In July 2012, Hannah Alper launched her blog—Call Me Hannah—where she spoke about causes important to her: animal welfare, habitat destruction, and the natural environment; within the year, her blog had received 100,000 page-views. By 2020 she had expanded her advocacy to anti-bullying and “kindraising”, what she described as “changing our communities and the world through kindness.” Her 2014 TEDx talk, “How to find your spark”, was viewed over 2400 times in less than one week. By mid-2020, she had given “more than 400 speeches”, and was elected co-president of the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization’s Lake Ontario Region chapter. “Values like tzedakah [charity] and especially tikkun olam [repairing the world] are at the core of everything I do as an activist, […] It’s about repairing the world, which I believe we must do. That approach shaped me into the type of person I am today, someone who’s also passionate about community.”
A passionate advocate of the free expression of ideas and Israel, David Bernstein is the founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV), which opposes illiberal ideologies and supports the free expression of ideas in and out of the Jewish community, and author of Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews. He is also a co-founder of the Institute for Liberal Values, a consortium of like-minded organizations supporting liberal principles. He is past President and CEO of Jewish Council for Public Affairs and former executive director of the David Project. He spent 13 years at the American Jewish Committee in senior roles. David is a prolific speaker, podcaster and writer, having written hundreds of opinion pieces in the Jewish and general press.
Jacob Shmuel Boteach is an American Orthodox Jewish rabbi, author, and television host. Boteach is the author of 31 books, including the best seller Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy, and Kosher Jesus. For two seasons he hosted the prime time television series Shalom in the Home, which was one of TLC’s highest-rated shows. His outspokenness has earned him praise and criticism. The Washington Post referred to him as “the most famous rabbi in America”, Newsweek named him one of the 10 most influential rabbis in the United States, and The Jerusalem Post named him one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world. Boteach is the founder and executive director of The World Values Network (also known as “This World: The Values Network”), a Jewish pro-Israel non-profit organization that he established in 2007. The mission of the organization is to “disseminate universal Jewish values in politics, culture, and media”. The organization is founded on the belief that Judaism, with its emphasis on perfecting the world and celebrating life, can help America address some its greatest challenges, such as high divorce rates, teenager alienation, depression, and increasing ignorance and materialism.