Music Dept. at San Diego State University. He is also one of the world's leading ethnographer-artists of klezmer and Roma music and history. He has conducted extensive ethnographic research throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans since 1981.

Monica Unikel

Monica is a member of the Mexican Jewish community. She was part of the restoration team of the "Historical Synagogue" in Mexico, which used to be abandoned. She proposed to turn it into a Jewish Cultural Center open to the public, and since its reopening in 2010 she has been its director.

Claudia Hercman

Claudia was born and raised in Buenos Aires, into the Argentinian Jewish community. She is tour guide and translator. She is also a sculptor and painter, whose main subjects are Memory and Uprooting, in honor of her four grandparents who emigrated from Poland to Argentina in the ´30s.

Misha Gulko

Misha is a photo-journalist based in Brooklyn, New York, born in Odessa, Ukraine. He has worked with various photo agencies, covering news and entertainment events in and around New York City as well as in Europe, Americas and Asia, which took him to document the traces of Jewish Burma.

Cristian Ezri

Although born in Romania, Christian has lived for long periods in Austria, the US and Israel. He has a long history of involvement with the Jewish community as the former president of local Jewish youth movement and Founding Member & Director of the first Jewish Community Center of Romania.

Natalia Gross

Natalia has been involved with the Romanian Jewish community for many years, starting as a guide in the first ever Holocaust Museum in Romania and then coordinating JCC activities in Transylvania. She has also been an on-going volunteer for most of the Jewish events happening in Romania for the past 15 years.

Jael Silliman

A member of the the Baghdadi Jewish community of Calcutta (Kolkata) in India, Jael was an Associate Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Iowa, USA. She was also a Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, New York. She is the author of several papers, articles and books relating to Kolkata's cultural history.

Dror Sinai

Dror Sinai grew up in Israel to a family where prayers, chants, music and dance were all part of the culture and lifestyle. Today he is an international performer and educator. He received the Gail Rich award for supporting the arts, and is a founding member of the World Music Committee for the Percussive Arts Society.

Barry Judelman

Barry is the founder and President of New York Jewish Tours, a company that offers in-depth walking tours of various Jewish neighborhoods in New York. Barry is an active advocate in supporting and sustaining what remains of historic and important Jewish institutions and sites throughout the city.

Ebrahim Nonoo

Ebrahim is a Bahraini businessman whose family originally came from Iraq over a century ago. He sat in the upper house of the Parliament's Shura Council between 2001 and 2006 and is the first Jewish member of the council. He is also the chairman of the board of trustees of the "House of the Ten Commandments".

Anna Maria Baryla

Anna Maria Baryła is an experienced licensed tour guide in Krakow. She holds a B.A. in History and Jewish Studies from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In her work as a tour guide, she specializes in the Jewish History of Poland and Polish-Jewish relations.

Ian Fagelson

Ian is a member of the London Jewish community. After serving more than 35 years as a lawyer he decided to study history and qualified as a guide in the Cities of London and Westminster. Introducing guests to the splendors and secrets of his hometown is his passion.

Charlotte Thalmay

Charlotte is the founder and CEO of the tour company "Jewish Copenhagen", which is the largest company in Scandinavia promoting Jewish heritage tours. In her tours, Charlotte shares the dramatic and inspiring journey of the Danish Jews focusing on her own family stories of survival, prosperity, and catastrophes.

Craig Nudelman

Craig was born in Johannesburg, but moved to Cape Town in 2013. He quickly grew to love not only the beauty of this city, but also its incredible history. The Jewish story within it is fascinating, a history with twists and turns, which made him found "Mother City Jewish Tours", a company offering guided tours around Cape Town's Jewish heritage sites.

Rivka Campbell

Rivka is a Canadian Jew whose parents immigrated from Jamaica. She is the co-founder of Jews of Colour - Canada, the Executive Director for Beth Tikvah Synagogue and a Board Member of the North American Association of Synagogue Executives (NAASE). Rivka is a recognized speaker and educator on Jewish Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).

Ron Gomes Casseres

Ron descends from Sephardic Jews who came to Curaçao in 1690. He is a leader of the historic Mikvé Israel-Emanuel community. Now retired, one of his interests is the history of his Jewish community and its practices. He was awarded decorations by the Kingdom of the Netherlands for social and cultural contributions to the Curaçao community.