Ilana is so excited to be back at BCI. A participant in 2013 and a Program Fellow for the summers of 2015 and 2016, BCI holds a special place in her heart. Ilana lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband and 15-month-old son. They have a sweet dog named Baxter, a vegetable garden, and two bird feeders. Before having a child, Ilana was an Early Childhood Educator, working with three-year-olds conflict resolution and problem-solving. She is also the Author and Illustrator of "The Sun and Moon Book", a children's story for everybody. She is now a stay and home mom and hoping to transition into a new field when her son starts school. In the meantime, Ilana has been deeply immersed in her artistic practice with Jewish Studio Project's CFT Fellowship. Ilana's hobbies include: creating, reading, observing, listening, and honest conversation. She loves animals and flowers. She does not love bug bites and pollution.

Liana Wertman (she/her) is the founder of The Torah Studio. She's from LA, and will not stop talking about how much she loves it. When she's not learning or teaching Torah, she's probably making art with yarn, (newly) in the pottery studio, or taking a nice walk.

Rabbi Isaac Landes is the director of the Classic Talmud Program at Yashrut. He is also pursuing a PhD in history at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem focusing on infanticide, abortion and birth control in nineteenth century Britain. He enjoys mixology, cooking regional Italian cuisine and likes nothing more than to be proven wrong about something. When Isaac is in the right mood he is known to rattle off some poetry by heart. Isaac lives in Jerusalem with his lovely wife Rossella and his two little children Noa and Nathan.

Josh Krug is the Director of Jewish Life and Learning at Kehillah Jewish High School in Palo Alto. As one of the Beit Midrash educators at BCI, he is thrilled to have the opportunity to help build a community of sacred living and learning this summer. In the past, he served as a Jewish Studies teacher at Milken Community High School, a Madrich with gap-year program, KIVUNIM: New Directions, and a retreat planner with Moishe House. Josh completed his Masters of Divinity from Harvard and his PhD in Education and Jewish Studies from NYU.He is a poet, an aspiring mensch, and the founder of Opening Doors.

Jonathan Bubis is a Jewish educator, prayer leader, composer, and performing artist with a passion for music, theater, and Jewish text. He is currently on the Jewish Studies faculty of de Toledo High School in Los Angeles. A graduate of the Zeigler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University, he spent his first years out in the field as a congregational rabbi -- first at Shomrei Torah Synagogue in West Hills, CA, then as a Jewish Emergent Network Rabbinic Fellow at the Kitchen in San Francisco.

Leila Gordon is a recent graduate of the Hornstein Program at Brandeis University, where she received an MA/MEd in Jewish Professional and Educational Leadership. She is thrilled to be serving as a Program Fellow at BCI this summer! Leila was a BCI participant in the summer of 2019, and is looking forward to helping foster the completely inclusive, welcoming, and spiritual space that makes BCI so magical. Leila is passionate about working with young Jewish adults and helping them to discover their personal Jewish identities in whatever way feels authentic to them. She is looking forward to engaging in this work this summer and in her new role as Assistant Director of Religious Education at Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington DC. Leila is from a suburb of Philadelphia, is a big Phillies fan, and enjoys running and exercise.

She hopes to run many mornings around the beautiful BCI campus, so reach out if you are looking for a running buddy!

Sam Langstein was, until last month, the Director of the Helpline at the National Alliance on Mental Illness in New York City, where he oversaw a team of responders and managed their call line run and staffed entirely by people with a lived experience of mental illness. He has taught and led workshops on peer-based mental health for the FBI, the Pratt Institute, Stony Brook University's School of Social Work, and TEDx. In 2020, Sam graduated from the University of Michigan's Jewish Communal Leadership Program through the School of Social Work where he was a Wexner Graduate Fellow/Davidson Scholar. In graduate school, Sam interned at Beit T'Shuvah and at Jewish Family Services of Metro Detroit. In 2015, Sam became a corps member of AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. For the next three years he worked at Footsteps, an organization which supports and affirms those transitioning out of the ultra-Orthodox world. Before that, Sam received his BA in psychology from CUNY Hunter College. He's also been a freelance graphic designer, assisted in psycholinguistic research at Yale University, and has been fired from a job at a falafel shop.

Kohenet Rachel Kann is a devotional poet and ceremonialist. She is featured in the new anthology XLA Poets from HINCHAS Press. She was the 2020 New England Jewish Poetry Festival’s Featured Poet and a 2020 Cosmic Sister “Women of The Psychedelic Renaissance” awardee for her poetry presentation at the 2020 Spirit Plant Medicine Conference. She is a WORD: Bruce Geller Memorial Prize recipient for her latest poetry collection, How to Bless the New Moon, from Ben Yehuda Press. She leads Realize Paradise Creativity Workshops, Shabbat Soul Journeys and New Moon Union Rosh Chodesh Circles. She was the 2017 Outstanding Instructor of the Year at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.