Matt Parks – President
Matt has been a member of PSC with his wife Laura since 2000. All three of their daughters attended Hebrew School and had their B’Nai Mitzvah at PSC. Matt has served on the board as well as co-chair of PSC’s security committee. When not at his day job working cybersecurity, Matt can be found on the soccer pitch playing and reffing soccer or on the basketball court playing for PSC’s basketball team.
Mina Bressler – 1st Vice President
Mina and her family have been members of PSC since 2019. She is currently a participant in the two-year Wexner Heritage Program, a Jewish leadership development program for lay leaders in North America. In addition to serving on the PSC Board, Mina also serves on the Board of the Wornick Jewish Day School and the Parent Council of Eden Village West, her kids’ beloved Jewish summer camp in Healdsburg. A twenty-year Bay Area resident originally from Los Angeles, Mina began her professional career in public policy and government; a career change led her to become an art therapist. Mina, her husband Dan, two daughters, and one cat live in San Mateo. They are an active Wornick family and love to hike, bake, play board games, and make art together.
Allan Jaffe – 2nd Vice President
Allan, a life-long resident of the Bay Area, is serving his second stint on the board of trustees. He previously served during the 1980’s and early 1990’s, not long after joining our congregation. He lives in Belmont with his wife, January, and recently retired from a family-owned glass and mirror business. He previously owned and operated a printing business in Burlingame.
Lee Strieb – Treasurer
Lee and his family have been PSC members for almost 30 years. Lee served for many years as chair of the PSC Education Committee, back when his two kids (now in their 20s) were young. He has also served as the PSC Board Secretary. Lee is now semi-retired, after having worked for 32 years as a researcher with UNITE HERE, the national hotel workers’ union. He is a serious amateur baker, and occasionally teaches Jewish baking classes at PSC and elsewhere. He also enjoys gardening, hiking, politics, doing oral histories, and creating spreadsheets. Lee and his wife, Shari Golan, live in San Mateo. Lee is originally from Philadelphia; Shari grew up in Foster City.
Adam Silverman – Secretary
Adam and his family joined PSC in 2016. Adam and Lisa and children Jeffrey and Kayla live in San Carlos. Adam has served as a Trustee at PSC since 2020, and most recently has been leading a group of PSC volunteers to help support logistics for our programming. When not exploring the hiking trails and campgrounds of California with his family, Adam leads a drug discovery research team at a biotech company.
Ornit Rose – Past President
Ornit and her family have been PSC members since 2012. An Israeli-American, she lives in San Mateo with her husband, Jack, and their children (unless in college), Danny (20), Tommy (17), Ellie (15), and Addie (12). Ornit is committed to PSC, serving as a Trustee since 2017 and an officer since 2019, previously chairing the Education Committee, the DYEP Search Committee, and the Reentry Team, and serving on the Rabbi Search Committee. She is a non-practicing corporate attorney who enjoys traveling, exercising, reading, and spending time with her family and friends.
Sue Blockstein – PS Women Representative & Trustee
Sue and her family have been members of PSC for over 20 years. Sue is a retired electrical engineer who spent over 30 years working on Integrated Circuit Designs. Sue is also the treasurer of PS women, and represents PSC at the Jewish Community Relations Council. Sue is active in the Peninsula Multifaith Coalition, chairing or co-chairing their Martin Luther King Day of Service. Sue enjoys working in her garden, bike riding with her husband on their tandem, running, and hiking, as well as volunteering with Science is Elementary in Bay Area schools.
Lou Harris – Men’s Club Representative & Trustee
Lou has been a member of PSC since 1974. A native of Liverpool, England (and born in the same hospital as John Lennon, only much later), he grew up in Chicago and moved to San Mateo with wife Linda in 1973. Lou serves on the PSC board as trustee representing the Men’s Club. He is also on the homeowners’ board of Wyndham Kona Hawaiian Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii. Lou’s interests include family, travel, and the World Champion Chicago Cubs.
David Menashe – Trustee
David and his family have been PSC members since 2018. He lives in San Mateo with his wife Glenna, soon-to-be 6th-grade daughter Mira, pup Poppy, and mischievous cat, Jasper. David was born and raised in Manchester, England. He lived on a kibbutz in Western Galilee for 7 years and served 2.5 years in the army before moving to California. He works in tech, plays a mean game of backgammon, and is a Manchester United fanatic.
