Introducing the 2024-2025 Eisendrath Legislative Assistants

We are overjoyed to introduce ourselves as the 2024-2025 Eisendrath Legislative Assistants! As a cohort, we bring a variety of life experiences, educational backgrounds, and diverse passions to our work at the Religious Action Center. We are united by a collective commitment to URJ's vision of peace and wholeness, justice and equity, and belonging and joy.

We are honored to work in partnership with Reform Movement leaders and other Jewish, interfaith, and secular partners across lines of difference address the largest policy obstacles facing our values today. As we work together to put these values into action, please don't hesitate to reach out with questions on the Reform Movement's policy positions or how to get involved. We are thrilled to begin our work in collaboration with all of you!

Jessica Cadmus (she/her/hers) grew up in Los Angeles, California, where she attended Temple Akiba in Culver City. During her sophomore year of high school, Jessica attended L'Taken, which showed her how Jewish values can help advance social justice. Jessica graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University in May 2024 where she studied Political Science and Justice Studies with a minor in Family and Human Development. During Jessica's sophomore year, she was the secretary of Women's Coalition at ASU, where she fought to ensure women and nonbinary individuals felt safe on campus by planning town hall meetings on all four campuses to hear and understand what changes needed to happen. Throughout the spring of her junior year, Jessica was a page at the Arizona State Senate, where she had a front-row seat to Arizona State politics and witnessed the ongoing assault on civil rights, gender equity, reproductive rights, and education. Her senior year, Jessica had the opportunity to work for Creosote Partners as a policy analyst intern where she attended meetings with nonprofits and learn how to create, pass, track, and block policy.

Throughout her time at Arizona State, Jessica was very involved with ASU Hillel. Her junior and senior years, she was the Social Impact specialist and Repair the World fellow where she was able to plan social justice events and programs. One of her proudest moments was planning Reproductive Rights Shabbat, where she collaborated with the National Council of Jewish Women, Dignity Grows, and the Center for Jewish Philanthropy of Greater Phoenix to create 100 hygiene kits for a local women's shelter and bring in a speaker from NCJW to teach students about the fight for abortion access in Arizona.

Jessica is excited to bring her Reform Jewish values into policy work. Her legislative portfolio includes reproductive health and rights, gender equity, education, and a partnership with Women of Reform Judaism. She is honored to be the new Linda Rae Sher Legislative Assistant supported by the generosity of the family and friends of Linda Rae Sher and Women of Reform Judaism.

Eric Goldberg (he/him) is honored to be joining the RAC as an Eisendrath Legislative Assistant in this urgent year. He moved to the District by way of Montclair, New Jersey, where his relationship to Jewish life was electrified while serving as a community and song leader at Temple Ner Tamid and URJ Camp Harlam. Eric would go on to attend the University of Virginia and graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies, fueled by an emerging drive to immerse himself in the dynamic history of the Jewish people and study the enduring relationships between diverse religious communities, social movements, and political reforms. While pursuing his degree, Eric was privileged to serve on the Jewish Religious Life Council and work with Rotaract and AEPi to pursue meaningful service in his community.

When the pandemic struck, Eric seized an opportunity to spend a gap year living in Israel. Based out of Tel Aviv, he worked with an NGO to help build trust and dispel biases between Israelis and their international peers, including through pioneering grassroots relationships between young Israelis professionals and their counterparts in neighboring Arab states. Afterwards, he served as an educational guide for his former campers on their NFTY L'Dor Vador summer program in Israel. After graduating last May, Eric spent the summer as a legislative intern for a strategic lobbying firm, digging deeper into the legislative process and working around issues such as international human rights, environmental justice, and dual-language immersion education. And while searching for the right opportunity to return to D.C., he worked as an account coordinator for a marketing firm. Now, he's honored to begin working with his cohort to pursue the responsible changes our tradition inspires and our country needs. His legislative portfolio includes the environment, economic justice and labor, voting rights, judicial nominations, and campaign finance reform.

Olivia Kogan (she/her) is originally from Huntingdon Valley, PA, where she was a member of Old York Road Temple Beth-Am. Olivia was very involved with the Reform movement growing up, spending nine summers at URJ Camp Harlam (including three as a staff member). While attending the RAC L'Taken seminar twice throughout high school and participating in the RAC Teen Justice Fellowship, Olivia became passionate about the connections between Judaism and social justice and has always strived to connect the two wherever she can.

