Leadership

Board of Directors

Sid Banon

ASUH Treasurer; Audit Committee Chair

New York, NY

Sid Banon

ASUH Treasurer and Chair of its Audit Committee since 2019, Sidney Banon is also a member of the University of Haifa’s Board of Governors.

Sid is Managing Director of Chazen Capital Partners LLC, a private investment partnership providing equity capital for growth opportunities with a concentration in consumer product-oriented businesses. Sid also serves as chief executive of U.S. operations for Tel Aviv-based Tigapo, a cloud-based arcade management and monetization system for vending and coin-operated machines.  He was previously a co-founder of The Good Stuff Company, as well as an active and passive investor in  a variety of commercial real-estate ventures.

Married to Louise (Chazen) Banon, Sid is President Emeritus of New York JNF (Jewish National Fund) and an officer of the Banon Family Foundation.

Bradley M. Bloom

Boston, MA

Bradley

A member of the ASUH Board of Directors, Brad Bloom is also Chair of the University of Haifa’s Board of Governors.

Brad has invested in private companies since the late 1970s and in 1986 was one of five co-founders of Berkshire Partners LLC, a private equity firm with more than $20 billion in assets under management. Previously Managing Director, he is now a Senior Advisor and has also served on more than 20 corporate boards. Brad has an AB from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.

At Harvard he served on the Corporation’s Committee on Finance and on planning committees for the Allston campus. He was previously President of the Milton Academy Board of Trustees. A respected leader in the Boston Jewish community, he is co-founder of the Boston-Haifa Connection, a former Chairman of the Board of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP), and a Board member of Harvard Hillel. At the University of Haifa he recently launched the Bloom School of Graduate Studies, promoting interdisciplinary research and collaboration across faculties, and the Bloom Fellows Program.

Dr. Romana Strochlitz-Primus

Waterford, CT

Romana

Member of the ASUH Board of Directors since 1988 and member of its Gifts Committee, Dr. Strochlitz Primus is a retired physician actively involved in Jewish activities in eastern Connecticut.

She served as President of the Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut for 12 years, until 2021. She was born in the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp to Holocaust survivors, Sigmund and Rose Strochlitz. Her father, a close friend and collaborator of Elie Wiesel, established the Strochlitz Institute of Holocaust Studies/Strochlitz Institute for Holocaust Research at the University of Haifa in 1978. Dr. Strochlitz Primus is President of the Shlomo Zalman and Shoshana Strochlitz Foundation, Inc., which supports Holocaust commemoration and education, including scholarships in the International Master’s Program at the Strochlitz Institute. She serves on the Executive Committee of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, where she represents the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.

Ambassador Peter Rosenblatt

Washington, DC

Peter

Peter R. Rosenblatt is serving on the Board of Governors of the University of Haifa for a second term. He has practiced law in New York and Washington, DC since his graduation from Yale College and Yale Law School.

In 1966 he became a member of President Lyndon Johnson’s White House staff, coordinating U.S. non-military and counterinsurgency activities in Vietnam. From 1977 to 1981 he served as President Carter’s personal representative and Ambassador to the Negotiations on the Future Political Status of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

An advisor on foreign policy to several presidential campaigns, he has served on numerous official Democratic party foreign policy committees. For the American Jewish Committee (AJC) he has served as a vice president, president of its Washington, DC chapter, and chairman of its Koppelman Institute on American Jewish Israeli Relations. He founded AJC’s Strategic Policy Group and is a member of its Board of Governors.

He is married to Haifa-born Naomi Harris Rosenblatt, who has had a career as a psychotherapist, author, and leader of Bible study groups. They have three children and seven grandchildren.

Michael S. Rosen

Chicago, IL

Michael

Michael is Managing Director of the Innovation and Research Park and Helix 51 Incubator for the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago.

Michael also owns his own company, Rosen Bioscience Strategies LLC, a life science economic development consultancy focused on the development of science parks, incubators, and eco-systems centered around research-based universities. He was previously Senior Vice President, New Business Development for the Science + Technology Group at Forest City Realty Trust, a Fortune 500 U.S. real estate development company. He spent many years in the life science industry in Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and has been an adjunct professor of biotechnology at Northwestern University and professor of International Management at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management in Chicago.

Holder of a BA from Beloit College and an MBA in International Business from the University of Miami, he pursued graduate and post-graduate studies at universities in Tokyo, Japan and Santiago, Chile. For 12 years he served the America-Israel Chamber of Commerce Chicago as Advisory Board Member, Board Member, and Senior VP of Life Science Practice Group, enhancing commercial activity between Israel and Illinois and the entire Midwest. Michael is married to attorney Vivian Manasse and they have four children.

Aliza Herzberg

New York, NY

Aliza

Aliza is Managing Member of the Herzberg Law Group, which she founded in 2017.

