Dr. Keren R. McGinity will join the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) as Interfaith Family Specialist effective November 1. Dr. McGinity will serve as a part-time member of the Department of Synagogue Leadership, directly conferring with congregations on existing programs, such as Community and Covenant and Faith and Family, as well as charting the course of where the organization should go in the coming years on this area of critical importance.

Dr. McGinity is one of the leading experts on interfaith families and the Jewish Community. Her pioneering books, Still Jewish: A History of Women & Intermarriage in America (NYU Press 2009), a National Jewish Book Award Finalist, and Marrying Out: Jewish Men, Intermarriage & Fatherhood (Indiana University Press 2014), illustrated a new paradigm about Jewish continuity by analyzing gender and change over time.

Dr. McGinity received her PhD from Brown University, where she subsequently was appointed as visiting assistant professor of history, and was the Mandell L. Berman Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Contemporary American Jewish Life at the University of Michigan’s Frankel Center for Judaic Studies. She also holds degrees from Harvard and Rutgers Universities. She was the inaugural director of the Interfaith Families Jewish Engagement Program at Hebrew College’s Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education, and is an honorary research associate at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University. She attends a Conservative synagogue in Boston, and has a longstanding relationship with Conservative Judaism.

***

At The Well, a Jewish world women’s wellness organization has named Amy Hannes its inaugural Chief Operating Officer. In this position, she will be working as a partner to Executive Director Sarah Waxman. She joins At The Well at a time when the organization is experiencing its third consecutive year of 30%+ year over year growth.

Before joining At The Well, Hannes served as the Managing Director of Operations at Hazon, where she oversaw all facets of the $10M organization’s operations. Before joining Hazon, she worked as an attorney at WilmerHale and as a mediator with the Boston Law Collaborative. She began her career as a Jewish nonprofit professional at the Jewish Community Relations Council in Boston in 1995.