JCAN-MA LEADERSHIP
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RABBI KATY ALLEN, JCAN CO-FOUNDERRabbi Katy Z. Allen is one of the co-conveners of the Jewish Climate Action Network, getting it started in December of 2013 at LimmudBoston. She is also the founder and spiritual leader of Ma'yan Tikvah. She began her career as a biology teacher and later became a writer and editor of educational materials. She started teaching Hebrew school, then became involved in family and adult education, and for a number of years performed professionally as a storyteller. Katy received a Masters of Arts in Jewish Studies from Hebrew College in Newton, MA, in 1999, and rabbinic ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion in Riverdale, NY, in 2005. For three years she served as the rabbi of Temple Tifereth Israel of Winthrop before founding Ma'yan Tikvah. Rabbi Allen served for 10 years as a staff chaplain at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and then worked in hospice for two years before retiring from health-care chaplaincy. She considers herself an eco-chaplain and writes about matters of the spirit and the world at www.mayantikvah.blogspot.com.
Katy can be reached at rabbi@mayantikvah.org. |
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FRED DAVIS, PRESIDENTFred Davis has been professionally involved with energy conservation since 1977, starting in residential conservation and solar. For three decades, he's been a leader in efficient lighting, and helped devise the first national standards for lamp efficiency. Fred helped introduce the world to compact fluorescents, electronic ballasts, and now LED streetlights. He is president of Fred Davis Corporation, a leading national wholesale supplier specializing in energy-efficient lighting products since 1983. He chaired the first national conference on energy-efficient lighting and over the years has spoken on energy and lighting in venues from Stockholm to Sacramento. He writes the respected e-newsletter, The Lightening Volt.
Fred studied at College of the Atlantic, and graduated from Tufts. He was a member of Vanguard, the Clamshell Alliance affinity group devoted to education about clean energy. Fred was President of the Urban Solar Energy Association, has served on the Board of Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, and on both national and local Boards of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.
At his synagogue in Westwood, Fred served as Co-Chair of Social Action and helped introduce Mitzvah Day; and as Chair of Adult Education helped introduce Talmud Study and Nosh&'Drash. He is a past Co-Chair of the JCRC Energy Committee, and a Past President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston. He is currently a Hebrew College "Leaders in Adult Learning" Fellow. Contact Fred: fdavis@tiac.net
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THEA IBERALL, SECRETARYThea Iberall began focusing on the climate crisis in 2011 when she was doing research for The Swallow and the Nightingale. In this story, she brings together the visions of Gandhi, religious mysticism, and Native Americans as a more sustainable culture than the patriarchal system under which we live. Thea has a Ph.D. from University of Massachusetts in computational neuroscience and is the author of three scientific texts. She was on the research faculty at the University of Southern California where she did research in motor control and robotics. A storyteller and teacher, Thea is an inductee into the International Educators Hall of Fame and is featured in the documentary “Poets, Passion and Poetry.” She has featured at almost 100 venues including StorySpace, Open Spirit, Amazing Things Art Center, Limmud, newCAJE, Expresso Yourself Coffeehouse, and Worcester State University. Thea works with other organizations such as the First Parish UU Church Medfield Green Sanctuary Committee. She is the playwright of We Did It For You! - a musical about how women got their rights in America. www.theaiberall.com Contact: theaiberall@yahoo.com
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HOWARD B. BERNSTEIN, TREASURERHoward B. Bernstein has been following energy and environmental issues since the late 1970s, when he left academia for what became a 37-year career in the public sector, beginning as Energy Coordinator for the Town of Belmont and then Framingham, Massachusetts. Howard began work for the Massachusetts state energy office in 1983, where he had a series of responsibilities in energy efficiency program management, electricity and environmental policy, and renewable energy development. Having followed the global climate issue since the late 1980s, he edited the state’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory in the mid-1990s and participated in developing the Climate Change Action Plan in the late 1990s. Finally, in 2001 he helped launch the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS) and managed that expanding program until his retirement in 2017.
Howard earned degrees in anthropology from Yale College (BA) and the University of Chicago (AM & PhD), conducted ethnographic research in a small, tribal-peasant village in rural, south-central India (1970-72), and taught at colleges in Missouri, Vermont, and Massachusetts.
Since 1981, Howard and his family have been members of Congregation Beth in Sudbury, where he served as House Chair in 1982. During 2018-19, he helped to evaluate the solar potential of the temple and to motivate the formation of the congregation’s Green Team. During the 1980s. he served with Fred Davis as Co-Chair of the Energy Committee of Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council and was the liaison from the JCRC on the Board of the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts.
Contact: hbbernstein1@verizon.net |