Ariel Mayse received his PhD in Jewish Studies from Harvard University and is currently a research Fellow at the Frankel Institute for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has taught, lectured and published in many academic and popular forums, and recently published From the Depth of the Well: An Anthology of Jewish Mysticism.

Stephen Hazan-Arnoff is a renowned educator, and a scholar of popular and Jewish culture. He has held important leadership posts at the JCC Association, Shalem College in Jerusalem, and the 14th St. Y in New York. He has lectured widely and his writing has appeared in both academic and popular publications.

Elly Moseson graduated from Columbia University in 2010 with a major in Philosophy, he is currently working on a doctoral dissertation on the teachings and impact of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism.

Nitzia Logothetis, founder of the Seleni Institute, brings a unique international perspective to the field of maternal mental health that stems from her multicultural background. She was raised in London with roots in both Europe and Latin America, and she also speaks four languages. After graduating from Brown University, she went on to earn secondary degrees in psychology from both the University of London and New York University. She is now raising three young children, so she also understands the demands of motherhood firsthand.

Nitzia’s community and philanthropic experience also spans the globe. She has worked with children with disabilities in Great Britain and Panama, volunteered extensively at an orphanage for children with disabilities in Peru, and served as a mentor to children living with disabilities through Project Eye-to-Eye at Brown University. Regardless of where she worked with children, Nitzia saw repeatedly how they usually thrived when their mothers fared well.

As a trained psychotherapist, Nitzia’s professional interest turned to maternal and reproductive mental health. She saw the issues so many women faced as they struggled – often in silence – with pregnancy, new motherhood, and then parenthood. Drawing from her professional and personal experience, Nitzia grew determined to elevate the issue of maternal mental health to worldwide attention and founded the Seleni Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to women’s mental health and well-being.

In addition to her dedicated work at the Seleni Institute, Nitzia is also a Carrie Tower Member of the Brown Alumni Association, a Patron of the Cycladic Art Museum in Greece, a Young Patron of the Benaki Museum in Greece, a Young Patron of the New York City Ballet and a Friends of Baby Buggy member. Nitzia lives in Manhattan with her husband, two sons, and a daughter.

Philip Wexler is an influential sociologist and educational theorist. He was the founding dean of the Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development at the University of Rochester and is emeritus Professor of Jewish Social and Educational History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has authored more than a dozen books on sociology, education and spirituality.

Nehemia Polen is a leading expert on Hasidism and Jewish thought. Before beginning his academic career he served for 25 years as a congregational rabbi. Among other books, he is the author of The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Lawrence H. Schiffman is the Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and Director of the Global Network for Advanced Research in Jewish Studies. He has served as the Chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Between 2011 and 2014, he served as Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Professor of Judaic Studies at Yeshiva University.

He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. He is a specialist in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism in Late Antiquity, the history of Jewish law, and Talmudic literature.

His publications include Who Was a Jew? Rabbinic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism (1985); From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism (1991); and Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (1995); The Courtyards of the House of the Lord: Studies on the Temple Scroll (2008); Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism (2010) and more than 200 articles on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism. In 2006 he was the recipient of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture Scholarship Award. He coedited the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford, 2000) and the award winning Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture.

He has been a visiting professor at Yale University, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Duke University, the University of Toronto, the Johns Hopkins University, the Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow), the University of Hartford, Queens College, Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome), Yeshiva University, and the University of Vienna.

Active in many professional societies, Dr. Schiffman served as President of the Association for Jewish Studies and is currently on the Board of Directors of the American Friends of the Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem and Chair and Representative of the Orthodox Union for the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultation (IJCIC), the Jewish liaison committee to the Vatican and other religious groups. He is a member of the steering committee of the Orthodox Forum of Yeshiva University and has edited several volumes in the Orthodox Forum Series.

Dr. Schiffman was featured in the PBS Nova series documentary, “Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” four BBC documentaries on the scrolls, a Discovery special, the series “Mysteries of the Bible” (A&E) and “Kingdom of David” (PBS) and other documentaries. He recorded two audio lecture series for Recorded Books, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Truth behind the Mystique and The Hebrew Bible and is a contributing editor of the Long Island Jewish World newspaper. Most recently he served as the academic advisor to the exhibition at Discovery Times Square entitled, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times.

