Dina hails from Los Angeles where she grew up attending public schools and local beaches. She was an active member at Wilshire Boulevard Temple and the first girl in her family to become a B’nei Mitzvah. After attending college in San Diego, she moved to Oakland, which she thought would be a temporary lay-over until a big move to SF. Once she experienced Oakland’s beauty and rich diversity, this is where her heart remained.

Dina attended her first Kehilla service in 1990, then housed in a little church in West Berkeley. She sang in High Holiday services with the Women’s Chorus and enjoyed the spiritual and communal aspects of Kehilla membership. After brief stints in Los Angeles and Chicago, Dina returned to Oakland and Kehilla for good. She lives here with her husband, Alex, and daughter, Ruby.

Professionally, Dina has worked with children and families for over 30 years as an educator and advocate, in both the public and private sectors. As an attorney, she has practiced family law exclusively for nearly 20 years. Dina was raised in a home where volunteering in your community was encouraged, and she is excited and honored to have an opportunity to serve on the Kehilla Board.

Tadish was born in Oakland, and has spent most of his life here. He attended Pitzer College in Claremont where he studied Sociology. Tadish has also lived in Seattle, Ireland and Scotland. He now lives in Oakland with his wife Linda and their dog Sherman in the Cleveland Heights neighborhood. Prior to the pandemic, Tadish studied Aikido, a Japanese martial art, and he hopes to start that back up as soon as he feels comfortable doing so. Tadish also makes ceramics, and works out of a studio in Concord. He enjoys a lot of outdoor activities including skiing, SCUBA diving, backpacking and camping. Tadish hosts a Torah study group with other Kehilla members every Thursday evening. He also likes to cook. Tadish enjoys family get-togethers, and he especially enjoys hanging out with his 4 year old nephew, and has an infant niece whom he also enjoys.

Shortly after the 2016 election, Tadish’s wife Linda told him she’d like to join a synagogue. It was her belief that in the coming years they would need the support of a Jewish community. Linda was born Jewish, and Tadish was not, but after meeting with Michael Saxe-Taller, they quickly decided that Kehilla was the place for them. It wasn’t long after that that Tadish decided to pursue becoming a Jew himself. In 2018, he completed that process. Kehilla has become so important for Tadish in the intervening years. His spiritual life is more than he ever thought it could be. He feels like he has come to a place where he belongs. Tadish’s values are Kehilla’s values. He loves what Kehilla does as a community. So much in Tadish’s life has opened up to him since he joined Kehilla.  

Stephanie has been involved with Kehilla since 1977! Coming to the Bay Area as a college student, she was immediately drawn to Kehilla’s commitment to social justice and political activism combined with spiritual depth. She knew this was the place for her to land for her Jewish community. She strengthened her relationship with Kehilla when her son entered Hebrew school in Kindergarten (he is now almost 21 years old) and post bar mitzvah, joined the B’nei Mitzvah Committee and organized a short-lived teen program.

Stephanie is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and is the East Bay Director of a large youth and family-serving non-profit, managing both organizational and clinical realms. In addition, she is a strategic planning facilitator and trainer. Stephanie is moved and inspired by the place that Kehilla holds in the community and the impact that we have. Stephanie looks forward to bringing her organizational skills and other passions to the Kehilla board, joining with others to create and repair the world. When Stephanie isn’t working and volunteering, she spends time with loving family and dear friends, reading, cooking, eating, walking, and whiling away hours cracking British-style cryptic crossword puzzles. Stephanie’s excitement in joining the board was realized and enhanced by the camaraderie, intelligence and levity she experienced at her first board meeting.

Michael grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and came to California in 1986 to attend Stanford University. After graduation, he moved to Oakland where he has lived ever since. Michael works at TECHsperience, the organization he started in 1995, which provides IT and MIS services to Bay Area non-profits. Prior to TECHsperience, he worked for a San Francisco non-profit as the lead on a training and advocacy project focused on improving the educational opportunities for children experiencing homelessness. He then served as the lead case manager for an East Bay organization where he provided counseling and case management services for adults with mental health and drug and alcohol issues as they transitioned back into permanent housing. Michael married his wife, Sarah Carnochan, in 1998. Sarah is the director of the Bay Area Social Services Consortium at the UCBerkeley School of Social Welfare. Their daughter, Anna, was born in 2003 and is a sophomore at UC Davis. Michael and Sarah attended High Holidays at Kehilla over the years and officially joined the congregation around 2012. Anna attended religious school at Kehilla, had her Bat Mitzvah in 2016, and was a member of JYCA. Michael provides occasional IT consultation to Kehilla, worked with Kehilla as it re-engaged with its use of Salesforce, is a member of the Budget Priorities group, co-chair of the Finance Committee, and co-chair of the Board.

Dan grew up wanting to either be a teacher or else the next Johnny Carson. He went to Northwestern as a Radio-TV-Film major. But after a falteringly short career in broadcasting realized that education was his true calling. Dan started as a teacher and moved into school administration culminating in becoming president of a small two-year postsecondary School outside Philadelphia for nearly two decades.

While in Philadelphia, he attended congregation Mishkan Shalom and reconnected to a progressive Judaism he could finally relate to. When his wife Laura and he decided to move to Berkeley to be close to family, people at Mishkan told them they “absolutely must attend Kehilla.” They’ve been members for about a decade now. Dan has served on Kehilla’s Finance Committee for several years, recently shepherding the congregation’s mortgage refinance as well as its participation in the Payroll Protection Program which helped Kehilla weather the storm of the pandemic. Dan is active with Kehilla’s Immigration Committee as well where he has served on 4 accompaniment teams assisting immigrants as they try to build their lives in America.

Outside of Kehilla, he volunteers with Consider the Homeless where every few weeks Laura and he make enough soup to feed about 120 hungry people.  He continues his “seemingly-still-fledgling-even-after-5-years effort” to learn Spanish, and spends time in a community garden.