LEADERSHIP
JWT’s Leadership advances the ideal that the lives and experiences of Jews in America, in all its diversity, should be represented on stage and documented for posterity.
Our Honorary Board includes Honey Kessler Amado, Nancy Berman, Cambria & Howard Gordon, Janice Kamenir-Reznik, Faye Moskowitz, Gina Nahai, Joy Picus, Gail Twersky Reimer, and Rosanne Ziering.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
RONDA SPINAK (Producer/Artistic Director) created JWT’s At-Homes Salon Theatre Series and since has curated and produced more than 45 original Jewish-themed salon shows, as well as adapted many of the pieces performed. Spinak developed and produced Ovation Recommended Not That Jewish at JWT’s The Braid, which ran for 16 months, garnered an LA Drama Critics Circle nomination, and then moved to off-Broadway. She also produced Rain Pryor’s hit show Fried Chicken & Latkes and Vicki Juditz’s Ovation Recommended Sacred Resistance. Spinak co-wrote Stories from the Fringe, putting the stories of women rabbis on stage for the first time. Since then, she and her team have interviewed on videotape 180 national and international women rabbis, and in partnership with Jewish Women’s Archive have made many of the interviews available online at www.jwa.org. She has written for Rugrats, and her plays include Oscar Wilde’s Wife, a favorite at the Ashland New Play Festival. She is on the board of the Alliance for Jewish Theatres, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
LYNNE HIMELSTEIN has dedicated herself to the Jewish community, assuming leadership positions on the board of National Women’s Philanthropy. In great demand as a speaker on Jewish philanthropy, she has traveled around both the United States and Israel, inspiring people to give to Jewish organizations. She is currently the chair of Lion of Judah Endowment for the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and member of the board of Jewish Women’s Archive.
PATRICIA LINDEN is formerly the Director of Financial Management at the RAND Corporation, a non-profit policy research organization based in Santa Monica. She brings 30 years of financial management experience to her role on the JWT Board and she holds an MBA from UCLA. Prior to RAND she worked in public accounting for nine years with a specialty in entertainment and non-profits and worked in the film production and sports entertainment industry for six years prior to joining RAND in 1984.
Jackie Weintraub’s career has spanned several fields including pre school teacher for 10 years with a Masters in Early Childhood Education, Co-Founder of the Harvard Law School Child Care Center, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Los Angeles Children’s Museum, and presently The Discovery Cube LA, thriving in the San Fernando Valley. Jackie served as Development Director of the LA Municipal Art Gallery, the International Students Center of UCLA and the Early Childhood Center at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. As a film producer, Jackie’s films have taken her across the globe to France, Lithuania and Croatia. Among the films she has produced are “Le Femme Musketeer” with Gerard Depardieu in 2004, and “Endangered Species” in 2005, both filmed in Croatia. She was Executive Producer of “Warrior Angels”, with Rutger Hauer and “Perilous” filmed in Lithuania in 2002. She was Executive Producer of “Amazons and Gladiators,” Supervising Producer on “Undertow” with Charles Dance for Showtime and a Senior Production Consultant for “The Devil’s Arithmetic” with Kirsten Dunst for Showtime. For Warner Brothers International Television, Jackie was a producer of “The New Adventures of Robin Hood”, 52 episodes produced from 1996 through 2000. Jackie is currently developing projects for television and the stage. She is a certified personal trainer and an active volunteer fundraiser for Jewish Women’s Theater since 2012.
Jennifer Roth Krieger has worked in local politics for nearly 30 years, beginning with NYC Mayor Ed Koch. Her professional life in Los Angeles includes working on children’s issues for County Supervisor Ed Edelman, serving as Deputy Mayor under Richard Riordan and currently working as Special Assistant to City Attorney Mike Feuer. Raised just outside of New York City, she has long embraced her Jewish identity – most recently as a Wexner Fellow, member of the Jewish Women’s Initiative and as an active member of the Nashuva community and University Synagogue. She joined the Jewish Women’s Theater Board of Directors in 2018. She lives in Santa Monica with her husband Dr. Lauren Eric Krieger, where they have raised their three children – Samantha, Noah, and Ezra.
