Rebecca Cunningham
Rebecca Cunningham is the Founder and CEO of Cordelia Studios, an award-winning kids’ podcast company. She started the kids’ podcast, Girl Tales in 2017 and has since helped build podcasts for Mattel, Realm, National Geographic, Spotify Kids & Family, Sony, America’s Test Kitchen, and tonies. She was honored with the Webby for Best Kids & Family Podcast Episode, a Signal Award, the Kennedy Center’s Next 50 Award, and The Gotham/Variety Audio Honors.
Jacob Stark
Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Jacob S. Stark is a graduate of UCLA Law School and the UCLA Professional Program in Screenwriting. An award-winning writer/producer, Jacob has worked with entertainment companies ranging from Warner Bros to NBCUniversal to Nickelodeon. Most recently, Jacob produced the acclaimed Israeli TV series, The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything, which aired on Kan 11 and is being distributed by Keshet International. He also served as an executive producer on Netflix’s The Great Seduction, which premiered on the streaming network as the #1 non-English film in the world. He is currently writing and producing an animated Christmas feature (like a good Jewish boy) with A+C Studios out of England. He is very proud to have been an inaugural Jewish Writers Institute Fellow.
Sam Barnett
After graduating from the University of Michigan’s Screen Arts and Cultures program with a screenwriting concentration, Sam Barnett grew tired of his home state of Michigan and relocated to the ancient homeland of his parent: New York. In addition to his writing, he has served as a longtime story analyst for Lionsgate, and has worked on feature films and documentaries at production companies such as Big Beach, Ideal Partners and Keshet Studios. His work has been featured on websites such as The A.V. Club.
Jacob Fiskus
Jacob Fiskus is a New York-based filmmaker who has produced several independent documentary shorts. He has also edited short-form promotional videos for social justice organizations, and was a contributing writer for SLAM Magazine. Jacob is currently a co-producer on a documentary about antisemitism in America. His main passion is screenwriting. Jacob has written several screenplays and a pilot with his writing partner, Tal Robbins. His passion for screenwriting is matched only by his passion for Torah and Judaism. Jacob is dedicated to telling stories that encapsulate Jewish life and express Torah ideas and concepts.
Kyra Brown
Kyra Brown is a comedy writer and performer from just north of the middle of nowhere Massachusetts. She recently graduated from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts where she studied — you guessed it — cinematic arts. Kyra prides herself on writing every genre (within comedy of course) from rom-coms, to angsty YA dramedys, to musical parodies. She has worked in various writer’s room support staff roles at The Late Late Show with James Corden, NCIS: New Orleans, and currently on Them: Covenant, an upcoming Amazon Prime show. In addition to that, she has written for several web series and created and produced an all female sketch comedy website called www.yesbitches.com. Kyra is also a producer and host of a popular West Hollywood monthly stand up comedy show called Spilled Milk @spilledmilkcomedy. She has produced several other shows in the past and has performed stand up all over the country, including at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. In her spare time, Kyra can be found painting, skiing, sleeping, eating chocolate, or cuddling a stranger’s dog on the sidewalk.
Danielle Berrin
Danielle Berrin works at the intersection of Jewish spirituality and social impact, helping lead development and philanthropic engagement for Or HaLev, a global center for Jewish mindfulness dedicated to personal and collective transformation through contemplative Jewish practice.
An award-winning journalist and storyteller, Danielle spent over a decade as a senior reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, where she explored the interplay of Jewish identity, politics and culture. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Yedioth Ahronoth, The Forward, Hadassah Magazine, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and she has provided commentary on CNN, MSNBC, and major Israeli media outlets.
In 2017, the Los Angeles Press Club named her Journalist of the Year for her groundbreaking reporting on sexual harassment—published a year before the #MeToo movement emerged. She later served as California Jewish Outreach Director for the Bloomberg 2020 presidential campaign and was named one of The Forward’s most influential American Jews.
Danielle is a recipient of the David Twersky Journalism Award. She served as a Global Justice Fellow with American Jewish World Service and currently serves on the committee for the Baruch Link Scholar-in-Residence Program in Los Angeles, a weekend of deep exploration of Hebrew literature and culture.
Most recently, she was a 2023–2024 fellow of the Jewish Writers’ Initiative screenwriting program and is currently in her third year of advanced study to teach Jewish mindfulness meditation.
In 2025, Danielle received a first-place Rockower Award for a personal essay she wrote about naming her first child in honor of murdered Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
David Lombroso
David is a Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker whose work mines the humor and heartbreak at the intersection of identity, inheritance, and assimilation. As a 2023–24 Jewish Writers’ Initiative Fellow, David developed and wrote PERPETUITY, a horror feature that satirizes the insidious spread of antisemitism through the outbreak of a bloodthirsty mind-virus at a summer camp in the Catskills. His debut feature NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM is slated for production in early 2026, and his comedy series SHTICK is currently out to streamers.
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.
Yael Levy
Yael Levy is an author, illustrator, and screenwriter who loves creating Jewish-themed projects for kids. A Literary Associate for Olswanger Literary Agency, Yael currently writes graphic novels, and scripts for animated TV shows. She enjoys reading, hiking, and her husband’s perfect potato kugel.
Alex Mann
Alex Mann is a writer-director and the founder of Space Oddity, a next-gen content studio backed by Snap Inc. Mann has written feature films for several A-list production companies, including Platinum Dunes and Thunder Road Films. Mann’s short films have accumulated over a billion views and been featured by CNN, The Los Angeles Times and New York Magazine. He’s directed branded content for Netflix, TikTok, Amazon, Verizon and Honda. Outside of filmmaking, Mann is a contributing writer for VICE and The New Yorker. Mann is represented by Paradigm Talent Agency and The Gotham Group.