Shimon Adler is the former director of the Religious Education Administration of the Ministry of Education, a position he held for nine years.  Prior to this, Adler served as the principal of a religious girls’ high school in Even Shmuel, a religious Zionist moshav in southern Israel (south of Kiryat Gat). He studied at Yeshivat Merkaz Ha’Rav (the Rabbi Kook Institute, a national religious-Zionist yeshiva in Jerusalem) and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He holds an MA in education and history from Touro College. Shimon is a graduate of Cohort 1 of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership. During his studies at Mandel, he developed a model for schools that aims to reinforce the strong characteristics of students.  Upon completion of his studies at Mandel, Adler worked to implement his model at the Amit Chevruta Yeshiva High School in Kfar Batya.  In the past three years Adler led project workshops and was tutor of several fellows at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership.

Dr. Ayman Agbaria is a lecturer in the department of leadership and policy in education at the University of Haifa. He has two master's degrees, one in international development and social change from Clark University, and the other in criminology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also holds a dual doctoral degree in educational theory and policy, and in international and comparative education from Pennsylvania State University. Ayman has held senior positions at the Israel Association of Community Centers, the Shatil organization of the New Israel Fund and at Beit Berl College. He also served as a senior consultant to the Follow Up Committee on Arab Education and as a member of the Ministry of Education’s civics studies committee. He is also a co-founding member of Dirasat, The Arab Center for Law and Policy. Ayman specializes in education amongst ethnic and religious minorities and researches policy and pedagogy for civics education, Islamic education and teacher training.

Danny Bar Giora holds BA and MA degrees in mathematics and computer science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Danny moved into the field of education from hi-tech and for several years he combined work as a hi-tech consultant and project manager with work as a mathematics and computer science teacher at the Hebrew University Secondary School and at Beit Ariel, a hostel for girls at risk, in Jerusalem. Danny served for a decade as principal of the Charles E. Smith Jerusalem High School for the Arts and received the Jerusalem Municipal Educational Institution Award in recognition of his work at the school. Subsequently, he served for two years as the head of implementation of the "New Horizon" educational reform at the Ministry of Education and was then appointed head of the Jerusalem Education Administration, a position he held for two years. Danny is a graduate of Cohort 4 of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership.

Yael Bar-Lev holds an MEd and is currently a doctoral student at the school of education at Tel Aviv University. In recent years, Yael has focused on the relationship between education and culture, and especially on the challenges posed by the multicultural reality in Israel. Her dissertation deals with Jewish education in secular families in Israel. Over the years, Yael has worked in various other fields including cognition and learning; teaching methods; and education and television. In all of these she dealt with learning and theoretical development, as well as with the development and direction of in-service courses and mentoring teachers, preschool teachers, and media professionals in their educational work. Yael is a graduate of the fifth cohort of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership.

Dr. Yehuda Ben-Dor holds a PhD in Jewish thought from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has served as a lawyer for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and as lecturer at the Elul Center for Jewish Learning. Yehuda is one of the founders of the Yesodot Center for the Study of Torah and Democracy. His area of interest lies in the interactions between Jewish thought and Western philosophy and literature.

Yonina Florsheim holds an MA in history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She served as director of the Center for Teaching of Jewish Studies in the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University for five years. She has taught high school history and trained teachers at the Kerem Institute for Teacher Training. At the Mandel School for Educational Leadership, Yonina is responsible for several of the program’s training elements in which the fellows combine theoretical learning, learning from practice and work in the field: teaching certificates for academic re-trainees, field observations, and professional internships.

Dr. Eli Gottlieb is director of the Mandel Leadership Institute and vice president of the Mandel Foundation-Israel. He holds degrees in philosophy and developmental psychology from the University of Cambridge and a doctorate in the psychology of education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Gottlieb has served as a visiting professor in cognitive studies in education at the University of Washington, an adjunct lecturer at the school of education at the Hebrew University and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. His research examines the relations between cognition, identity and education. In September 2011 Dr. Gottlieb featured alongside the CEOs of nine other leading education organizations at number 12 in The Marker magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in Israel.

