Hillel at Stanford names new executive director

RABBI SERENA EISENBERG has been appointed executive director of Hillel at Stanford, effective August 2011.

“We look forward with great enthusiasm to introducing Serena to Hillel at Stanford’s wonderful community of students, faculty, alumni and supporters,” Hillel board members and search committee co-chairs Jim Heeger and Joan Karlin wrote in an announcement. “We also want to thank everyone who participated in the search process and all who provided additional input to our committee.”

Since 2007, Eisenberg has lived with her family in Israel while serving as a Mandel Jerusalem Fellow at the Mandel Leadership Institute and as a consultant in Jewish education.

Before moving to Israel, she served as executive director for Hillel at Brown University, her alma mater, from 2005 to 2007.

Eisenberg has strong ties to the Bay Area. After completing graduate work in law and social work at the University of California-Berkeley, she developed the foster care ombudsman office for the Alameda County Social Services Department. She has served as interim director of the Israel and Overseas Committee at the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund in San Francisco and as the founding director of the Community Jewish Youth Foundation of the East Bay. She also has worked as a Jewish educator and program administrator at several Bay Area synagogues.

BETH SCHECTER, who has served as interim executive director of Hillel since September 2010, will continue in that role until Eisenberg arrives.

The full announcement is posted on the Hillel website.