Board of Directors

The following community members are serving as JFCS East Bay’s Board of Directors for Fiscal Year 2023 (July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023).

Paul Raskin, President
Sam Alcabes, Vice President
Janis Burger, Secretary
Marshall Langfeld, Treasurer

Elizabeth Friedman Branoff
Rena Davis
Stewart Florsheim
Heike Friedman
Daniel Gorback
Jeff Ilfeld
Suzan Kotch
Rachel K. Leff-Kich
Eric Leve
Aliza Metzner
Harris Mojadedi
Shamila Rahim
Marjorie Stamper-Kurn
Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan

Paul Raskin, President

Paul is a retired executive previously managing customer service and telecommunications organizations in the health care and financial service industries. He is a graduate of Cornell University and also earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Michigan, both in Operations Research. Paul has served as a member of several community boards, including at Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland where he was a board officer, trustee, and president of the board. Paul and his wife, Flo, live in Piedmont, where they raised two children. He joined the JFCS East Bay board in 2016 and became president in 2021.

Sam Alcabes, Vice President

Sam is a real estate, land use, and small business attorney living in Rockridge. He grew up in the East Bay, attending nursery school at Congregation Beth El in Berkeley, and then participating as staff throughout college and law school in most aspects of the congregation’s youth programming; for the last six years, he has been a member of the Camp Kee Tov Board. Sam has volunteered or worked on political campaigns locally and nationally. He began his legal career as an immigration attorney and remains active in the space, including raising funds to cover DACA application fees and serving on the governing board of The Bare Life Review, a literary journal devoted to work by immigrant and refugee authors. Sam joined the JFCS East Bay board in 2019.

Janis Burger, Secretary

Janis retired in early 2018 from First 5 Alameda County after twenty years as Deputy Director and later CEO. She received her MPH from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and worked for the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency for fifteen years with a focus on maternal, child, and adolescent health. She provided leadership to many countywide initiatives, including the Alameda County School-Based Health Center Coalition, Help Me Grow Developmental Screening, and others. Janis has served on many national, state, and local advisory boards in public health, early childhood policy, and health care. In retirement, Janis has been pursuing her passion of documentary photography and is continuing to consult in early childhood policy. Janis lives in Berkeley and joined the board in 2018.

Marshall Langfeld, Treasurer

Marshall recently retired after serving for twenty-nine years as the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Telecare Corporation, a provider of mental health services to individuals with serious mental illnesses. Marshall currently serves on Telecare’s Board of Directors and previously served on the boards of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the East Bay and Temple Beth Abraham, where he was the Treasurer. He attended Indiana University and began his career with the public accounting firm KPMG in St. Louis, Missouri. Marshall and his wife, Lynn, live in Alameda and have a son. Marshall joined the board in 2017.

Elizabeth Friedman Branoff

Elizabeth Friedman Branoff currently serves as Executive Director, Major Gifts at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Over 12 years at Berkeley Haas, she has led major gift strategies and raised philanthropic gifts to support the school’s priorities of innovation, inclusion, and sustainability. She also secured gifts for Institutes and Centers including the Institute for Business and Social Impact, the Center for Responsible Business, the Center for Social Sector Leadership, the Clean Tech to Market (C2M) program, and the Center for Gender, Equity & Leadership. Elizabeth was formerly the Bay Area Director of the American Jewish World Service and serves on several boards including Berkeley Hillel. Elizabeth and her husband live in Albany and have two teenage children.

Rena Davis

Rena Davis is a native of the Bay Area, living across the East Bay in Oakland, Pinole, and Richmond. Ms. Davis attended Howard University and graduated from UC Santa Cruz and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. A former staffer for Senator Boxer, Rena has led policy teams in academia, nonprofit, and most recently tech. Ms. Davis is Google’s Head of State Government Affairs and Public Policy, California and serves on the Board of CalAsian Chamber. Rena enjoys reading, gardening, and hiking with her corgi mix and golden retriever.

Stewart Florsheim

Stewart worked in the software industry for more than 40 years, mostly leading global teams that develop technical and marketing content. He was born in New York City, the son of refugees from Hitler’s Germany, and has lived most of his adult life in the Bay Area. Stewart has a BA in Journalism and Philosophy from Syracuse University, and an MA in English (Creative Writing) from SF State University. He is the author of four books of poetry and the editor of Ghosts of the Holocaust, an anthology of poetry by the second generation. Stewart also serves on the board and Executive Committee of End of Life Choices California, and mentors students for Oakland Promise. He lives in Piedmont with his wife, Judy, and has two grown daughters, Orli and Maya. Stewart joined the board in 2021.

Heike Friedman

Heike joined the board in July 2020. Her professional background is in journalism, public relations, and fundraising. Currently a Program Officer at the German Historical Institute Washington’s Pacific Regional Office in Berkeley, she previously worked as Director of Development for Tehiyah Day School and for the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. A German native, Heike received her M.A. in German literature from the Ruhr-University Bochum. She loves traveling, especially exploring big cities and dragging her husband and her daughter to art museums all over the world. Heike lives in Berkeley and has been a member at Temple Beth Abraham for nearly twenty years.

Daniel Gorback

Dan is a corporate attorney who currently serves as General Counsel to an orthodontic technology company and consults with various other life science companies. He grew up in Southern California and attended UC Santa Barbara for undergrad and UCLA for law school. Dan’s pro bono activities include representing several refugees in asylum proceedings through the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as advising the California Kindergarten Association. Dan and his wife, Gennie, live in Orinda with their daughters, Tilly and Cece, who are currently progressing through preschool at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette. Dan joined the board in 2021.

