Lily Henley
Lily is a singer, songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist working at the intersection of Sephardi Ladino and American folk music. Her album Oras Dezaoradas (2022, Lior Editions Paris) was named Album of the Year by Hey Alma and featured in The Guardian and Songlines Magazine. A Fulbright award winner and Carnegie Hall Musical Explorers artist, she has received support from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the New Jewish Culture Fellowship, the New York Foundation of Arts, and held residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, JArts Boston, and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. Lily tours regularly across the US and abroad, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Ethnomusicology at Harvard University.
Justin Goldner
Justin Goldner is a composer, producer, and session musician whose work spans Grammy-, Tony-, and Golden Globe–winning projects with artists across a range of genres. A restless traveler and language junkie, music has taken him to 73 countries in search of exchange and connection with communities from a mélange of traditions. Justin weaves Yiddish language and heritage into contemporary life through original songs and collaboration with other artists who bring fresh vitality to their own cultural idioms.
@jusgold1, @peripatetish
David Brown
David Asher Brown is a composer, speaker, and video-maker. His content focuses on breaking down and sharing music from around the world, as well as disability advocacy.
Marina Michelson
Marina Michelson is a writer, director, and actor originally from Tel Aviv, born to Soviet émigrés from the Republics of Georgia and Moldova. Her work explores identity and power through the everyday lives of women, as well as the rhythms of the contemporary immigrant experience. She holds a BFA in Theater from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and her short films have been recognized on the film festival circuit, including “Stagiaire,” which premiered at the 2021 Maryland Film Festival and “Biophilia,” which garnered the Outstanding Achievement Award for Best Screenplay at the 2018 Brooklyn Film Festival. She is currently in development on her first feature film, a coming-of-age refusenik story set in 1970s Soviet Union, with which she was a Top 50 Nicholl Fellowship semi-finalist, a Humanitas New Voices Fellowship semi-finalist, a 2024 fellow with NYU’s Production Lab Development Studio, and a 2025 recipient of NYU’s Production Lab Financing Slate.
Micah O’Konis + Marnina Schon
Micah O’Konis (they/he) and Marnina Schon (she/her) are a real-life couple who create sketch comedy together as Couplet and #NotARabbi. They wrote and performed the award-winning musical comedy More Guns! which ran for two years at Second City and toured to San Francisco. Marnina has also performed as an actor on stage with South Coast Rep, Center Theater Group, Berkeley Rep, and Story Pirates, as well as on screen in the upcoming series Chanshi with Henry Winkler, while Micah writes sketches at Upright Citizen’s Brigade, scores films, and releases music as Lookalike (feat. Marnina on violin and vocals).
Alexandra Zahav
Alexandra Zahav is an actor, writer, director. She judges the top screenwriting competitions and coaches screenwriters, as well as facilitates Jewish spiritual dance workshops. She has spent over a decade focused on seeking knowledge and understanding of self, others, and God, and chasing ever-elusive wisdom.
Alex Salsberg
Alex Salsberg is an independent animation director who loves telling stories through funny, weird and heartfelt cartoons. Alex has directed videos for Billy Ray Cyrus and Utkarsh Ambudkar, and has worked on projects for MTV, Nickelodeon and WGBH. He is also co-writer and director of the award-winning comedy short “Class of 84,” about a Jewish family facing anxiety and mortality, and host of “I Loved This Conversation,” a podcast about people living creative lives.