From the Editor

The New Vilna Review is an online journal dedicated to exploring questions of modern Jewish identity from an individual and communal perspective. We publish works by some of the most interesting and innovative poets, writers, artists and thinkers in the Jewish world today. We are based in Boston, and while many of our readers and contributors come from within the American Jewish community, we also have visitors and contributors from Israel and around the world. In poetry and verse, we are dedicated to exploring a wide variety of Jewish themes, helping to build a strong body of modern Jewish literature, accessible via the web.

-Daniel E. Levenson
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief

Daniel E. Levenson is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the New Vilna Review. He holds an ALM in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University and a BA in anthropology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Mr. Levenson was an active leader in the Jewish graduate student community at Harvard University and has studied at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem. He lived in Israel for 8 months in 2009 where he wrote, studied and did volunteer work for the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Staff

Daniel E. Levenson, Editor-in-Chief

Board of Advisors

Mishael Zion, 26, is a Jewish Educator from Jerusalem. Studying and teaching at the Shalom Hartman Institute and at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, Mishael searches for ways in which Judaism and Halakha can become a toolbox for building a meaningful Jewish identity. He is co-author of HaLaila HaZeh: An Israeli Haggadah (Hebrew, 2004) and A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices (English, 2007), and the proud father of Zohar.

Rabbi Henry A. Zoob is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Beth David of Westwood, having served the congregation for thirty-six years. He is the Founding President of the Rashi School, the Boston Area Reform Jewish Day School. He served on the Social Planning and Allocations Committee of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) of Boston for a six year period and was a founding board member of the Gann Academy. He helped initiate the Beit Din (Rabbinical Court) of the Boston Area Reform Rabbis and served as the first Rosh (Head) of the Beit Din from 1998 to 2001. He is a past President of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis and past Chairman of the Boston Area Reform Rabbis. He has served on the Board of Mayyim Hayyim, the Boston Area Mikveh and Educational Center for six years. Rabbi Zoob is married to Barbara Shure Zoob of Cincinnati who is on the staff at the Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly in Brighton, MA. Their son Sam is currently studying for his MBA at Babson.

Rabbi Avi Poupko is a former Harvard University Campus Rabbi and adviser to the Orthodox minyan at Harvard University Hillel. He presently lives in Jerusalem.

Paul Sassieni is a Jewish community activist who is involved with grass roots and mainstream organizations in the Boston area. He is a founder member and former President of the Boston Israel Action Committee which is a grassroots Israel advocacy organization. He is a Board member of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston and a member of that organization's Israel Action Center Advisory Board. Originally from the UK, Paul was active as a teenager in the B'nai Brith Youth Organization, and a member of the National Executive of the Union of Jewish Students where he was National Soviet Jewry officer in the early 1980's. A banker by profession, Paul recently took time out of his career to work full time in the Jewish community as Executive Vice President of Harvard Hillel. He is a member of Congregation Shaarei Tefillah, a modern Orthodox congregation in Newton, MA. His children attend Gann Academy in Waltham, MA and Maimonides School in Brookline, MA.

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