She graduated magna cum laude from Elon University with a Bachelor of Arts in Human Service Studies and minors in Poverty and Social Justice, Policy Studies, and Jewish Studies. Olivia was also heavily involved in Elon University's Hillel, incorporating social justice to her role as Tikkun Olam VP and shabbat chair.

As an Elon College Fellow, Olivia completed undergraduate research focusing on the experiences of Jewish camp counselors and DEI efforts. While studying abroad in London, she interned at Action for Refugees in Lewisham (AFRIL), providing legal advocacy and communal support to refugees and asylum-seekers. Olivia's frustration with the criminal justice system influenced her to intern with The Choice Is Yours (TCY) in JEVS's diversion and reentry program in Philadelphia, a program aiding first-time non-violent felony drug offenders, as a part of JEVS's Franklin C. Ash Fellowship. Additionally, in her role facilitating day-to-day operations within the youth diversion program of the Burlington Police Department where she worked to provide wrap-around services to at-risk youth.

Olivia comes to the RAC with extensive field work in communities and is honored to work on her legislative portfolio, which includes racial justice, gun violence prevention, criminal justice reform, death penalty, health care, and reparations.

Mason Purdy (he/him/his) is originally from Anderson, Indiana and recently graduated from Kalamazoo College, where he earned a BA in Political Science and Religion with a concentration in Jewish Studies, graduating summa cum laude and with honors in both majors. He comes to the RAC after having worked in Michigan state politics as an intern for Representative Julie Rogers and the Michigan House Democrats. Mason was also an intern for the City of Kalamazoo, where he helped the city accelerate the development of green energy.

As a student at Kalamazoo, Mason was an active campus leader, particularly in Jewish life. He served as the Vice President of Education for Hillel at Kalamazoo College, where he focused on combatting antisemitism, creating new partnerships, and building a more resilient Jewish community on campus. Among his proudest achievements was hosting the largest ever Passover Seder at Kalamazoo amid such a challenging time for our community. Inspired by his experience on campus, Mason wrote an extensive senior thesis on antisemitism and conspiracism.

Outside of Hillel, Mason was President of Kalamazoo Model UN, where he led the club to record accomplishments and was recognized as an Outstanding Delegate at National Model United Nations. He was also co-Editor-in-Chief for The Index and Vice President of the college's Refugee Outreach Collective chapter.

Growing up in the working class, post-industrial city of Anderson, Mason was shaped by his firsthand experience with the issues facing economically struggling communities. With his experience fighting antisemitism on campus, he hopes to continue in that struggle. That background and his passion for Judaism has led him to the RAC, where he is excited to be an advocate for Jewish social justice. His legislative portfolio includes antisemitism, LGBTQ+ equality, hate crimes, disability rights, civil liberties, and the Holocaust.

Tamara Upfal (she/her/hers) recently completed her Master's in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at the University of Oxford. She received the Best Thesis Award for her dissertation "Hereness": Lessons from Jewish Diasporism on Belonging Beyond Territorialization and the Nation-State System, in which she reimagined the notion of home for Jews in diaspora. Prior to this degree, she worked in international development consulting for four years supporting clients such as the United Nations and United States Agency for International Development to achieve humanitarian outcomes. Her portfolio included expanding energy access in West Africa, supporting economic empowerment for small businesses in Eastern Europe, and developing gender and racial equity standards for development outcomes around the world.

She earned a B.A. in International Relations from Brown University with a focus on Latin American democracy and political economy. While at Brown, she interned with the Department of State at the U.S. Embassy of Luxembourg in the Political-Economic section. As a Spanish and Portuguese speaker, she also interned at a refugee resettlement center working with unaccompanied minors from Central America seeking asylum. Additionally, she served as the Hillel Vice President for Community Groups.

Tamara was a 2022-2023 Dorot fellow, where she dedicated her year to studying Mussar and the intersection of halakha halachahהֲלָכָהLiterally, “walking, “way,” or “path;” refers specifically to a body of Jewish law governing all aspects of life; includes the 613 mitzvot (commandments) and ongoing interpretation over many centuries. and spirituality, self-publishing a poetry chapbook on migration and cross-cultural identity, working with refugee populations, participating in Israeli-Palestinian solidarity work alongside activists, and hiking across the land.

She is thrilled to have the opportunity to apply her academic and professional background to the RAC's policy work rooted in a Jewish call for justice. As the daughter of immigrants and a Latinx Jew, she is especially excited to work in immigration justice, which she views as deeply intertwined to her identity. Her legislative portfolio includes immigration justice and refugees, separation of church and state, foreign policy, Israel, international religious freedom, and human trafficking.