Jonathan Garb is a leading expert on Modern Kabbalah from the 16th century to the present day. He holds the Gershom Scholem chair in Kabbalah at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is internationally renowned as a lecturer and author. His most recent book is Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah.

Matthew Bishop, senior editor, The Economist Group, is an award-winning journalist and social entrepreneur. His roles at The Economist have included Business Editor, Wall Street Editor, Globalisation Editor and New York Bureau Chief. He is the author of several books, including Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World (described as “important” by President Bill
Clinton) and The Road From Ruin, which set out an agenda for the reform of capitalism after the 2008 crash. He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Global Governance. He was the Official Report author of the G8 Taskforce on Social Impact Investment and a member of the Advisors Group of the UN International Year of Microcredit. He co-founded and advises the #givingtuesday campaign and the Social Progress Index.

He is on Twitter as @mattbish

Ruth W. Messinger is President of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the world’s leading Jewish organization working to end poverty and realize human rights in the developing world. After a remarkable 18-year presidency, Ruth will soon take on a new role as AJWS’s first Global Ambassador, continuing her crucial work of engaging global leaders, activists, rabbis and interfaith leaders to speak out on behalf of oppressed and persecuted communities worldwide. Ruth joined AJWS in 1998, following a 20-year career in public service in New York City.

As a leading activist for human rights around the globe, she lectures widely and holds leadership roles in the faith-based advocacy arena. She chairs the social justice committee of the State Department’s Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group and is a member of the World Bank’s Moral Imperative working group on extreme poverty. Ruth has been honored by many national Jewish organizations and has been named for the past decade among the “world’s most influential Jews” and religious leaders by The Forward, The Jerusalem Post and The Huffington Post.

In February 2008, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, appointed Mr. Chambers as Assistant Secretary General and the first Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Malaria. The Secretary-General announced in June 2010 that Mr. Chambers had been appointed a member of his Millennium Development Goals Advocacy Group – a collection of recognized experts, humanitarians and leaders convened specifically to advance the achievement of the MDGs. In February 2013 Mr. Chambers’ mandate was expanded, making him the first Special Envoy for Financing the Health Millennium Development Goals as well as for Malaria. Most recently, in February of this year, Mr. Chambers was appointed Special Envoy of Health in Agenda 2030 and for Malaria.

He was the Co-Founder of Malaria No More. Mr. Chambers helped form the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), the first head of state-level assembly expressly dedicated to ending deaths from malaria.  

Just a few months ago Mr. Chambers mobilized millions of people across the globe for the 2015 International Day of Peace. Organized around the theme of “Forgive for Peace” and working with the top social influencers in the US, over 1 billion people were reached with messages linking the importance of forgiveness to achieving peace.

In September of 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued new guidelines stipulating that all people testing positive for HIV should immediately receive treatment. To help mobilize the resources and political will necessary to reach universal treatment, Chambers and his UN Special Envoy Office supported a global campaign, “Treatment for All,” with an accompanying documentary on Facebook featuring Ricki Lake and top social media celebrities, highlighting the moral obligation of the world to treat all people living with AIDS. The documentary was viewed by 800,000 people and the campaign will help reallocate resources to enable universal treatment.

Mr. Chambers has directed much of his efforts over the last twenty five years towards helping children at risk.  He is the Founding Chairman of the Points of Light Institute and co-founded, with Colin Powell, America’s Promise Alliance.  Mr. Chambers is the Co-Founder of the National Mentoring Partnership. In December 2008 President Bush recognized Mr. Chambers with the Presidential Citizens Medal for his work helping children worldwide.

Mr. Chambers is also the Founding Chairman of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.  His board memberships include The Points of Light Institute, Newark Alliance, Educational Broadcasting Corporation and his family foundation – The MCJ Amelior Foundation.  He is the Chairman of Wesray Capital Corporation, which he co-founded with William E. Simon.

