Cat J. Zavis is the Executive Director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, a collaborative divorce attorney, mediator, and Coach for Parents co-parenting their children after divorce. She is also a sought after trainer in empathic communication, having trained hundreds of collaborative attorneys, coaches, financial professionals, therapists, mediators, spiritual practitioners, and parents. In 2009, she was awarded a Peace Builder Award for her business. She also has a MA degree in Women and Gender Studies. Cat has been a long time activist in social change work. She has worked as a volunteer with the American Civil Liberties Union, and with prisoners’ rights organizations, domestic violence victims, the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, and many others. She worked as a public defender and then as a women’s rights lawyer. Cat grounds her life and work in the wisdom and spiritual traditions and brings those values to her work every day. You can reach Cat at: Cat@spiritualprogressives.org
Rabbi Michael Lerner is the editor of TIKKUN magazine, rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley and San Francisco, CA, and the author of eleven books, including most recently Embracing Israel/Palestine: A Path to Healing the Middle East, and the National Bestseller, The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right.
Ari Bloomekatz is the managing editor of Tikkun magazine. He was previously a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and has also worked for Voice of San Diego, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and The Tennessean, in Nashville. Sometimes he teaches. You can view some of his work at www.aribloomekatz.com and can follow him on Twitter @bloomekatz.
Staci Akselrod is the operations and audience development manager at Tikkun. Before starting at Tikkun, Staci received her MA in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Before moving to California, she was working with and involved with various Jewish social justice communities in Chicago, where she worked as both an AVODAH corps member and a fellow for the Institute for the Next Jewish Future. She received her BA from Hampshire College, where she studied Jewish Studies and Theatre, focusing her studies on queer themes in Yiddish performance. In her spare time, she is a referee with Bay Area Derby.
