Our Team

Dr. Erica Brown

Dr. Erica Brown is the Vice Provost for Values and Leadership at and the founding director of its Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. Her forthcoming book is Morning Has Broken: Faith After October 7^th (Toby/Koren). She is also the author of The Torah of Leadership and Kohelet and the Search for Meaning (Maggid). Erica was a Jerusalem Fellow, an Avi Chai Fellow, the recipient of the 2009 Covenant Award, and is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation. She has written 15 books on the Hebrew Bible, spirituality, and leadership, two of which were finalists for the National Jewish Book Award. Her book (Simon and Schuster) received the Wilbur and Nautilus Awards for spiritual writing. She also co-authored 2 books on leadership, and co-edited Ode to Joy: Happiness in the Thinking of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Beyond. She has been published in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Tablet, First Things, and The Jewish Review of Books. She serves as a consulting editor for the journal Tradition. Her website is . Erica and her husband Jeremy are the proud parents of four children, four in-law children, and six beautiful grandchildren.

Dr. Shira Weiss

Dr. Shira Weiss is the Assistant Director of the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. Dr. Weiss teaches Jewish Thought at 's Bernard Revel Graduate School and has previously taught at Stern College for Women. She holds a PhD in Jewish Philosophy from Revel, an EdD from Azrieli, a BA from Stern College, and has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment of Humanities, The Templeton Foundation, Ben Gurion and Oxford Universities. She is the author of  (Oxford, 2017),  (Cambridge, 2018), co-author of The Protests of Job: An Interfaith Dialogue (Palgrave, 2022), as well as articles in academic journals and anthologies. 

Aliza Abrams Konig

Aliza Abrams Konig is the Senior Program Director of the Leadership Scholars at , an undergraduate program to develop emerging leaders for the Jewish future. She formerly served as ’s Director of Alumni Engagement, Director of Student Life at Stern College for Women and the Director of Jewish Service Learning, where she built the service-learning curriculum and established student travel missions around the world. Earlier in Aliza's career she served as Assistant Principal at Central, High School for Girls. She has lectured on leadership, education, faith, prayer and issues related to the contemporary Jewish family, dating, infertility, surrogacy and family in synagogues, community centers and schools. She also serves as a consultant on experiential education.

Aliza is a member of the inaugural Wexner Field Fellows program through the Wexner Foundation. She has written for the Torah-to-Go series and is published in Ennoble and Enable: Essays in Honor of Richard M. Joel ( Press).

Aliza holds a B.A. in Judaic Studies from Stern College and a Master’s in Social Work from ’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work. Aliza and her family live in Riverdale, New York, where she volunteers with her synagogue and other nonprofit organizations. 

Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Schiffman

Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Schiffman is an Assistant Professor at ’s Azrieli Graduate School, the Director of Leadership Scholars at the Sacks-Herenstein Center, and an instructor at RIETS. He graduated with a BA in psychology, an MS in Jewish Education from Azrieli, an MA in Jewish Philosophy from Revel, Rabbinic Ordination from RIETS, a doctorate in psychology from St. John’s University, and is a Ph.D. candidate at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies. He is the associate rabbi at Kingsway Jewish Center in Brooklyn, NY and practices as a licensed psychologist in NY. His book Psyched for Torah: Cultivating Character and Well-Being Through the Weekly Parsha, his academic and popular articles, as well as many of his lectures, are accessible on his website, .

Rabbi Ari Rockoff

Rabbi Ari Rockoff currently serves as the David Mitzner Community Dean for Values and Leadership at .  He is recognized throughout the community as a dynamic Jewish leader with a vast national and international network who has significant expertise in organizational strategy and management. 

From 2000-2014, Rabbi Rockoff’s professional journey began as Director of Community Partnership at ’s Center for the Jewish Future. He was later promoted to Associate Dean of Institutional Advancement at the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies.  His community leadership roles also include Executive Vice President of the Religious Zionists of America (RZA) and Senior Director of Leadership Development and Strategic Partnerships of the Orthodox Union. 

An alumnus of ’s Sy Syms School of Business, Rabbi Rockoff earned rabbinical ordination from RIETS, a master’s degree in education from Azrieli, and an MBA from Baruch College, focusing on organizational behavior.