Randi, a long time member of Keddem Congregation in Palo Alto, California, has been on the JRF Board since 2008, and has served on the JRF Executive Committee and as president of the Western Region since November 2011. She has been elected to the RRC Board and will begin serving there as soon as all merger work is complete. She served as co-chair of Northern California’s first Reconstructionist Yom Iyyun and represented our movement at the World Zionist Congress in June 2010.  She is an active member of Keddem, serving on the Ritual Committee, and previously on the Membership Committee, chairing the first By-Laws Committee, and chairing the Food Policy Committee.

Professionally, Randi spent many years as a Human Resources and Organization Development consultant in the high tech industry, both in the Boston area and Silicon Valley.  Eight years ago, she left the corporate world and went to work for the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center, where she has held several positions.  Currently, she is the director of human resources and community outreach.

Randi has her BS in History and Education from Northeastern University and her MBA from Babson College in Wellesley, MA.  She lives in Palo Alto, CA, with her husband, writer and therapist, Marty Klein.

“'I Didn’t Want My Mouth Should Be Full”- Issues of Aging and the Jewish Community,” a presentation by David Fuks, will focus on the responsibilities of Jewish families and communities as they face growing demands for service to an aging population.  The talk focuses on religious and cultural commitments, needs of Jewish Elders, the dynamic impact of illness and disability on families and on the need for community and family planning.

Below, please download the materials for the presentation by David Fuks, “I Didn’t Want My Mouth Should Be Full: Issues of Aging and the Jewish Community.”

Since 1998 David Fuks has been CEO of Cedar Sinai Park, an organization providing services to elders and the people with disabilities.  He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Portland State University School of Social Work where he teaches graduate classes in leadership and fundraising.  He has worked in the human services arena in Oregon, since 1974, in leadership roles both in the non-profit and governmental sectors including: Director of the Oregon Juvenile Services Commission, Executive Director of the Edgefield Children’s Center, and Metro-Region Child Welfare Administrator. David is Vice-President and Legislative Chair of both the Oregon Alliance of Senior and Health Services and the Association of Jewish Aging Services, a North American Association.  He is a graduate of University of Michigan where he received both a BA and MSW. In his youth, Fuks worked as an actor and as a member of the improvisational comedy group, “Waggie and Friends.”  He is a published author of short stories and poetry.  Fuks lives in Portland, Oregon with his very patient wife and has two adult sons.

Prof. Oren Kosansky is Associate Professor of Anthropology and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Prof. Kosansky's research has focused on the Jews of Morocco; his courses at Lewis & Clark have been mainly in cultural anthropology, with emphasis on the Middle East.

Prof. Kosansky is also director of The Rabat Genizah Project, which is developing a digital archive of previously unavailable materials that documents the modern history of the Jewish Morocco in its urban, national and regional contexts.

Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman is the Director of the Western Region of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation.  In her twenty years of experience as a rabbi, she has served Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform and Gay Outreach congregations, and is a consultant on moral education for diverse families for national Jewish institutions, the National Council of Churches and the Metropolitan Community Church. In addition to her rabbinate, she was a professor of Religion and Women's Studies at California State University at Northridge, and lectured at American Jewish University and Loyola Marymount College. 

Rabbi Litman is highly committed to social action and interfaith work.  She chaired the board of the Clinica Msgr. Oscar Romero and the Southern California Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, the East Bay Interfaith Committee for Economic Justice and sits on the executive committee of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. She is a Peace and Justice Commissioner for the City of Berkeley.

Widely published in the fields of Jewish women's history and contemporary theology, Rabbi Litman's book, Lifecycles 2: Jewish Women on Scriptural Themes in Contemporary Life, co-edited with Rabbi Debra Orenstein, won several prestigious academic and community awards.  Rabbi Litman lives with her spouse, Stewart Schwartz, and their two children, Sophie and Asher in Berkeley, California.