Who We Are

  • Education Director

    Henry is nearly ordained at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies as well as in process for a Masters in Education from the School of Education at American Jewish University. He received a BA from the College at Columbia University in the City of New York long ago. He has been a bookseller specializing in books of Jewish interest since the pre-internet age. He was a lay leader at Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco for many years and taught parshanut, Mishnah and Talmud there.

    Henry is a product of the East Coast, born in Boston and largely raised in Rochester, New York. He emigrated to San Francisco early and has now made the move south. He is a history junkie, focusing on Jewish history, California history and the confluence of the two. He has a long standing interest in modern poetry and in the avant-garde art movements that flourished between the 1890s and the 1980s. He is deeply involved in the screwing in of light bulbs at Der Nister.

  • Executive Director/Cantorial Soloist

    Zach was ordained as a rabbi at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles in 2020, and received his BA at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN in 2013. Zach has given sermons and lectures from Stockholm to Vladivostok, performed as a cantorial soloist for multiple High Holiday services across the country, taught Hebrew to rabbinical students and Yiddish at Yiddishland California.

    He is the Deputy Yiddish Editor of the Forward (Forverts), where he has worked since 2021. He previously was the general manager of Aradolu America, an e-commerce company importing Turkish products.

    Zach is a native of Long Beach, CA, and has explored Downtown LA for as long as he can remember. His passions are (in no particular order) the renewal of Yiddishkeit, languages, graphic design and screwing in lightbulbs at Der Nister.

  • Cultural Director

    Ye’ela is a native Israeli who has somehow remained in Los Angeles since 2006. Ye’ela is a filmmaker, theater director, writer, teacher and rabbi.

    As a somewhat open Marxist Rabbi, she is proud to be considered a walking oxymoron.

    Ye’ela directed films and theater plays in Israel, The Czech Republic and the US. She has worked with Roman Polanski, directed Malcolm McDowell and briefly assisted Dustin Hoffman. Her films screened in festivals worldwide and won numerous awards. The theater plays she has directed include the works of Vaclav Havel, Friedrich Durenmatt, Jean Paul Sartre and Howard Zinn. Her shows played in theaters from Santa Monica to East Hollywood and earned favorable reviews.

    Ye’ela has been gently pushing the need to screw in lightbulbs at Der Nister, while using Cold War references as encouragement.

  • President

    Immigration Attorney with Adam L. Fleming Law, PC

  • Secretary

    Director of Libraries and Beit Midrash at American Jewish University

  • Treasurer

    Executive Director of the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association

  • Consultant in Entrepreneurship, Finance and Accounting

  • Executive Director of Kultur Mercado

The Board

Our volunteer board is made up of community leaders who want to guide and grow Der Nister.