SHARON LANDAU brings to JWT 20 years of non-profit leadership experience helping programs and organizations scale and thrive. As a non-profit Director and consultant, she engaged multidisciplinary stakeholders to design, pilot, scale and evaluate innovative programs improving contraceptive access at local, state and national levels that became replicable models. She launched Pharmacy Forward, the nation’s first leadership program for pharmacists in reproductive health. She previously worked in management consulting for Kaiser Permanente and as clinic manager for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. She holds a Masters in Public Health from UCLA and is an alumnae of CA Women’s Policy Institute and Center for Collaborative Planning’s Leadership Institute.
JODIE KAY is a licensed architect, and works in downtown Los Angeles managing construction of culture and entertainment venues for Cumming, an international project management and cost consulting company. When she’s not working at her day job, she is volunteering for Jewish Women’s Theatre, and spending time with her family and friends.
JANIS C. NELSON has worked in the entertainment industry for over 40 years. She is an entertainment attorney with the law firm of Cowan DeBaets Abrahams + Sheppard, LLP in Beverly Hills, representing production companies, financiers, producers, writers, directors and actors working in theatre, film, television, publishing and new media. She has served on the boards of several prominent arts and media organizations, including Women in Film, Los Angeles Ballet and Dance Camera West. She began her career at the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center in New York City and she is a graduate of Barnard College and the UCLA School of Law.
JWT ADVISORY COUNCIL
SUSAN BASKIN has written extensively for film and television. “Violet,” a film she wrote, won an Academy Award. Susan has published essays in various magazines, among them The Los Angeles Times Magazine and Los Angeles Magazine. “I, Citizen,” a piece she wrote for Jewish Women’s Theater, was commissioned for the Fall 2018 Fundraiser. “The Perfect Dive” was performed in the March 2019 JWT production, “It’s A Life.” Susan is currently at work on a novel.
Robbie Diamond was born and raised in Los Angeles, attending Dorsey High School and Cal State Northridge. She has worked in many fields including founding the Kindergarten Extended Day Program at Warner Avenue School, which was the predecessor to the STAR Education program. Robbie was a personal assistant to real estate developer and art collector Arthur Gilbert for twelve years, and then, upon his death, she became the administrator of The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation. She has volunteered with many groups over the years, including The Beauty Bus, P.S. Arts and the Entertainment Industry Foundation.
Robbie loves to bake, read, travel and spend time with her family, including her two grandchildren, Oliver and Quinn.
Amirose Eisenbach is a writer and producer, with fifteen years of entertainment experience. She’s previously worked at Warner Bros., FOX Interactive Media and at AMC Theatres editorial, where she ran the independent film division. In 2016, to help champion independent cinema even further, Amirose launched Radiant J. Productions. Focusing on elevating female creatives, spreading mindfulness and making positive social impact in the community, Radiant J. is determined to bring more meaningful and important content into the world.
SANDY SAVETT is a retired family and child therapist. For over 20 years she worked with at-risk families dealing with abuse, neglect and cultural difference in child rearing. She developed her love of theatre in Toronto and frequent family visits to New York.
DEBORAH SIBERSTEIN SHKUROVICH was born and raised in Mexico City, where she graduated summa cum laude from the Universidad Iberoamericana with a BA in Communications. She worked as copywriter at Foote, Cone and Belding in Mexico City, and then moved to the US to pursue a MSJ from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Upon graduation, she worked as managing editor at Cahners Publishing. While raising three children, she works as a freelance translator and is a certified college counselor from UCLA. Deborah is the author of “Learning to Howl,” which was featured in JWT’s Chutzpah and Salsa show.