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Rabbinic Ordination

Deborah Joyce Anstandig
Willemina Anna Davidson
Rafi Ellenson
Simcha Halpert-Hanson
David Kaplinsky
Naomi Gurt Lind
Akiva Nelson
Sarah Casey Pollack
Elisheva Pripas
Matthew Schultz
Beni Summers
Aron Stanley Wander

&驳迟;&驳迟;听Make a donation in honor of the Class of 2025 or an individual ordainee

Master of Arts in Jewish Studies

Deborah Joyce Anstandig
Willemina Anna Davidson
Raphael Stern Ellenson
Simcha Halpert-Hanson
David Abraham Kaplinsky
Naomi Gurt Lind
Akiva Nelson
Sarah Casey Pollack
Matthew Alan Schultz
Benjamin Michael Summers
Aron Stanley Wander

Master of Arts in Jewish Education

Elisheva Rose Pripas

Certificate in Emerging Trends in Jewish Education

Elijah Henry Cohen-Gordon
Joshua Noah Hare
Naomi Samara Weingast

Honorary Degree

Rabbi David Saperstein
Former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and Director emeritus of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

A rabbi, lawyer, and diplomat, for 40 years David Saperstein served as Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, representing the Reform Jewish Movement (the largest segment of American Jewry) to Congress and the Administration. He served, as well, a term as the President of the World Union for Progrfat lawessive Judaism, the international denomination of Reform Jewry.

Over the decades, Saperstein has held a range of public service posts, chairing or serving on five federal government commissions and advisory committees. The first rabbi in American history to have been designated a U.S. Ambassador, during the second term of the Obama administration, Rabbi Saperstein served as the United States Ambassador for International Religious Freedom, carrying out his responsibilities as the country鈥檚 chief diplomat on religious freedom.

As an academic, for 35 years, Saperstein taught First Amendment church-state law and Jewish law at Georgetown University (GU) Law Center and currently is a Senior Research Fellow at GU’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the鈥疦ew York Times鈥痑nd鈥疻ashington Post鈥痶o the鈥疕arvard Law Review. In the public interest world, he has served as chair, or on the boards and executive committees, of a range of national and international civil rights, environmental, social justice, and interfaith organizations including the NAACP, People for The American Way, Common Cause, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the National Religious Partnership on the Environment. He currently serves as the chair of the Word Faith Development Dialogue, and co-chairs the Multi-Faith Neighbors Network as well as the Word Economic Forum鈥檚 Global Future Council on Faith and Action.

Honorary Degree

Bishop Mariann Budde
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington

Mariann Edgar Budde serves as spiritual leader for 86 Episcopal congregations and ten Episcopal schools in the District of Columbia and four Maryland counties. The first woman elected to this position, she also serves as the chair of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, which oversees the ministries of the Washington National Cathedral and Cathedral schools.

A passionate believer in the gospel of Jesus and the Episcopal Church鈥檚 particular witness, Bishop Budde is committed to the spiritual and numerical growth of congregations and developing new expressions of Christian community. She believes that Jesus calls all who follow him to strive for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being. To that end, Bishop Budde is an advocate and organizer in support of justice concerns, including racial equity, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons, and the care of creation.

Bishop Budde was consecrated as the ninth bishop of Washington in November 2011. Prior to her election, she served for 18 years as rector of St. John鈥檚 Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. She earned a B.A. in history at the University of Rochester, graduating magna cum laude. She earned both a Masters in Divinity (1989) and Doctor of Ministry (2008) from Virginia Theological Seminary.

Her sermons have been published in several books and journals and she is the author of three books, (2023); (2019) and (2007).

When not working, you鈥檒l often find her riding her bicycle, spending time with family, or cooking dinner for friends. Bishop Budde and her husband are proud parents and doting grandparents.

>> Read more about Bishop Budde

Benjamin Shevach Award for Excellence in Jewish Educational Leadership

Idit Klein
President & CEO of Keshet

Idit Klein (she/her/hers) is a national leader for social change with more than 30 years of experience in the nonprofit justice sector. Since 2001, she has served as the leader of , the national organization for LGBTQ equality in Jewish life. Klein built Keshet from a local organization with an annual budget of $42,000 to a national organization with offices in six states and a multi-million budget. Under her leadership, Keshet has mobilized tens of thousands of Jewish leaders to make LGBTQ+ equality a communal value and priority for action. Klein created national community building programs for queer Jewish teens and organized Jewish communities nationwide to join the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. In addition, she served as the executive producer of Keshet鈥檚 documentary film, 鈥淗ineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School鈥� which inspired the formation of GSAs in Jewish schools around the country.

Prior to leading Keshet, Klein worked professionally in the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement and social justice sector in Israel. She also was a leader in the Israeli LGBTQ community and helped envision the Jerusalem Open House. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale University, she earned her Master鈥檚 in Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a focus on social justice education. She serves on the board of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and publishes frequently in the Jewish and LGBTQ press. Klein has been honored by Jewish Women International, the Jewish Women鈥檚 Archive, Mayyim Hayyim, Brandeis University鈥檚 Hornstein Program in Jewish Professional Leadership, and The Forward as one of its 鈥楩orward 50,鈥� a list of American Jews who have made enduring contributions to public life. She lives in Boston with her family.

Hillsen/Bronstein Award for Excellence in the Promotion of Hebrew Language and Literature

Dr. Maya Arad
Celebrated Israeli author

Maya Arad is the author of twelve books of Hebrew fiction, as well as studies in literary criticism and linguistics. Born in Israel in 1971, she is a graduate of Tel Aviv University in classics and linguistics, and received a PhD in linguistics from University College London. For the past twenty years, she has lived in California, where she is currently Writer in Residence at Stanford University’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies.

She is the inaugural recipient of the Jewish Book Council Jane Weitzman Prize for New Israeli Fiction (2019) and the Newman Prize, awarded by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Newman Family Foundation (2024).

The Hebrew Teacher is her first book to appear in English translation (New Vessel Press, translated by Jessica Cohen) and is the winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Hebrew Fiction in Translation for 2025. Her novel, Happy New Years, will appear in translation in August this year (NVP, also by Jessica Cohen).

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