Board of Trustees, Home Page Blog Feature, People of Shomrei

Welcome to the Board of Trustees 2025

by Shomrei Emunah

Yasher koach to the 2024-25 Board of Trustees. Special thanks to outgoing board members – Risa Bernstein and Adam Dembrow.

Welcome to these new board members – Jenni Friedman, Mike Friedman, Kelli Mason, and Judy Wildman.

These are the continuing trustees:
Terms expiring in 2026: Josh Hirsch, Beryl Hiller, Carol Katzman, Josh Kline
Terms expiring in 2027: Sarita Eisenberg, Shirley Grill, Rachel Kanter, John Lasiter
Suzanna Grobman, who joined the board last year as a trustee, will now be serving as co-VP for Programming.

Meet the New Trustees (terms expiring in 2028)

Jenni Friedman

Jenni was born and raised in West Orange in a family active in the local Jewish community. She attended Schechter (now GOA) and spent many summers at Jewish camps, including Ramah and USY on Wheels. She went on to study at Syracuse University (Go Orange!), where she met her husband, Jon, now a pediatric ER doctor.

Jenni has built a career in marketing, helping startups grow and transforming established brands. She currently leads marketing at Ophelia, a telehealth clinic focused on opioid addiction treatment.

She moved to Montclair two years ago with her two children, Layla (6) and Kinneret—Kinny—(4), and is looking forward to contributing her professional experience and community roots to the synagogue board.

Mike Friedman

Mike has been a member of Shomrei for the past 8 years.  He grew up attending a Jewish Day School (Schecter) and has regularly pursued Jewish leadership positions including in USY and Cornell Hillel.   At Shomrei, he has served on the education committee for the past 5 years and regularly reads Torah despite a below average singing voice but makes up for it with enthusiasm.

Mike spent a decade on Wall Street and the last six years leading Finance and Strategy at Dotdash, where he led several acquisitions, creating the largest digital publisher in the US.

Mike is father to Meyer and Dalyah, both JLC students, and the three of them live with Mike’s partner Andrea and her son Max.  Most importantly, Mike is coach to the 10U Montclair Bulldogs baseball team, 2025 regular season champions.

Kelli Mason

Kelli Mason is the Chief People Officer at Recidiviz, a tech nonprofit working to shrink the criminal justice system. She previously led People Operations for 3 venture-backed startups and was a partner at a venture capital firm, advising portfolio companies on building inclusive candidate and employee experiences. Kelli began her work in this space by co-founding Paradigm, a workplace inclusion consulting firm that landed her in Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2015. Before that, Kelli was a corporate lawyer at Fenwick & West and at Jones Day. Outside of work, Kelli spends most of her free time homeschooling her two young sons and helping support Shomrei’s HR committee and the Shomrei Reads program. Kelli holds a JD from Stanford Law School and a BA, cum laude, from Rice University.

Judy Wildman

“We joined Shomrei in October 1983 just before I gave birth to our first child, Elana, that November. I felt a strong need to be part of an organized Jewish community, and I found my home here at Shomrei Emunah. In the early years, I was involved in forming and leading Tot Shabbat, Women’s League Shabbat and children’s high holiday services.
I love davening and reading Torah and haftorah and being part of this warm and vibrant community. More recently I have teemed up with my husband, Ken Bannerman, and Merrill Silver, to host Taste of Shabbat on Friday nights at our home. I love all the music and singing at Shomrei and that so many congregants are studying Hebrew, learning the prayers and preparing to lead the congregation from the Bimah. I am involved in the Chug Ivri where a group of us get together weekly to speak and try to improve our Hebrew.
More personally, I am an attorney who has had my own practice in Montclair for 25 years. My husband, Ken, and I moved to West Orange a few years ago, where I have continued my practice part-time.  I love walking and hiking, reading, cooking and entertaining. We have three children, Elana and my son-in-law Allan, Shira and Aviva, and three grandchildren, Isaac, Samuel and Ayla, whom we try to see as often as possible.”
  • Shomrei Emunah

    Congregation Shomrei Emunah - Embracing Tradition and Modernity. Our synagogue is the spiritual home of a warm and inviting community of Jews in and around Montclair, New Jersey. We welcome individuals, couples and families of diverse backgrounds and orientations. We observe an egalitarian, vibrant Judaism, balancing openness and traditional practice. Open-Door Judaism: members voluntarily set the level of thier dues.

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