Mayor Dinkins joined Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) as a Professor in the Practice of Urban Public Policy in 1994. He serves on SIPA’s Advisory Board, and hosts the Annual David N. Dinkins Leadership & Public Policy Forum, which welcomed the Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton to deliver its keynote address in April 2015 and the US Attorney General Loretta Lynch in 2016. The David N. Dinkins Professorship Chair in the Practice of Urban & Public Affairs was established at SIPA in 2003 and the David N. Dinkins Archives and Oral History Project was opened in 2015 by the Columbia University Libraries.

Mr. Dinkins began his public service career in 1966 as a member of the New York State Assembly. He was president of the New York City Board of Elections, and served as City Clerk for 10 years before his elections as President of the Borough of Manhattan in 1985 and 106th Mayor of the City of New York in 1989.

As Mayor, David Dinkins was responsible for the establishment of numerous widely heralded cultural staples such as Fashion Week, Restaurant Week, and Broadway on Broadway. His administration initiated the revitalization of Times Square and secured an unprecedented deal to keep the U.S. Open Tennis Championships in New York for the next 99 years. This arrangement generates more annual financial benefits to the city than the Yankees, Mets, Knicks, and Rangers combined. Mayor Dinkins also instituted “Safe Streets, Safe City: Cops and Kids,” a comprehensive criminal justice plan for reducing crime and expanding opportunities for the children of New York.

Mr. Dinkins has received numerous awards and accolades throughout his career, most notably, the renaming of the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building in October 2015. This former mayor is active with a variety of civic and charitable organizations that assist young people. He currently serves on numerous boards including the Association to Benefit Children, Children’s Health Fund, Coalition for the Homeless, The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, and Posse Foundation, to name a few. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Advisory Board of the International African American Museum; he is on the steering committee of the Association for a Better New York and the New York Urban League’s Advisory Council. David Dinkins is a founding member of the Black & Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus of New York State and The One Hundred Black Men. He is a former vice president of the United States Conference of Mayors, Member-at-Large of the Black Leadership Forum, chairman emeritus of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDs, Honorary Life Trustee of the Community Service Society of New York, Honorary Trustee of the Friends of Harlem Hospital, and Lifetime Member of the NAACP.

In 2013, David Dinkins published his memoir A Mayor’s Life: Governing New York’s Gorgeous Mosaic, chronicling his career as a devoted public servant and New Yorker in love with his city.

Mr. Dinkins graduated with honors from Howard University in 1950 with a B.S. in mathematics and received an LL.B. from Brooklyn Law School in 1956 and maintained a private law practice prior to entering public service. He is a recipient of The Congressional Gold Medal for his service as a Montford Point Marine in the United States Marine Corps, during World War II.

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, on July 10, 1927, Mr. Dinkins was a long-time resident of Harlem and still resides in New York City with his wife, Joyce Burrows Dinkins. They have two children – David Jr. and Donna Dinkins Hoggard – and two grandchildren – Jamal Hoggard and Kalila Dinkins Hoggard.

Rebecca heads Unilever’s Global partnerships function including setting up and now leading the inaugural Unilever Foundation. This involves partnerships with the UN, NGOs, private sector and civil society groups. Through the creation of new sustainable business models, Rebecca leads global programs that deliver growth and social impact across the Unilever value chain. This includes areas such as sustainable sourcing, water, sanitation and hygiene, nutrition and women’s empowerment.

Previously she worked in marketing and corporate affairs in private consultancy, for the UK Government and L’Oreal.

Rebecca is a Board Director for WSUP – Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor.

Randi Zuckerberg is a New York Times Bestselling Author, the founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media, host of “Dot Complicated” on SiriusXM and Editor in Chief of DotComplicated.co, an online community helping us navigate and “untangle” our wired, wonderful lives. Randi is also a mentor on Oxygen’s show “Quit Your Day Job,” which premiered on March 30, 2016.

Randi recently released her first books with HarperCollins, The New York Times Best Seller, Dot Complicated, which addresses the multifaceted complications of our socially transparent world, and a children’s picture book, titled Dot which has been optioned by the Jim Henson company and will premiere Fall 2016 on CBC and NBC’s Sprout.  

