Programs & Operations Staff      

Rabbi & Education Director

Director of Operations

Director of Youth & Family Learning
Rabbi David Basior                rabbidavid@kadima.org

Morgan Scherer                     office@kadima.org

Mollie Wolf                              mollie@kadima.org

Kadima School Faculty​

Michal Waldfogel
Nitzotz (Cohort for babies, 1-year-olds, and their adults)

Born in Jerusalem and raised in the epicenter of the Reconstructionist movement (Philadelphia), Michal now calls Seattle and Kadima home. For over fifteen years she has shared Jewish-inspired experiences as a Hebrew school teacher, Hebrew tutor, Rosh Hodesh group facilitator, Jewish summer camp counselor, B'Mitzvah madricha, Jewish Wellness Retreat+Workshop facilitator, and founder of Deep Breath Baking (a yoga and challah baking workshop). When teaching, she asks herself, “How does this empower my students and improve their quality of life?” In her spare time, she practices naturopathic medicine and writes songs.


​
​Ariel Zaslav
Tal (2- & 3-year-olds)
&
​Hebrew (3rd - 7th Graders)

Ariel has taught Jewish kids in B’mitzvah prep, preschools, Hebrew schools, summer camps, and at home! She loves few things more than intergenerational Jewish spaces. When not teaching Jewish, Ariel is passionate about herbal medicine, wellness practice, food preservation, early childhood education, and parenting.

Maia Brown
​Geshem (Pre-K & Kindergarteners)

Maia was raised in the Kadima community and is continually grateful for the ways she got to grow up knowing that there was no one way to be Jewish. She has been teaching in early childhood education for a decade and now teaches Elementary Creative Arts with Pre-K through fifth grade learners during the week. She wears other hats as well: as a Klezmer in the Yiddish anti-fascist folk-punk trio Brivele, and a visual artist with a degree in Fine Art and History -- concentrating in oral history and Jewish women's history. This year, she teaches and learns with Geshem, is a madricha for Kadima’s B'Mitzvah program, and sings with a lovely Kadima crowd during Yontif.


​Reed Forrester
Shemesh (1st & 2nd Graders​)

Reed has had great fun assistant teaching with Maia in Geshem for the last three years, and is excited for a new adventure co-teaching with Bess in Shemesh this year! He has been doing various forms of childcare most of his life. He grew up in the mountains outside of a tiny town, came to Seattle for college, and intends to stay here for the rest of his life. He is a graphic designer and high school teacher. Reading books, crafting, and being a dad are his top three favorite pastimes.

Bess Rosenberg Hepner
Shemesh (1st & 2nd Graders​)
&
Keshet (3rd & 4th Graders)

Bess was born in NYC and grew up in Western Massachusetts. She did not like the Hebrew School at the local reform temple, so her family -- along with five other families -- started a progressive homeschool Hebrew School that she attended from ages 9 through 13. Because they were not part of a congregation, Bess and her pre-teen classmates designed and led each other's bat mitzvah services. Bess has always wanted to pass on this mentorship she received from her teachers to other young Jewish people. Besides teaching at Kadima, Bess is a full time musician and music educator.

Shelby Handler
Keshet (3rd & 4th Graders​)

Shelby's grandma likes to say that Shelby came out of the womb speaking French. This isn't true (Shelby's grandma loves to exaggerate) but their early years did involve a lot of impassioned gibberish. Once they actually learned to talk, Shelby and their sister Zoe spent much of elementary school acting out storylines starring their barbie dolls. The plots were intricate, strange, and dramatic, often ending with at least one of them sobbing while in character. Shelby hopes to bring some of that joyful weirdness to their third year with Team Keshet, in service of justice-centered Judaism! When they aren’t at Kadima, Shelby is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Washington.

Gillian Locascio-Drutis
Ra'am & Barak (5th - 7th Graders)

Gillian is thrilled to be returning to Kadima School for her sixth year, delving into the oft-neglected and somewhat subversive corners of Jewish history with Team Ra’am/Barak (5th-7th grade). Born and raised in Tacoma, she spent a formative decade organizing around community health and human rights in the Southeast US and Central America before returning to Washington, where she worked with laborers, public health advocates, environmentalists, and students to build a vision and momentum for fair and just international trade policies. A few years back, she decided to dig deeper into long-time passion for plants and her zest for healing our broken food system, and she now runs her own small vegetable farm, Dancing Sprouts Farm, in Orting, WA. When she isn’t caring for vegetables, she can be found cooking, teaching, organizing songful lefty Jewish spaces, and reading up on the histories she never learned in school.

Daniel Oron
Ra'am & Barak (5th - 7th Graders) & Hebrew (5th Graders)

​Daniel was born in Ashkelon, an Israeli city on the land which was once the Palestinian village, al-Faluja. He moved to Seattle at age 5 and has lived here with his parents and younger brothers for over 18 years. He joined Kadima in 2016 as a teacher and immediately fell in love with it. The idea of a Jewish space centered around anti-racism, activism, and challenging any restrictions to Jewish identity was exactly what Daniel was looking for. He’s excited to bring that mindset to teaching Team Ra’am and Hebrew this year. He has been doing various forms of childcare and teaching for 7 years and spent 2019 teaching English in Seoul. In his free time, Daniel enjoys cooking, hiking, playing soccer, and talking about politics with his brother, Guy.

Rabbi David Basior
​Ra'am (5th - 6th Graders)
&
​Barak (7th Graders)

Entering his sixth year as Kadima Rabbi, Education Director, and youth educator, Rabbi David is excited to work with Team Ra’am and Team Barak on Tuesday evenings. He is committed to giving young people and adults the tools to create space for grappling with what it means to be Jewish now -- grounded in history, informed by tradition, and paced by the calendar and rhythm of Jewish time. He is excited to guide young people through key learning toward celebrating their emergence as emerging Jewish adults in today's world equipped with ancient and contemporary tools, connections, and modes of inquiry.
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