Jewish Community Leaders Program

Rae Ringel is a certified executive coach and founding President of The Ringel Group. She is a faculty member at the Georgetown University Institute for Transformational Leadership and founding director of their certificate program in the Art of Facilitation and Design. She is also adjunct faculty at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review. Rae is in high demand as an innovator in the areas of coaching, facilitation, and training across sectors. She enables a growing list of executives in some of the most successful Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and government agencies to become more effective managers and stronger communicators with a formidable leadership presence. Rae offers deep experience in the areas of fundraising and board development. Prior to starting The Ringel Group, Rae was the Director of Professional and Volunteer Development at United Jewish Communities, a two-billion-dollar annual enterprise that provides global humanitarian and development assistance. In this capacity, Rae devised an award-winning interactive web-based training program and myriad conferences in service of over 20,000 professionals and volunteers. Rae is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Rochester. She received her Masters degree in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, and earned her Leadership Coaching certification from Georgetown University. She was a Wexner Graduate Fellow and now holds a faculty position with the Wexner Foundation. Rae lives in Washington DC with her husband and four children.

Rabbi Avi Strausberg is the Senior Director of National Learning Initiatives at Hadar, and is based in Washington, DC. Previously, she served as the Director of Congregational Learning of Temple of Aaron in St. Paul, Minnesota. Avi received her rabbinic ordination from Hebrew College in Boston and is a Wexner Graduate Fellow. She also holds a Master’s degree in Jewish Education. Energized by engaging creatively with Jewish text, she has written several theatre pieces inspired by the Torah and maintains a Daf Yomi haiku blog in which she writes daily Talmudic haikus. Avi is most grateful for her wife, Chana, and three children, Ori, Niv, and Amit.

Beth Cousens is known nationally for her vision for a more engaged and authentic Jewish experience. She helps organizations create and adapt projects that meet the opportunities and challenges of 21st century Judaism, specifically programs that are accessible and rich with Jewish tradition. She has been a member of the senior professional teams at the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund (San Francisco Bay Area), the Jewish Federations of North America, and Hillel International. As a consultant, she has worked with dozens of community-based and national organizations on research and initiative design, program evaluation, strategic planning and organizational assessment, professional and leadership development, and more. She teaches clients to launch and evaluate experiences that not only gather participants together, but also advance students’ own capacities and skills. A master collaborator, she excels at leading teams of philanthropists, lay leaders, professionals, and other diverse stakeholders.

Beth Cousens holds a PhD in the Sociology of Jewish Education from Brandeis University, an MA with honors in Jewish Studies from Baltimore Hebrew University, an MSW from the University of Maryland, and a Certificate in Jewish Communal Service from the Baltimore Institute in Jewish Communal Service. She received a BA from the University of Michigan in English and Creative Writing. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and children.