As an early executive at Facebook, Randi created and ran the social media pioneer’s marketing programs. She led the company’s U.S. election and international politics strategy and created Facebook’s live streaming initiatives during the 2008 Presidential Inauguration. Randi was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2011 for her innovative coverage of the 2010 mid-term elections that integrated online and TV coverage in unique formats.

Since starting Zuckerberg Media, Randi has produced shows and digital content for PayPal, the Clinton Global Initiative, Cirque du Soleil, the United Nations, Bravo and Conde Nast, with many other projects in the works. Randi made her Broadway debut in March 2014, guest starring as Regina in the hit musical Rock of Ages.

Randi appears regularly on NBC the TODAY show, Katie, and CNBC, and has also been seen on CNN, Good Morning America, Fox Business, Bloomberg News, and ABC’s World News.  She was also a correspondent for the 2011 Golden Globe Awards and the World Economic Forum in Davos. Randi was recently appointed to the United Nations Global Entrepreneurs Council and the World Economic Forum’s Global Council on Social Media.

Randi holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Harvard University and resides in New York with her husband Brent Tworetzky and their sons Asher and Simi.

Alana Newhouse is the founder and editor-in-chief of Tablet Magazine. She is also a contributor to other media outlets, including most frequently the New York Times.

A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, Alana worked for New York City political consultant David Garth (who became her longtime mentor). After pivoting to journalism, she spent five years as culture editor of the Forward, where she supervised coverage of books, films, dance, music, art, and ideas. She also started a line of Forward-branded books with W.W. Norton and edited its maiden publication, A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward.

In 2008, she joined Nextbook, and a year later oversaw the revamping of its website as Tablet Magazine — which, contrary to all advice, refused to orient itself toward any one demographic. Nominated for six National Magazine Awards and winner of two, the site quickly turned into “a must-read for politically and culturally engaged Jews,” according to New York Magazine. In 2015, once again bucking conventional wisdom but driven by an increasing sense of the Internet’s limits for enriching either public discourse or personal fulfillment, Alana launched a quarterly magazine — available in print only. After only one issue in print, it was nominated for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence.

Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir has been dedicated to the field of international development since he joined the Peace Corps as a volunteer in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco in 1993. In 2000, he co-founded the High Atlas Foundation and served as president of the Board of Directors until January 2011, and since has been president of operations. Dr. Ben-Meir was a member of the faculty at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco (2009-10). In 2003, he was a research fellow at the American Institute of Maghrib Studies in Morocco. Yossef was also an Associate Peace Corps Director (1998-99), managing the agriculture and environment program in Morocco. He writes and publishes on the subject of promoting human development in the Middle East and North Africa. Dr. Ben-Meir holds a PhD in sociology from the University of New Mexico (2009) where he also taught, an MA in international development from Clark University (1997), and a BA in economics from New York University (1991).

