A veteran professional in local and national Jewish circles and the nonprofit world, Lee Sherman was recently named board president of the Towson-based Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies.
A Baltimore native who grew up in Richmond, Virginia, Sherman has served as executive director of Pikesville’s Har Sinai-Oheb Shalom Congregation for the past year and previously served in that position at Pikesville’s Chizuk Amuno Congregation.
He has served on the ICJS’s board of trustees since 2020, and is a longtime participant and supporter of the independent education nonprofit.
Sherman, 69, earned bachelor of arts and master’s degrees in English from the University of Virginia, as well as a juris doctor degree from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary.
From 2009 to 2016, he served as president and CEO of the Association of Jewish Family & Children’s Agencies, a network of more than 125 human service providers in North America. He also worked for eight years as director of strategic development at Catholic Charities of Baltimore.
In its mission statement, the ICJS, which was founded in 1987 by a group of local business and religious leaders, “envisions an interreligious society in which dialogue replaces division, friendship overcomes fear, and education eradicates ignorance. … To dismantle religious bias and bigotry, ICJS builds learning communities where religious difference becomes a powerful force for good.”
Said ICJS Executive Director Heather Miller Rubens: “How should diverse citizens bring their religious selves to everyday life? How do we respond to the rise in religious bigotry and violence? These are urgent questions. Americans committed to living in a multi-religious democracy need a new way forward.
“I’m excited to work with Lee, and our new board officers and trustees, as ICJS works to dismantle religious bigotry in our communities and build an interreligious society where people of every religion — and no religion — can flourish.”
Besides Sherman, new ICJS officers include vice president Kristen S. Kinkopf, executive director of The Richman Foundation; treasurer Arun Subhas, a managing partner at Ernst & Young LLP; and secretary Meghan Casey, an attorney with Gallagher, Evelius & Jones.
The ICJS board of trustees welcomed four new members, including Lisa Akchin, founder and principal of On Purpose LLC, a marketing and leadership consultancy; Dr. Adnan Hyder, senior associate dean for research and professor of global health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health of George Washington University; Ajmel A. Quereshi, a magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court, District of Maryland; and Rabbi Deborah Wechsler of Chizuk Amuno Congregation. All of the new trustees were elected to three-year terms.
A former college campus activist, Veksler will speak at Chizuk Amuno on June 8 at the Ruth and Jay Lenrow Visiting Scholar-in-Residence for Combating Antisemitism.
A lifelong Baltimorean, Judge Rosenberg served as a U.S. magistrate judge from 1973 to 1998.
A former resident of Baltimore and central Florida, Ritt was active in the Soviet Jewry movement of the 1970s and 1980s.