Tamara Kramer

Community Director

Tamara is a writer, curator, mom of two, and founding member of our community. She was the founder and producer of Shtetl Montreal, a beloved Montreal radio show and magazine where for over a decade she delved into Jewish arts and culture. Her work in the nonprofit world in Montreal, in South Africa, and in Israel and Palestine has deepened her understanding and profound appreciation of community.

Ethan Donnelly

Operations Director

Ethan Donnelly moved to the Mile End in 2022 and soon found in the Chavurah the kind of Jewish community he had been missing. Originally from Vancouver, he studied political science, sociology, and management at UBC. His work spans cultural communications and fashion, with a background in community organizing and event planning. Outside the Chavurah, Ethan can often be found working on creative projects, wandering the neighbourhood, or staying out late with friends somewhere between a kitchen table and a dance floor.

Rebecca Hamilton

JEDI Co-Director & Finance Administrator

Rebecca Hamilton is the Finance Administrator and coordinating the JEDI education program this year, following three years of teaching in the grade 5-6 and B Mitzvah classes. Outside of JEDI, Rebecca studies history and economics at McGill and is active in organizations working for housing, economic, and ecological justice.

Daniel Seligman

Board of Directors

I have a degree in religious studies from McGill University, which is where I first met our spiritual leader Rachel K, back in the 1990s, and I have been involved with MECh in one way or another since it began over 15 years ago. I am deeply connected to the Montreal cultural and music scene and I am eager to use my experience in organizing events and working within the diverse landscape of the Montreal arts scene towards helping MECh continue to grow as an important community institution in Montreal.

Dan is a music manager, most notably for Jewish hip hop wizard Socalled. He is a co-founder of the POP Montreal Music Festival and is the festival’s creative director.

Gillian Elias

Treasurer

Born and raised in Toronto, Gillian completed her bachelor’s degrees in French literature and economics at Queen’s University and her master’s degree in economics at the University of Victoria and became a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder in 2006.

She has held roles as an economist and chartered financial analyst in government, banking, and investing. Her areas of expertise include macroeconomics, emerging market sovereign debt, state-owned enterprises, tax policy, climate change, energy, and transportation.

Gillian moved to Montreal when La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec recruited her in October 2013 as a senior bond analyst. In 2020, she returned to the federal government, though remains based in beautiful Montreal.

Gillian loves being part of the Mile End Chavurah community and would like to contribute to enhancing its financial sustainability as a not-for-profit, ensuring that MECh can continue offering meaningful programs for years to come.

Luna Woolf

Board of Directors

Together with her family, Luna has been an active member of the Mile End Chavurah for more than 8 years, engaging with the JEDI and B-Mitz programs, as well as many other activities. She is honoured to be joining the board at this exciting time in the evolution of our warm and remarkable community.

Luna is a composer, dramaturg, recording producer and music publisher. Her works in opera and contemporary music have been nominated for GRAMMY, JUNO and Dora awards, and she has produced recordings for the PENTATONE, Atma, Analekta and Leaf labels. As dramaturg and teacher she has collaborated with Musique 3 Femmes, the National Theater School of Canada and others. An innovator in the Classical music recording industry, she is President and co-founder of Oxingale Productions, Inc., a boutique label and music publisher.

Emily Golan

Co-Chair

Emily Golan grew up in the suburbs of New York City in a family very involved in the Reconstructionist movement. The product of a Syrian-Jewish and Ashkenazi mixed marriage, holidays to her are less matzoh-ball soup and more grape leaves in apricot sauce or stuffed zucchini, although no mondelbret is better than her paternal grandmother’s. After stints abroad in Japan and Mexico, collecting languages along the way; and more permanent moments in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Emily moved to Montreal in 2017 with her young family. She is now proud to call herself Canadian.

Emily‘s career in the world of art museums has spanned two decades. Through this, she has gained a deep understanding of the complexities of non-profit organizations. Emily currently manages acquisitions and deaccessions at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. She brings to the board a commitment to keen organization, clear communication, and a welcoming environment for all. You are likely to find her in a café chatting with friends, ordering the spiciest item at a hole-in-the-wall Asian restaurant, hiking or skiing on the mountain, doing yoga, or on the sidelines of her sons’ soccer matches (ever chatting with coffee in hand).

Sara Laimon

Board of Directors

Sara Laimon and her family – Jonathan, Rachel and Toby Kimmelman – have been longstanding members of Mile End Chavurah though they live in NDG. Rachel had the honour of being the first Bat Mitzvah of the Chavurah in 2012; what a joy to see how many Bnei Mitzvot have followed! Rachel and Toby for many years offered an arrangement of Kol Nidrei I made for them when they were very young; Rachel left to study in Halifax and Toby is carrying on the tradition. Outside of the Chavurah Sara is Professor of Piano at McGill’s Schulich School of Music, and for 7 years served as Director of the (now closed) McGill Conservatory of Music. Originally from Vancouver, she arrived in Montreal (via 14 years in the United States, and one year in Winnipeg!) in Fall of 2001. She joined the board initially as a replacement but remained on the board eventually serving 2 years as co-chair with Dan Levy prior to sabbatical away in 2023-24. Sara has enjoyed working with the Social Justice Action committee, the High Holidays committee and hopes to rejoin the newly energized board and contribute to the sustainability of MECh.

Val Shamash

Secretary

I am a Mile End Iraqi Jew and have been a member of MECh for many years. I have always been grateful to have access to this inclusive Jewish++ community when my small family of my daughter and myself needed it. Finding that I am now wishing to lean into community, and ready to give back locally, I would be happy if I could help keep things flowing for the MECh community.

I have a Master’s Degree in anthropology and have been working in documentary film (and sometimes fiction) production for over 20 years. I feel strongly about the importance of appreciating cross-cultural differences, and I’m excited to use my professional experience as a member of the board!

Lisa Goldman

Board of Directors

The Mile End Chavurah has been an important part of my Montreal life since I moved to the city in 2017. I don’t generally join organizations, but this community is composed of special people who have given me a lot and to whom I am now trying to give a bit back.

Before I moved to Montreal I spent most of my adult life between New York and Tel Aviv, where I worked for Haaretz newspaper and was a co-founder of +972 Magazine, an Israel-Palestinian media cooperative. I’m still a journalist and still focus mostly on the Middle East, but these days I choose to keep what I feel is a healthy distance from events on the ground. I have a degree in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures from Columbia University in New York.

Aaron Richmond

Co-Chair

Over the last 5-10 years, I have been a part of the Mile End Chavurah – finding good company in its deeply humane, pluralist and porous interpretation of Jewish and Jewish-adjacent life. In the Chavurah, I have found a musical, creatively spirited community, whose continuity I am drawn to support.

I am an artist, curator and scholar, currently undertaking a postdoctoral fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  My work intersects between art, architecture and performance studies – approaching the arts as a zone of creative experimentation within the social fabric of contemporary life.

I see the contemporary moment as a watershed for rethinking Jewish institutions. In my
contributions to the board, I bring a particular desire to help navigate questions around
education, cultural programming, and the complexities of sustaining Jewish diasporic communities in a time of cultural and political polarization. As the life-partner to a heady and Jewish-spirited gentile, and the parent to two young children, I am committed to supporting the Chavurah as a space of access and intimacy for a diverse population of Jews and non-Jews alike.