Gary Cohen is Executive Vice President and President, Global Health and Development at BD (Becton, Dickinson & Co), a global medical technology company operating in 150 countries with over $12 billion in global revenues and 45,000 employees. He has served as an executive officer of the company since 1996.
In addition to his responsibilities at BD, Mr. Cohen is acting CEO of GBCHealth (a coalition of companies leveraging their resources for positive impact on global health), and a board director of the Perrigo Company, CDC Foundation, US Fund for UNICEF and Accordia Global Health Foundation.  He further serves as a Vice Chair of the UN Special Envoy’s Office for Financing the Health-Related Millennium Development Goals and recently served on the UN Commission on Life Saving Commodities for Women and Children.  Mr. Cohen is the founder and board chair of Together for Girls, a partnership consisting of five UN agencies, the Governments of the United States and Canada and others to end violence against children, particularly sexual violence against girls.  He is a member of the UN Secretary General’s Network of Men Leaders, associated with the UNITE campaign to end violence against women and girls.
In his leadership roles, Mr. Cohen focuses on addressing unmet health needs in developing and emerging countries.  He and the BD team are extensively engaged in public-private sector collaborations with international agencies, governments and non-government organizations, focused on specific health goals such strengthening clinical and laboratory practices, addressing infectious and non-communicable diseases, reducing maternal and newborn mortality and improving safety for health workers and patients.  He frequently serves as an advisor, advocate and speaker on topics associated with advancing health and human rights among under-resourced and vulnerable populations, in various venues including the United Nations, World Bank, U.S. Department of State, Clinton Global Initiative and World Economic Forum-Davos.
Mr. Cohen began his career with BD in 1983 as a marketing research analyst.  In 1988, as a senior product manager, he initiated the company’s comprehensive efforts to protect clinicians and other health workers from needle stick injuries, a strategy he continued to lead for several decades.  He became president of BD’s global Injection business in 1994.  In 1996, he was named president of Sample Collection (now Preanalytical Systems). The following year, he was also appointed president of BD for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  He held the positions of executive vice president of the company from 1998 to 1999, president of the Medical Segment from 2000 to 2008 and executive vice president responsible for international operations from 2009 to 2012.  He earned his B.A. and M.B.A. degrees at Rutgers University, where he previously served as a member of the Board of Trustees.  He has been honored for his humanitarian work by MESAB (Medical Education for South African Blacks), B’nai B’rith International, the US Fund for UNICEF, the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation (for support in the Democratic Republic of Congo), the American Jewish Committee and the Nyumbani Home for HIV positive children in Kenya.

A 20+ year transplant survivor, Jay Feinberg is Gift of Life’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer.  He was diagnosed with leukemia in 1991 and told that his only hope of a cure was a bone marrow transplant.  Together with his family and friends, Jay embarked on an unprecedented international search for a matching donor.  After organizing 250 drives and testing 60,000 potential donors, Jay’s match turned out to be the very last donor tested at the very last drive.  He received his transplant at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington in July 1995 thanks to his bone marrow donor, Becky Faibisoff.

Jay has pioneered tremendous innovation at Gift of Life, including the use of cheek swabs for bloodless testing at donor drives, complete typing at initial recruitment, and most recently, Speed Swabbing® technology.  He established groundbreaking recruitment affiliations with numerous organizations and negotiated partnerships with other registries, most notably the National Marrow Donor Program.

Jay received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Dickinson College, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa.  He has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Charles Bronfman Prize, National Marrow Donor Program’s Allison Atlas Award, Hadassah International’s Citizen of the World Award and the Jewish Community Hero Award from the Jewish Federations of North America.  He is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from Yeshiva University and was one of three non-profit leaders in South Florida to be awarded a scholarship to the Harvard Business School’s executive education program “Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management.”  Most recently, Jay was the recipient of the Maurice N. Eisendrath Bearer of Light Award from the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the highest honor bestowed by the Reform Movement.  He formerly served on the Board of Directors of the World Marrow Donor Association and is on the Editorial Board of Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide.  Jay has been an invited guest at the White House during the past two presidential administrations.

Jess is the Senior Development Manager at Kiva.org, located in New York City, where she is helping realize Kiva’s mission of connecting people through lending to alleviate poverty.

In addition, Jess is the co-founder of Life-improving Ventures (LiV), a nonprofit organization that is currently focused on developing a better solution for menstrual hygiene in India and Mozambique, now serving an advisory role with the organization.

Previously, Jess was the Director of Partnerships and a Partner at Ashoka Changemakers, where she helped corporate and philanthropic partners invest in social entrepreneurship. She also served as the the Communications and Strategy Specialist at Move This World, a global nonprofit that uses creative movement as a vehicle to transform conflict, violence and bullying in communities. With Move This World, she led partnerships and media from the organization’s inception through its first major stage of growth.

Jess received a B.A. from the University of Virginia, an MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and participated in the Launching the Venture incubator at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. She is a contributor to Forbes and shares her views on social innovation on Medium.

Scott spent almost 10 years as a nightclub promoter in New York City before leaving to volunteer on a hospital ship off the coast of Liberia, West Africa as a volunteer photojournalist.

