Pictured clockwise from top left: Judge Sheryl Lipman, Dr. Sandra Arnold, Dr. Ronit Peled-Laskov, and Dr. Gili Hart.
In celebration of International Women’s Day, Memphis Jewish Federation’s Memphis-Shoham Partnership is presenting Women Making a Difference, Tuesday, March 8 at noon featuring four dynamic leaders in their fields. Dr. Sandy Arnold and Judge Sheryl Lipman will represent Memphis, and Dr. Gili Hart and Dr. Ronit Peled-Laskov will represent Shoham, our community’s sister city in Israel.
“The Partnership is kicking off our Spring Virtual Series on International Women’s Day by celebrating female business, legal, medical, community, and thought leaders among us,” said Liz Rudnick, facilitator for the program and member of the Memphis-Shoham Steering Committee. “From Memphis, the Honorable Judge Sheryl Lipman and Dr. Sandra Arnold of LeBonheur Children’s Hospital will participate, helping Israeli attendees learn more about U.S. law and medicine. Representing Shoham, we’ll hear from biotech startup CEO Dr. Gili Hart and criminologist Dr. Ronit Peled-Laskov. I’m looking forward to joining my community and new friends from Shoham as we hear what unites women at the top of their fields across the globe.”
Representing a diverse array of top-level specification, the four speakers bring impressive credentials and peerless experience to the program.
Dr. Arnold is Division Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Medical Co-Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship, and Associate Residency Program Director, Pediatric Residency at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, and a professor at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Her experience with clinical research in the areas of vaccines, antibiotics and antivirals, and common infections has made her an invaluable resource during the COVID pandemic for local schools and community organizations.
A Memphis native, Judge Lipman was appointed United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee by President Barack Obama in 2014, prior to which she served as University Counsel to the University of Memphis after years of private practice in Washington, D.C. and Memphis. Off the bench, Lipman is a hard-working advocate for social justice, having served in positions and on boards for the Memphis Race Relations and Diversity Institute, Facing History and Ourselves, the Memphis Child Advocacy Center, the Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, among others.
Shoham resident Dr. Hart’s Israel-based company, SpilSense, is developing transformative RNA-based treatments for previously untreatable genetic illnesses and pulmonary diseases. Her career sits at the intersection of business and medicine, with extensive experience in global regulatory strategic planning and interactions, partnering with large-pharma. A former Research Fellow at Yale University’s School of Medicine, she has published numerous papers and patents, with her work focused on autoimmunity diseases and B and T cell maturation and migration, which can directly affect inflammation and immune conditions.
Dr. Peled-Laskov is a clinical criminologist and Senior Lecturer in Ashkelon Academic College’s Department of Criminology. She is the head of the Ethics Committee at Ashkelon College, and an active researcher in fields relating to crime, punishment, and rehabilitation, with special emphasis on white-collar offenders. With a background in therapy-based boarding schools for youths with behavioral disorders exhibiting borderline criminality, she currently serves as public representative on parole committees and as an official prison controller for Israel’s Ministry of Internal Security.
The March 8 program is the first in a three-part webinar series designed to connect Jewish Memphians to residents of Shoham, Israel, exploring a diverse trio of topics- women who make an impact, the role museums can play in social change, and the celebration of holidays through cooking.
“The Memphis-Shoham partnership is all about making authentic connections between the people of both communities,” said Keri Unowsky, chair of Federation’s Memphis-Shoham Partnership steering committee.
The Partnership’s second webinar, In Commemoration of Martin Luther King’s Assassination: Museums as Catalysts for Change, will take place Tuesday, April 5, the day after the 54th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination in Memphis. Ryan Jones, Adult Education Director at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and Temple Israel’s Rabbi Micah Greenstein, a board member at the museum, will represent Memphis, while Omer Deutsch, Museum Educator at the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel-Aviv, will share her points of view. The program will explore how museums can act as agents for social change and how they keep pace with ever-changing cultural norms while fulfilling their educational missions.
The series culminates on Tuesday, May 22 with In Celebration of Shavuot: Artful and Creative Holiday Cooking. Participants will join Memphis artist and gourmet chef Marisa Baggett and a to-be-announced guest from Shoham as they prepare creative Shavuot recipes that can be replicated at home. The webinars are free and open to the public. To learn more and register, click here.
Memphis and Shoham are connected through the Partnership2Gether Peoplehood Platform, a program of Federation partner JAFI (Jewish Agency for Israel). Guided by Federation’s Memphis-Shoham Steering Committee, the Memphis-Shoham Partnership launched in 2016 to facilitate meaningful connections between Israelis and the Memphis Jewish community through unique programs like school twinning, teen and young adult leadership projects, and programming like this webinar series, which bridge the distance between the two communities with universally relatable content.