SRE Network is a fiscally sponsored project of New Venture Fund (NVF).
Our Team
Elana Wien
Executive Director
Ventura, California
Elana Wien
Elana Wien (she/her/hers) is the inaugural Executive Director of the SRE Network, a national Jewish network of over 150 organizations committed to creating safe, respectful, equitable workplaces and communal spaces in North America. SRE Network is focused on building community, research & learning, and strategic community investments using an intersectional lens of gender justice.
A trusted community leader, Elana brings a wealth of experience. Prior to joining SRE Network in November 2019, she served as vice president for the Center for Designed Philanthropy at the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles where she led grant programs and provided philanthropic counsel to individuals and families, overseeing $100M in grants benefiting hundreds of nonprofits over the course of her tenure.
Elana has a strong track record of supporting innovation, building capacity, fostering meaningful partnerships, and taking projects and organizations to scale. With a passion for civil rights, community relations, strategic communications, fundraising and advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, her prior roles have included assistant regional director of the Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles and consultant to nonprofit clients including a regional medical center, a national early childhood think tank, a major LA County community clinic system, and a youth homeless services agency.
Elana graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in geography and received a master’s degree in anthropology from the Universidad de las Americas as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to Mexico. Elana is a Schusterman Foundation Fellow, a Wexner Field Fellow (2018-2021), a graduate of the Coro SoCal Women in Leadership Cohort 2, and a member of the LGBTQ Professionals Network of Southern California Grantmakers. She was featured as an “Amazing Woman in the World of Philanthropy” in local Los Angeles media. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she currently resides in Ventura, California with her wife and children, having also lived in the Bay Area, Washington, D.C., NYC, Brazil, Mexico and Spain.
Read the Press Release
Read Elana’s Open Letter to the SRE Community
Shaina Wasserman
Director of Strategic Operations
Boston, Massachusetts
Shaina Wasserman
Director of Strategic Operations
Boston, MA
Shaina (pronouns: she/her/hers) joined SRE Network as Director of Strategic Operations in February 2022. An experienced Jewish educator and senior leader with over 20 years of experience in Jewish communal institutions across the country, Shaina has a strong commitment to gender equity and a track record of embedding respectful workplace practices within Jewish institutions. In her prior role as vice president of communal relations at J Street, Shaina introduced new workplace policies and practices, including bringing in DEI expertise and respectful workplace training, and created WNBA, an affinity group for women, non-binary people, and allies at J Street. She also completed the Ta’amod respectful workplace training led by Fran Sepler. Shaina has professional and volunteer experience in faith-based community organizing, Jewish service learning, synagogue life, programming and internal operations, having previously held roles with The Jewish Education Project in New York, Congregation Beth Am in Northern California, and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. She received her master's degrees in Jewish Nonprofit Management and in Jewish Education from HUC-JIR in Los Angeles and dual bachelor’s degrees in History and in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University. Shaina resides in Arlington, Massachusetts, where she enjoys hiking, completing the NYT Bee and crossword puzzles, and spending time with her nieces.
Andrea Deck
Senior Program Officer
Washington, D.C.
Andrea Deck
Senior Program Officer
Washington, D.C.
Andrea (Pronouns: she/her) joins SRE Network as the Senior Program Officer in May 2023. As a community network developer and grantmaker, she has worked to scale programs and organizations internally and through grantmaking with a focus on impact evaluation. She has developed communities of practice to elevate communal professionals and their organizations through peer-education to become more efficient and networked agents of change for their communities.
Andrea has professional and volunteer experience in grantmaking, faith-based relational engagement and community organizing, data-driven decision making and impact analysis. She has previously held roles with HoneymoonIsrael Foundation, The Harold Grinspoon Foundation, and the Jewish Federations of Atlanta, Buenos Aires and New York in allocations. Her commitment to gender equity and respectful workplace practices have led her to community organizing roles including serving on faith-based boards and advisories for organizations such as Svivah (Jewish women's empowerment), the Jewish Fertility Fund, Jewish Women's International (policy and advocacy for survivors of domestic abuse) and in a myriad of both faith based and secular grant review roles around equity and inclusion. She received her master's degrees in Jewish Professional Leadership from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Social Work from Columbia University through support from the Federation's Executive Recruiting and Education Program. Andrea lives in Washington DC, where she enjoys exploring the city, knitting and traveling.
Samantha Weil
Community Manager
New York City, New York
Samantha Weil
Community Manager
New York City, New York
Samantha (pronouns: she/her/hers) joined SRE Network as the Community Manager in July 2022. Through her work in leadership development, she has dedicated her time to helping leaders and organizations become more powerful agents of change. Samantha pursued her passion for gender justice while previously working at National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) in a number of roles, including most recently as the Leadership and Events Manager. She provided individualized support to leaders and a network of sixty nonprofit organizations. She created leadership development and peer-learning programs to enhance organizations’ success and impact, as well as educated and mobilized advocates across the country through planning virtual events and in-person conferences. Previously, Samantha engaged and mobilized communities through strategic communications and event planning while working for the Advocacy Center of Tompkins County, the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, and the City of Olivette, MO. Born and raised in Saint Louis, she earned her BA in Documentary Studies and Production with minors in Women’s and Gender Studies and Jewish Studies from Ithaca College. Samantha currently resides in New York City, and in her free time she can be found seeing theater, hosting game nights, baking, reading, and traveling.
