Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen is the Senior Director of NIF’s NY/Tri-State Region. Prior to joining NIF, she was Director of The Center for Jewish Living and The David H. Sonabend Center for Israel at JCC Manhattan. Rabbi Cohen served for a decade at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the world’s LGBTQ synagogue serving Jews of all sexual orientations and sexual identities. Ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, she is the author of Changing Lives, Making History: Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the First Forty Years, and co-editor of Siddur B’chol L’vavcha. She serves on the board of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.

Rabbi Ephraim Pelcovits is the Southern California Regional Director for the NIF. He previously worked as the Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies of the American Jewish University, where he continues to teach as an adjunct instructor.

Before moving to sunny LA, Ephraim served as the rabbi of Or Olam, a diverse and multi-generational congregation in Midtown Manhattan. He was ordained as a rabbi by JTS in 2010, where he was a Legacy Heritage Fund Rabbinic Fellow and a Neubauer Family Fellow. Prior to his ordination, he received an M.A. in Talmud and Rabbinics, served as a commissioned lieutenant and chaplain candidate in the United States Navy Reserve, and as a student chaplain at Bellevue Hospital.