Jeff Ilfeld

Jeff completed his medical education in Internal Medicine at the UC Davis Medical Center and served as Medical Director for the Healthcare Empowerment Alliance for People Living in Transitional Living Project in Sacramento County. He then transitioned to working as a physician at the Kaiser Oakland Medical Center, holding various leadership and administrative positions and serving as Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program. Being a lover of the outdoors with a passion to address climate change, he is now in the second phase of his career as CEO of California Clean Energy, which specializes in helping nonprofit organizations utilize solar energy without capital expense. He is a member at Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland, where he served on the board as Men’s Club president. Together with his wife, Jo, he is the proud parent of three teenagers. Jeff joined the JFCS East Bay board in July 2020.

Suzan Kotch

Suzan was born and raised in the East Bay, graduated from UC Davis, and went on to get her Masters in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. She graduated from the Title IVE Public Child Welfare training program with a concentration in Child and Family Services. Suzan was a Child Welfare Worker in Alameda County for thirteen years and specializes in working with infants and young children in the foster care system. She is currently the Social Worker Director at East Bay Children’s Law Offices, a nonprofit that represents children in the foster and probate court systems. Suzan is a Camp Newman/Swig Alumni and taught Sunday School and Midrasha for more than thirteen years. She and her husband live in Oakland with their two young children. Suzan joined the board in 2019.

Rachel K. Leff-Kich

Rachel grew up in Berkeley participating in Congregation Beth El with her family. She has now been a family law attorney for almost ten years. During law school, she was extremely active with public interest student groups and clerked with several nonprofits and social justice organizations. She also worked part-time at an immigration law firm. Rachel maintains her social justice roots by volunteering at GLIDE serving meals several times a year; she has also served on the Public Interest and Social Justice Endowment Board at Santa Clara University, the OneJustice Strategy Council, and the Art Point board of directors. Currently living in San Francisco, Rachel remains deeply connected to the East Bay and joined the board in July 2020.

Eric Leve

Eric is the Chief Investment Officer of Bailard, a Bay Area investment management firm. He grew up in the Los Angeles area, then moved to the Bay Area to attend UC Berkeley as a third-generation Golden Bear, graduating with a degree in economics. He has proudly been an Oakland resident for more than fifteen years. Eric has served on the Board of Directors of Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland and is currently on its Board of Trustees. Eric began volunteering on the JFCS East Bay Investment Committee in 2018 and joined the board in 2019.

Aliza Metzner

Aliza’s professional career spanned product and market development, management consulting and event planning. She has been involved with social activism and volunteering since teen age. Initiated activities include: The Mindful Life Project, Richmond, CA, The Shiva Project, Temple Isaiah, Lafayette, CA, Firewise organizer and community wildfire adaptive educator. Aliza serves on the selection committee for the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards and JFCS-EB Art of Living Committee. Aliza holds a BA from Colgate University in Social-Psychology and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Her other interests include sculpting and writing.

Harris Mojadedi

Harris Mojadedi was born in Fremont CA, the son of refugees from Afghanistan. He currently serves as a Policy Analyst at UC Berkeley, managing the student fee portfolio in the Vice Chancellor Student Affairs Office. Harris is a dedicated community organizer, having volunteered and served on the Board of several organizations in Alameda County including SAVE, New Haven Schools Foundation, and Afghan Coalition. Additionally, Harris serves the communities of Union City & South Hayward as a Trustee of the Chabot-Las Positas Community College District.

Shamila Rahim

Shamila is currently a Hospitalist at Kaiser Oakland Medical Center. Leaving Afghanistan when she was five years old, her family settled in the U.S. and eventually made their way to Alameda where she spent her formative years. After attending U.C. Berkeley for undergrad, she completed her medical education at Temple University in Philadelphia. In addition to her rewarding clinical practice, she enjoys working on improvement projects and has received her Lean Six Sigma certification. Being an immigrant herself, Shamila’s passion resides in serving her community in whatever capacity she can. Fortunately, her husband, Sultan, and their two boys share her passion. As a family, they spend time volunteering at different charities and were recently involved in helping Afghan immigrants. In their free time, Shamila and her family are outdoor enthusiasts enjoying hiking, camping, and travelling abroad.

Marjorie Stamper-Kurn

Marjorie Stamper-Kurn Marjorie is a senior consultant with The Justice Collective, a social impact consulting firm that brings a racial equity lens to traditional organizational development. Drawing upon degrees in Ethnic Studies, Management, and Education, Marjorie works across sectors to create strong and equitable organizations by developing values-based programs, practices, and policies. Marjorie also delivered social emotional learning and diversity and inclusion programming to classrooms and school communities throughout the Bay Area. Active in her community, she has served on numerous equity and racial justice committees, including at Oakland Technical High School and Congregation Netivot Shalom. Marjorie loves to travel the world and is just as happy when she is at home in Oakland with her husband and two mostly-grown sons.

Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan

Peretz came to the Bay Area to teach printmaking at UAHC Camp Swig and to study at the San Francisco Art Institute. After a decade of creating Ketubot, printmaking, and working in informal education, he traveled to Jerusalem in 1985 to learn at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. From 1990 to 2010, Peretz served Congregation Emanu-El, San Francisco, as rabbi and senior educator. In 2002, he was awarded the Covenant Award as an Exceptional Jewish Educator who has had a significant impact on others, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the transmission of Jewish knowledge, values, and identity. In 2004, he became a Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. From 2010 to 2020, Peretz was the Rabbi-in-Residence at KehillahSF, and served on the leadership team and teaching faculty of Lehrhaus Judaica. He is now an independent teacher and printmaker. Peretz and his wife, Becki (a second generation native of the East Bay), live in Berkeley. He joined the board in 2019.