Treasurer
Susan Auslander (she/her)
I have been living full time in Vermont since I retired in 2011. I taught mathematics for 32 years at the college level, middle school and high school. I had a consulting business to help people overcome math anxiety for my entire professional career. I now spend my time volunteering for the jazz center and BAJC. I spend a lot of time going to hear live music mainly jazz but other genres too BAJC is a big part of my life and I enjoy all my involvement both spiritually and practically. My involvement is to give back and help community thrive.
Clerk
Sue Lederer (she/her) I have been living in the Brattleboro area since 1975. For approximately 30 years I have been a member of the BAJC. As a child I lived in a rural New England town where my family belonged to a small Orthodox synagogue consisting of primarily immigrants and Holocaust Survivors. This has given me an understanding of the amount of commitment necessary to maintain the spirit of a rural congregation in the context of a typical New England community. Currently I am semi-retired from a career as a social worker and psychotherapist, specializing in trauma therapy. What motivated me to join the board last year was my concern for maintaining a Jewish presence in our community. It’s important to me to join with others of varied beliefs to work on healing some of the pain that division, as it is becoming more frequently expressed, can engender.
Stephanie Bass Abrams is an award-winning performer and director with over 30 years of experience in theatre and circus. She has performed as a mime and contortionist, written and directed more than 30 original productions, and served as artistic director and dramaturg for many others. Her theatrical work has been performed around New England (wrote and directed 2023 Circus Smirkus Tour A Midsummer Night’s Circus), Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, New York City, Washington DC, and in 10 countries including a run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2015. Stephanie’s unique approach to performance training has inspired many professional dancers, actors, variety performers, as well as hundreds of recreational students, and has also helped launch the careers of many professional circus artists. When she is not coaching or mentoring up-and-coming performers, she can be found charming audiences with her unique vaudeville acts in Brattleboro and beyond and producing and directing fun, interactive shows like Ones From the Vaults (Vermont’s only ongoing Rocky Horror Picture Show live shadow cast) and Vaudeville Night.
Stephanie moved to Brattleboro from Los Angeles last summer with her partner Patrick (Old Timey Piano Craft) and 2 black cats. She often takes the train to NYC to visit her daughter, Ellie, who is majoring in dance at Marymount Manhattan College. Stephanie grew up in a non-religious Jewish household in Texas. She spent most of her life around her grandparents, Holocaust survivors from Poland, and Yiddish speakers on both sides of her family. Her “Yiddishkeit” (Jewishness) and her Ashkenazi heritage are a source of strength and comfort for her as well as a driving force behind her performance work. She gets most of her inspiration from Jewish humor and early Jewish Vaudeville. She recently started the Yiddish group at BAJC “Kibitz & Nosh” and hopes to see more Jewish cultural heritage being celebrated in our community. Since moving to Brattleboro, the BAJC has felt like family. I would be honored to serve as a trustee and help out in any way I can.
Wendy Bayliss: It will be an honor to serve on the BAJC Board of Trustees again. My special interest is in extending a warm welcome to families of all backgrounds, so they feel accepted wholeheartedly. Over the years I’ve worked on several committees, including Rabbi Search Committees, Welcoming Afghan Refugees, Education, & Hospitality. Before we moved to Brattleboro in 2001, I served on the Board at Congregation B’Nai Jacob in Springfield, Mass, for several terms, and I taught in Hebrew schools in Hartford & Glastonbury, CT.
Our three children have been very involved with BAJC and Judaism. Miriam was a tutor in our BAJC Hebrew school, after graduating from Heritage Academy day school in Springfield. Both Rosie and Gabe graduated from BAJC Hebrew school and were b’nai mitzvah here. Rosie participated in the Maccabee games for two years, and studied in Haifa for a semester. Both daughters went on Birthright Israel.
My professional background includes growth & development studies in Mexico & Guatemala, time at The Wharton School of Health Care Administration & University of Pennsylvania, & University of Connecticut School of Law. I have also taught & tutored high school, elementary & preschool youngsters. I love being an active member of the BAJC family.