She advises companies on a broad range of employment issues, including compliance with employment laws, negotiation of employment and severance agreements, succession planning, reductions in force, and due diligence associated with mergers and acquisitions. She conducts anti-harassment and DEI training as well as workplace investigations, and she assists companies in crisis management.

Aliza is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Fordham University School of Law. She has been named to the New York Super Lawyers list since 2010 and has also been named one of the Top Women Attorneys in the New York Metro Area and one of the Best Lawyers in America in the field of employment law.  She is also an Executive Board Member of The Jewish Center in Manhattan, a Modern Orthodox Center for Jewish Life and Learning. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and is the proud mother of two daughters and a stepson.

Jeffrey Robbins

Boston, MA

Jeff Robbins handles high-stakes litigation for companies and individuals who are entangled in corporate, shareholder, employment, and a variety of other disputes, defending against or bringing defamation claims, or under corporate or congressional investigation.

During his more than 35 years as a litigator and trial lawyer, Jeff has represented parties in high-profile First Amendment, corporate takeover, employment, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud-based cases, and has guided numerous companies, non-profits and individuals through matters involving intense media scrutiny. His notable cases include his successful defense of newspapers and other companies sued for defamation, resulting in two seminal defamation decisions issued by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upholding summary judgment for prominent defendants.
Jeff was appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, where he focused on civil fraud cases and money laundering investigations, as well as investigations involving hospitals, physicians, and pharmacies. There he was tapped to be the district’s first Chief of the Asset Forfeiture Division. In 1997 he was appointed Chief Counsel for the Minority of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and Deputy Chief Counsel for the Minority of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, where he represented Democratic senators in connection with an investigation into campaign fundraising practices during the 1996 presidential election. He was twice appointed as a Special Assistant Attorney General in Massachusetts, representing the Secretary of State of the Commonwealth in congressional redistricting and public records litigation. In 1999 and then again in 2000 he was appointed by President Clinton as a US Delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland.
Beyond his legal practice, Jeff is an ABC News Contributor, appearing regularly on ABC News Live to discuss a variety of legal topics. He also writes a nationally syndicated column for the Boston Herald about politics, foreign policy and national security issues. His columns have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the New York Observer, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Times of Israel. He has lectured widely throughout the United States and Canada on issues relating to the Mideast and is a Visiting Professor of the Practice of Political Science at Brown University, where he teaches courses on congressional investigations and political journalism.

Jeff is the former Chairman of the New England Board of the Anti-Defamation League, and the former President of the World Affairs Council of Boston.

Rafi Musher

New York, NY

Rafi Musher is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Stax.

Since founding Stax in 1994 and starting the private equity practice in 1996, Musher has advised senior executives and private equity investors on a broad range of issues including corporate strategy, commercial due diligence, profit improvement and growth, data and analytics, major investments, and divestitures. Musher regularly counsels clients across key business sectors including agriculture, business services, consumer/retail, education, energy/environmental, financial services, healthcare, industrial, and technology.

In addition to his work with Stax, Musher is engaged in numerous philanthropic ventures and currently serves on the board of The Bronx Lab School, an innovative NYC public high school with a focused mission of preparing 100% of their students for college. He is founder and Chairman of itrek, a nonprofit which introduces tomorrow’s leaders in business, STEM, law, and policy to Israel, helping them experience Israel firsthand.

Musher is a popular speaker and thought leader on private equity, corporate innovation, venture philanthropy, and utilizing data to improve for-profits and nonprofits. His work has been published broadly within industry and general business publications.

Musher is frequently a guest lecturer and panelist discussing these topics, along with how emerging leaders can simultaneously develop their career and social impact.

Musher holds a B.S. in Communications and Advertising from Boston University.

US Board of Governors

Warren Gleicher

ASUH Board Chair

New York, NY

Tzili Charney

Vice Chair of Board of Governors

New York, NY

Jacob Frenkel

Honorary Life Member

New York, NY

Alfred Tauber

Immediate Past-Chair/Honorary Life Member

Boston, MA & Jerusalem, Israel

Herta Amir

Los Angeles, CA

Sidney Banon

New York, NY

Lorne Buchman

Los Angeles, CA

Eli Feinstein

New Orleans, LA

Stanley Gold

Los Angeles, CA

Geoffrey Lewis

Boston, MA

Rabbi Brian Lurie

San Francisco, CA

David Lubarsky

Los Angeles, CA

Sharon S. Nazarian, PhD

Los Angeles, CA

Ambassador Peter Rosenblatt

Washington, DC

Jay Ruderman

Boston, MA

Richard Sandler

Los Angeles, CA

Barry Shrage

Boston, MA

Edward Schneider

Berkeley, CA

Michael Traison

Chicago, IL

Mark Yudof

Jupiter, FL