AMY – AJLI National President and Chairwoman

Amy Oppenheimer was born and raised in a vibrant Jewish home in New Jersey. Amy attended Jewish day school and spent significant amounts of time living and studying in Israel, particularly at Haifa University in 2006-2007 as an AJLI scholarship recipient.

Amy graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2007 with a BA in International Studies and Jewish Studies, and spent the following years working in Strategy & Operations as a management consultant for Deloitte and dancing with local performing arts companies. In 2009, Amy released her first Israel education curriculum and documentary film project (“Faces of Israel”) based on her time studying in Israel and spent the subsequent 6 years as a traveling Israel educator and public speaker at over 600 institutions in North America and Israel.

Amy followed her family’s footsteps and relocated to Jerusalem in 2013, where she worked as overseas director of Bat Melech: The International Jewish Women’s Shelter. Amy made aliyah in August 2014, completed a graduate degree in Natural Resource Management and Environmental Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and currently leads a yoga and mindfulness community in Jerusalem where she lives with her two beautiful children. Amy looks forward to welcoming the new cohort of AJLI fellows to Israel!

JONATHAN – AJLI Board Member and Treasurer

Jonathan Goldberg lives in Oakland, California, with his partner and their 2 young children, where he is the founder and managing director of Gentico Consulting Corporation, a boutique consulting firm focused on internal audit and accounting services.

Keeping with his Jewish ancestral roots, Jonathan has lived a nomadic childhood (although there was no wandering in the desert). Raised in Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Texas and New Jersey, Jonathan’s family always made it a priority to connect with the local Jewish communities through celebrations of Jewish life, holidays and rituals.

While not traditionally observant, Jonathan was instilled from a young age with a deep appreciation for the traditions, culture and values that Judaism espouses. Jonathan was motivated to visit Israel in high school for a study abroad program, and later received one of the American Jewish League for Israel’s scholarships to study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in a study abroad program. These study experiences in Israel were transformative and have deepened Jonathan’s appreciation for and commitment to Israel.

RACHEL – AJLI Board Member

Rachel Balaban lives on the Upper West Side in New York City. She is an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Civil Division. During college at Cornell University, she studied abroad at Hebrew University. Since that time, she has stayed active in Jewish life and affairs. She served as a board member of the New York region of the American Jewish Committee for many years, engaging in, among other things, diplomatic outreach on issues important to the Jewish community and Israel.  She currently serves on the Children’s Residential Committee of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services. 

ARIANA – AJLI Alumni Coordinator

Born into a warm Jewish home in New York, Ariana grew up counting down the days to Passover, Tu B’Shvat, and Hanukkah each year. Raised in a lively family that values unwavering tradition, Ariana developed a love for Judaism that eventually motivated her to explore all that Israel has to offer. 

In 2019, Ariana was earning her degree in Business Management at Hofstra University. Opting for a more exciting end to her junior year, Ariana attended Tel Aviv University’s Business and Entrepreneurship Study Abroad Program where she met lifelong friends and explored the meaning behind the nickname “Start Up Nation”. 

After graduating on Zoom and leading growth initiatives for a fast-growing proptech start-up online for 1.5 years during the pandemic, it was tough not to daydream about Hakosem falafel and beautiful Tel Avivian sunsets. Thanks to AJLI’s generosity, Ariana earned a spot as a ‘21-’22 AJLI scholar and matriculated into Reichman University to earn her MBA degree.

These life-changing experiences reaffirmed what Ariana loves most about being Jewish – the community! She is passionate about passing on a similar experience for generations to come.

SARA – AJLI Board Member

CATHERINE – AJLI Board Member

Originally from Michigan, Catherine Szkop lives in Washington, D.C. and serves as Public Affairs Representative for the Embassy of Israel to the United States, with a focus on interfaith relations and engagement. As a Catholic school graduate, Catherine firmly believes in building bridges between peoples on the basis of common human values.

Prior to her work in interfaith affairs and combating antisemitism in Washington, D.C., Catherine developed her international experience as a research department intern at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, specializing as a Polish-English translator for the Holocaust in Occupied-Poland Deportation Database project, and as a UN: Geneva intern with the World Jewish Congress, specializing in reporting on antisemitism in Central and Eastern Europe. Catherine has written for the Croatia-based Glasnik B’nai B’rith Magazine and has appeared periodically on Telewizja Polska (TVP) World. 

Catherine graduated with distinction from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Science in 2019, and completed her Master of Arts in Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2021. She had the privilege of being selected as an AJLI Scholar for the 2019-2020 academic year, and enjoyed living in and around Israel for three years following her AJLI selection. To this day, some of her closest friends come from her time spent in Israel as an AJLI Scholar.

ESTHER – AJLI Board Member

Esther Bogorov was an AJLI scholar in 2018-2019 while studying video games and landscape architecture at the Technion. She is a scientist by training and an artist in practice, currently developing a project at the intersection of games and outdoor experiences. She was born in Russia, raised in North America, is proudly Jewish and is currently living in central Israel.