Stephan Brandstatter (he/him)
I am the son of Holocaust survivors. After immigrating to the USA we first settled in Brooklyn, NY and later in 1955 moved to Claremont, NH. Subsequent to schooling, traveling and working in NYC, Chicago, LA, and Wales I relocated to VT. I am now retired from having owned and operated a restaurant/nightclub in White River Jct.,VT, and then in Brattleboro, VT, a record store from 1991-2004. In addition I am a percussionist/sound healer. Since arriving in Brattleboro 37 years ago I have been an active board trustee throughout those years, serving as Vice President and Co-President with Laura Berkowitz. I Chair the Fundraising Committee, am on the Committee Against Anti-Semitism (CAAS), Chair the Ritual Committee and am a member of the Emergency Preparedness Committee. I devote my time and energy to improve BAJC, its growth and broader visibility within the Brattleboro region.
Ellen Bronstein, a long-time member of BAJC, works with the membership and cemetery committees (but is not a formal member of either). She’s currently on her third career (scientist, writer/teacher, artist), and has extensive professional experience with computer systems, publication design, organizational communications, and gender equity. She firmly believes that good writing is clear thinking made visible, and applies that mantra to all her work at BAJC. Formerly, she was an associate commissioner at the FDA (during the Carter administration), executive director of a research center at MIT, and a freelance writer/designer for many industrial and academic institutions.
Kate Tarlow Morgan M.A., ISME, BMC™ (she/her), is a choreographer, teacher, and historian with training in dance, ethnoarchaeology and cultural history. Mentor to teachers in somatic movement education, Kate curates The Rhythms Archive (1921-2024), mapping movement practices that evolved out of the American Progressive Education Movement. As Editor of Currents Journal of the Body-Mind Centering Association and co-founder of the Somatic Writing Collective Series, Kate’s book of essays and stories, Circles & Boundaries, was published in the same year that she co-edited Movement and Experience: A Body-Mind Centering Anthology, 2011. Kate is also consulting editor for the Lost & Found Poetics Document Initiative at C.U.N.Y. Graduate Center for Humanities in New York City.
Gad Nestel: Gad was born in Long Island and began attending services and Hebrew school at the Neighborhood Schoolhouse. His mom, Hattie, is a political activist, supporting a range of local and global anti-war causes. She identified as both Jewish and Buddhist. His father, John, was an entrepreneur, military and civilian pilot, and was a member of BAJC for at least 40 years. After leaving Brattleboro in 1992, Gad attended the Naval Academy, Bates College and Yale University, where he always managed to find affinity with Jewish students. Gad moved back to Vermont from California in 2022. Today, Gad’s son is studying to be a Bar Mitzvah. Professionally, Gad works with mostly large, public companies to develop more effective leaders of people and business transformation.
Deb Schiller (she/her) I’ve resided in Brattleboro for the past 20 years, after relocating from Tempe, AZ with my husband and 3 daughters. My home away from home has been a local elementary school where all sorts of wonderful things happen. Having served on the BAJC board of trustees two previous times in the last 20 years, I joined the Board again, as I had been attending meetings as an interested member. I bring a willingness to discuss issues with a sense of fairness and respect for all.
Sara Suchman: I joined BAJC following my move from Cambridge, MA to Brattleboro in the summer of 2021. With the high holidays fast approaching, finding a Jewish “home” was an important priority. I appreciate the welcome I received at BAJC and look forward to contributing to the care and building of this vibrant and important community as a member of the Board. As both a profession and vocation, I am a lifelong learner and educator. I’ve taught and led PreK – 16 in both private and public schools here in the US and abroad (Japan, Mexico, Thailand). Twelve years ago, I was part of the founding team at the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector and currently serve as the Executive Director. I moved to VT looking to get out of the city while there was still time to enjoy a different pace and setting with my amazing daughter and have been thrilled with the success of this decision. I enjoy every moment I get with her, the outdoors, big skys, stars, rivers, birds, and beauty.
Zach Yeskel (he/him) I grew up in North Carolina, and since then have lived in the Bay Area and Brooklyn, including a year abroad in Israel before college. We came to Dummerston, VT in March 2020 to visit cousins for spring break, and basically never went back to Brooklyn! With my family (my wife Heather and daughters May and Naomi), we’ve been so delighted and lucky to build a life here, and feel so loved and supported by the strong communities we’ve discovered. Raising our kids in a Jewish community has always been a priority for us, and having benefited so much from participating in Yalla Chaverim, I’m motivated to join the board to help strengthen BAJC for the many families like us. I’m a former high school math teacher turned techie, and have worked on Google’s education team for more than a decade.