Linda Oberstein – Trustee
Linda is essentially a Bay Area native having lived here since age 2. Linda has been a member of PSC since 1999 and enjoyed her first year as a Board Trustee in 2018-19. Included in the many things Linda has done for PSC over the years was her vastly successful stint as Chair of the Torat Chaim Campaign. Linda loves spending time with her college-age kids, Avital and Zev, and her black lab, Diamond. She is a retired primary care physician, enjoying hospital chaplaincy as her second career!
David K. Ries – Trustee
David and his wife, Jean, joined PSC in 2016. They have two children in PSC’s Kesher Hebrew school, Josephine and Sebastian. David is a lawyer specializing in health care, and he Chaired PSC’s COVID Reentry Team prior to joining the Board. A proud New Yorker by birth, David came to San Mateo by way of San Diego in 2012.
Jonathan Romanowsky – Trustee
Jonathan and his family have been PSC members for over 20 years. He lives in San Carlos with his wife Mindie and Ben (16). His daughters Emma (21) and Lexi (19) are in college. Jonathan grew up in Mexico City and San Diego but moved to the SF Bay Area in 1989 to attend college (Go Bears!). Jonathan has dedicated his career to commercializing novel medical technologies. Jonathan is an advisor or board member at organizations focused on entrepreneurship and medical technologies (e.g. Stanford StartX, LBAN). He is also an avid sports fan and participant (including playing on a men’s baseball team and refereeing youth soccer). Other interests include travel, international cuisine and supporting Immigration/refugee causes.
Jessica Rosenbaum – Trustee
Jessica is a Bay Area native who has been engaged Jewishly her whole life. She and her husband Aaron, a New Yorker, joined PSC when they moved back to Burlingame in 1999. They’ve raised their children at PSC, from namings/Brit Milah through B’nai Mitzvah and BBYO. Lilah (21) New School graduate working for National Ramah and the Foundation for Jewish Camp, Ilan (19) is a sophomore at University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Sivana (16) sophomore at San Mateo High School. Jessica’s parents joined PSC (in addition to PTS, where Jessica was raised) as another way of spending time with their family and supporting our community. Jessica is a Clinical Psychologist who conducts psychological evaluations to differentiate between learning, behavioral, and/or emotional causes for symptoms that children are presenting at home and at school. When she’s not figuring out how to help kids, Jessica can be found weightlifting or taking long walks with friends and her dog Maccabee.
Sandy Shepler – Trustee
Sandy and her daughter have been PSC members for 25 years. The PSC community has been an important part of Sandy’s life, and she’s happy to be able to expand her engagement with PSC now that she’s retired. Sandy is a native San Franciscan, and has enjoyed living between San Francisco and San Mateo, other than a 2 year work stint in Santa Cruz. Sandy retired from a career which included Retail Buying and Merchandising, and most recently Software Training for worldwide IBM retail clients. Sandy enjoys walking her dog, connecting with friends and traveling.
Joy Shmueli – Trustee
Joy has been a member of PSC since her family moved to Foster City in 1976. She attended Hebrew and Sunday School here, had her Bat Mitzvah here, was a teacher’s assistant at our religious school while in high school, and then had her son, Cayden’s, Brit Milah and Bar Mitzvah here years later. After Joy returned from college she taught Hebrew and Sunday school, and ran our Kadima program. In recent years, Joy coordinated High Holy Days children’s programming, was part of our Torat Chaim team, Rabbi Search Committee and chairs our Education Committee. By profession, Joy is a public school administrator, having worked with children kindergarten through eighth grades. She enjoys traveling, cooking, baking, and is an avid sports enthusiast.
Alan Zorfas – Trustee
Alan and his wife, Nancy, moved to Foster City from New England in 2010 and joined PSC in 2012. Originally from Boston, Alan has three sons (ages 30-36) living in Boston, Washington D.C., and the Bay Area. Alan is a co-founder of a marketing intelligence company that moved its headquarters to the west coast in 2010. His career started in advertising, spanning Boston and New York, before launching his current business. In the late 90s, Alan served one term as a board member of a synagogue in Norwalk, CT. He also served on a committee for the launch of New York’s Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Nancy and Alan have been fixtures at PSC’s Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service, and Alan has recently graduated from a three- to a four-braided challah in his baking collaboration with Nancy.