Julian Felvinci
Operations Assistant
Portland, Maine
Julian Felvinci
Operations Assistant
Portland, Maine
Julian (pronouns: he/they) joined the SRE Network Team in October 2022 as the Operations Assistant. In this role, he provides operations and administrative support to the SRE Network team to enable SRE to best serve its members and wider community in making positive change. He previously served as the Operations Coordinator for Save the World's Rivers, an environmental justice nonprofit, where he provided high-level executive and operations support. He is passionate about social, environmental, and gender justice as well as improving organizational efficiencies. Julian has also worked at Grove Collaborative, a Certified B Corporation, and as a Firefighter and Emergency Medical Technician. He received a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from the University of Southern Maine. Julian has enjoyed volunteering with Jewish community organizations and climate justice nonprofit groups. Born and raised in New York City, Julian now lives in the Greater Portland area of Maine.
Guila Benchimol
Senior Advisor, Research & Learning
Toronto, Canada
Guila Benchimol
Senior Advisor, Research & Learning
Toronto, Canada
Dr. Guila Benchimol (she/her/hers) is the Senior Advisor on Research and Learning with the SRE Network and was one of the key advisors who guided its launch in early 2018. As a researcher and public educator on sexual violence, she has crafted standards and policies for Jewish workplaces, institutions, and communal spaces and has been invited to address Jewish professionals and clergy across Canada and the US, as well as other faith communities. Guila is also trained in restorative and transformative justice facilitation.
Guila holds a PhD in Sociological Criminology and an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Her doctoral dissertation examined how victims of sexual violence become advocates and activists against sexual violence, and explored the processes that survivors experience, including victimization and disclosures, which lead them to advocate. Her MA thesis examined the 2011 murder of Leiby Kletzky (z”l) in Brooklyn, NY and its impact on the orthodox Jewish community as they discussed addressing communal concerns that arose from the crime and its aftermath.
Guila serves as a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence, where she works on projects related to homicide and domestic violence deaths, and sits on the board of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). Her first career as a Jewish educator informed her understanding of the need to address victimization of all kinds in Jewish communities. She was the Director of Judaic Studies at Tiferes Bais Yaakov where she also taught grades 9 through 12. She was also the Managing Director for the National Conference of Synagogue Youth in Canada, where she founded and directed an international camp for high school girls. Guila lives in Toronto and was raised in the Spanish Moroccan Jewish community there which was built by the families who fled Tangiers.
Nancy Kaufman
Senior Advisor
New York, NY
Nancy Kaufman
Senior Advisor
New York, NY
Nancy K. Kaufman (she/her) is a Senior Advisor with SRE Network, with a focus on engaging and empowering senior-level and mid-level Jewish women professionals. She previously served on the founding Advisory Board of SRE Network. Nancy has had a distinguished career as a public servant, advocate, and non-profit leader, and runs a strategic consulting and coaching practice serving nonprofit organizational leaders.
Nancy previously served for eight years as the CEO of National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), and prior to that served as the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Boston for twenty years, where she led the social justice, Israel advocacy, and governmental affairs agendas for Boston’s Jewish Federation and its agencies. Nancy has also held a variety of positions related to health and human services delivery in state and local government and in the nonprofit sector. She worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as Deputy Director of the Governor’s Social Policy Office, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Deputy Commissioner of the Welfare Department. At age 27, she was the founding executive director of a community action agency north of Boston. Kaufman was a founding board member of the Jewish Organizing Initiative (now JOIN for Justice) and the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. Kaufman has a certificate in executive coaching from Presence-Based Coaching, an ICF accredited coaching program. She is an active member of the Adaptive Leadership Network and currently serves as board chair of the NY Jewish Agenda.
Kaufman is a graduate of Brandeis University, received an MSW in community organization and social planning from Boston College School of Social Work, and a mid-career MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Among other honors, she is a recipient of an honorary doctorate in public service from Northeastern University. She received the Alumni Achievement Award (1987) and the Bernard Reisman Award for professional excellence (2011) from Brandeis University and the Albert C. Chernin award from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (2019). She was recognized four times as a “Forward 50” outstanding Jewish leader. In January 2022, she was appointed by President Biden to the Commission on the Preservation of American Heritage Abroad.
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board provides oversight and strategic guidance for the Safety Respect Equity Network. We are grateful to its members for their leadership:
Lisa Eisen
Advisory Board Chair
Co-President
Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies
Robert Bank
President & CEO
American Jewish World Service
Aaron Dorfman
Executive Director
A More Perfect Union
Idit Klein
President & CEO
Keshet
Danielle Natelson
Director of Special Projects
Leading Edge
Gamal Palmer
Charlene Seidle
Executive Vice President
Leichtag Foundation