Returning home to New York City two years later, he founded the non-pro t organization charity: water in 2006.

Turning his full attention to the global water crisis and the world’s 800 million people without clean water to drink, he created public installations and innovative online fundraising platforms to spread international awareness of the issue.

In nine years, with the help of more than 500,000 donors worldwide, charity: water has raised over $207 million and funded over 19,000 water projects in 24 countries. When completed, those projects will provide over 6.18 million people with clean, safe drinking water.

Scott was recently recognized in Fortune Magazine’s 40 under 40 list, the Forbes Magazine Impact 30 list and was recently #10 in Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business issue. He is currently a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Scott lives in New York City with his wife Viktoria and son Jackson.

Shaul Magid is an influential authority on American Jewish thought, culture and spirituality, and a leading scholar of Kabbalah and Hasidism. He holds the Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Chair of Jewish Studies in Modern Judaism at Indiana University, and has lectured and published widely, both in academic and popular forums.

Michael Medved is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host and bestselling author. His daily three hour show reaches 300 stations across the country and an audience of more than 4 million placing him, for 14 years in a row, on the Talkers Magazine list of the top ten political talk shows in the United States.

Born in Philadelphia, Michael attended public schools in San Diego and Los Angeles before winning admission to Yale at age 16 as a National Merit Scholar.He majored in American History and graduated with honors, before attending Yale Law School, where his classmates included Bill and Hillary Clinton.

After several years as a campaign speechwriter and political consultant, Michael wrote his first bestseller at age 26—WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO THE CLASS OF ’65?, a skeptical reconsideration of the “counterculture” of the1960’s that became a weekly TV series on NBC. Michael’s subsequent 11 books include THE SHADOW PRESIDENTS, hailed as the definitive history of White House chiefs of staff; HOLLYWOOD VS. AMERICA,a stinging indictment of the entertainment industry; and RIGHT TURNS, which tells the story of Michael’s transformation from “punk liberal activist to lovable conservative curmudgeon.” His most recent books, THE 10 BIG LIES ABOUT AMERICA and THE 5 BIG LIES ABOUT AMERICAN BUSINESS, confront the most common smears against the United States and its free market system.

Michael’s columns on politics and media appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, where he is a member of the Board of Contributors. His work as a film critic, based on short-lived experience as a Hollywood screen writer, featured positions at CNN (1980-84),Great Britain’s Channel 4 Network (1984), and PBS (1985-96) where he served as co-host of the popular weekly show Sneak Previews. He was also Chief Film Critic of the New York Post for five years before launching his daily radio show in 1996.

Michael has been married for more than a quarter of a century to clinical psychologist Dr. Diane Medved, a bestselling author in her own right (THE CASE AGAINST DIVORCE). They live in the Seattle area where they raised their three children.

Zeshan Muhammedi is the Co-Founder of FundRx, a hybrid venture capital firm focused on early-stage healthcare and life-sciences companies. He is a founding board member of Hands4Kids, a registered 501c3 non-profit developing low-cost prosthetics for children, free of charge.

William B. Parsons is a leading scholar of modern spirituality and psychology and a Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. He has lectured internationally and authored several books and edited collections. His most recent work is Freud and Augustine in Dialogue: Psychoanalysis, Mysticism, and the Culture of Modern Spirituality.

Slava Rubin is the Chief Business Officer, co-founder, and former CEO of Indiegogo, a company dedicated to empowering people from all over the world to make their ideas a reality. Slava is responsible for continuing to establish Indiegogo as the go-to funding platform by building innovative products, creating exciting partnerships, and exploring a variety of new initiatives. Prior to Indiegogo, Slava was a strategy consultant and is the founder of “Music Against Myeloma.”

Slava represented the crowdfunding industry at the White House during the signing of the JOBS Act and has played a crucial role in working with the White House and the SEC to finalize the rules and regulations for equity crowdfunding

Elliot Wolfson is the foremost theoretician of Jewish mystical thought, an award winning scholar of comparative religion, a writer, a poet, and an artist. He has lectured at leading academic institutions internationally, and authored many acclaimed books, including Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson.