Leadership Team

Professional Staff

Lisa Forehand (she/her/hers), Statewide Organizer. Lisa is an Interfaith Minister raised culturally Jewish. She worked for more than a decade with The Community Foundation of WNC, notably contributing to the formation of Hispanics in Philanthropy and Women for Women, a women’s giving circle. From being Executive Director of an English as a Second Language school, to serving as a Spiritual Care Provider with the American Red Cross, to exploring spirituality and world religions with students at her local Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Lisa has enjoyed many vast and varied professional and personal experiences. She holds a Master’s degree in Intercultural Administration and Training – this love of other cultures led her to live and work overseas for more than eight years, visiting fifty countries and still counting! She values relationships and is a seasoned facilitator with a passion for helping nonprofit organizations become stronger and sustainable. Her husband (a native North Carolinian), two children, and two dogs have called Asheville home since 1999.

Lisa can be reached at: [email protected].

Mark Bochkis (he/him/his), Communications Director/Triad Community Organizer. Mark is a seasoned communications professional with a passion for social justice and organizing. He arrived in North Carolina in 1991 thanks to the efforts of the Greensboro Jewish community, which sponsored a resettlement program for Jews escaping religious persecution in the former Soviet Union. His activism is grounded in and shaped by his immigration experiences and by the Jewish concept of tikkun olam (repairing the world). Mark aims to create a better, fairer and more just society for his daughters to inherit.

Mark can be reached at: [email protected].

Board of Directors

Carolina Jews for Justice is currently led by a volunteer Board of Directors from Jewish communities across North Carolina. CJJ chapters are led by volunteer chairs of local steering committees. 

Herb Baum, PhD, Board Member

Herb and his wife moved to Greensboro nine years ago from the Washington, DC area where he worked for various companies as a program evaluator for federal, state, and local programs. Herb teaches statistics at Guilford College, consults to a local community-based organization on strategic planning, works for a colleague on valuing the services provided by human-service organizations, and will travel for a good pastrami sandwich.

Herb has two daughters and two grandchildren in the Washington, DC area, and belongs to Beth David Synagogue in Greensboro. He serves on the Steering Committee of the CJJ-Triad chapter and the CJJ Statewide Voting Rights Team.

Debbie Goldstein, Board Treasurer

Debbie (she/her/hers) lives in Durham with her husband, Steve Prince, son Avery, and daughter Hannah. She is the Executive Director of the NC Leadership Forum at Duke University and previously worked at the Center for Responsible Lending, where she advocated against predatory lending. Debbie serves on the boards of Bend the Arc and Beth El Synagogue in Durham and previously served as a board member of Durham Congregations in Action. Debbie is originally from the DC area, and has lived in Durham for over 20 years. Debbie serves on the CJJ Statewide Voting Rights Team. 

Jack Holtzman, Board President

Jack (he/him/his) is a former attorney at the NC Justice Center, with a focus on housing discrimination. He has been in NC since 1985 and previously helped lead the Progressive Jewish Network/(Triangle chapter of New Jewish Agenda), the Triangle Childrens' Shule and the CRC of the Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation. Jack’s wife Pam is a professor of public health, and he has two grown daughters, Rachel and Danya, and a brand new granddaughter! 

Cheryl Lester, Board Member

Bio and Pic coming!

Milan Pham, Board Member

Milan (she/her/hers) lives in Hillsborough with her spouse and their many animal family members. She is a partner in her firm and concentrates her practice on queer family creation via adoption and assisted reproduction law otherwise known as subverting the cis/het/erosexist paradigm. She serves on the boards of Equality NC, The Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice and GoldenGirlz, NC. She has been a member of Judea Reform Synagogue and served on the Social Justice Committee there. She's excited to lend her passions and knowledge to CJJ and to be in j/Jewish community.

Rochelle Sparko, Board Member

Rochelle (she/her/hers) grew up in western Massachusetts where she was an active member of her synagogue and USY. She received undergraduate degrees from Barnard College and the Jewish Theological Seminary and spent her junior year abroad at Hebrew University. After three years in Washington, DC, where Rochelle attended law school, she moved to Hawaii. Rochelle practiced law at the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii and taught the b’nai mitzvah class at a Honolulu synagogue. Since moving to Durham in 2008, Rochelle had a five year stint practicing law at the NC Justice Center, and then served as the policy director for a sustainable agriculture non-profit from 2013-2019. Now she serves as the Director of NC Policy at the Center for Responsible Lending. She’s been missing Jewish community life, and looks forward to working hard with CJJ to advance her social justice values in the context of her Jewish identify. 

CJJ Staff Graduates

Alanna Davis, Former Statewide Organizer

Sarah Cohen Domont, Former Deputy Director

Brandon Mond, Former Statewide Organizer

Cole Parke-West, Former Statewide Organizer

Rabbi Salem Pearce, Former Executive Director

Anna Grant, Former Statewide Organizer

Former Board Members

Dove Kent, Ron Katz, Emma Cohn, Frank Goldsmith, Rabbi Dusty Klass, Judy Leavitt, Julia Barnard, Ray Katz, Meredith Cohen