Prof. Moshe Halbertal is a professor of Jewish thought and philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He received his PhD from the Hebrew University in 1989, and from 1988-1992 he was a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. He has served as a visiting professor at the law schools of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and NYU. Prof. Halbertal is the author of a number of books on Jewish thought and philosophy, published in both Hebrew and English, and has received the Rothschild Foundation's Michael Bruno Memorial Award and the Goren-Goldstein award for the best book in Jewish Thought in the years 1997-2000.

Annette Hochstein served as president of the Mandel Foundation-Israel (MF-I) from 2002 to 2010, following twenty years as its director. She is a member of the founding group of Mandel endeavors in Israel, including the Mandel Leadership Institute. Prior to joining the Mandel Foundation, Annette was a planner at Jerusalem's municipal planning department (1975-1978), following which the then mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek, appointed her to direct Project Renewal in the city's Musrara neighborhood. Annette was co-founder and director of Nativ, Policy and Planning Consultants (1980-1990) until joining the Mandel Foundation. Key projects in which she contributed have included the West Bank Data Project, the Israel Experience Project and the Commission for Jewish Education in North America, for which she served as director of research. A graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with majors in philology and art history, Annette holds an MA from the New School for Social Research in urban affairs and policy analysis. She was a Humphrey Fellow at MIT (1983-1984).

Dr. Daniel Marom is the academic director of the Mandel Leadership Institute. Marom received his doctorate in education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and went on to teach philosophy of education and educational planning there and at other academic institutions. He has developed model curricula for Israeli and Jewish education in a wide range of settings, from kindergarten through to higher education. Daniel's research and publications focus on the educational ideas of Israeli and Jewish thinkers. As a member of the founding group of Mandel Foundation endeavors in Israel, he established its Visions Unit in 2003 and directed it until 2010, and launched its publication program through the editing of its Monographs series and co-editing Visions of Jewish Education and Dialogue of the Disparate. He also developed the tutorship component of programs at the MLI.

Prof. Mordecai Nisan is the head of the academic faculty of the Mandel Foundation-Israel, founder and head of the Mandel Scholars in Education Program, and a professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a developmental psychologist whose extensive research has focused on motivation, moral development and behavior. Prof. Nisan has held research fellowships at Harvard and Oxford Universities, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Palo Alto, California. He has also served on many public committees, including the Council for Higher Education. Prof. Nisan is one of the veteran members of the Mandel Leadership Institute. In addition to serving as its academic director, he founded and directed the IDF Educational Leadership Development Program and the Mandel Fellowship for Educational Researchers Program.

Dr. Motti Shalem is the director of programs for senior educational staff, and a former director of the IDF Educational Leadership Development Program at the Mandel Leadership Institute. He holds a BA in psychology and a PhD in Jewish history from Bar-Ilan University. His doctoral thesis focused on the formation of the IDF’s moral codex and was later published as An Army’s Search for Meaning (Hebrew). Motti served in the IDF’s Education Corps for twenty years and retired from active service ranking as Lieutenant-Colonel. Motti is a graduate of the first cohort of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership. Prior to joining the faculty of the Mandel Leadership Institute, Motti served as the director of Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies.

Dr. Chava Shane is the director of the Mandel IDF Educational Leadership Development Program. Previously, she was the co-director of the Mandel Scholars in Education Program. Chava was an educational officer in the IDF School of Officers and has taught high school history and developed history curricula. She holds degrees in history and philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her doctorate, on the teaching and learning of history, was conducted at the Hebrew University in association with the Stanford History Education Group. Her research focuses on connections between teaching and learning and on the relationships between constructing academic knowledge and shaping identity.

Prof. Anat Zohar is an associate professor at the school of education of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 2006-2009 she served as the chairperson of the Pedagogical Secretariat at the Ministry of Education. In this capacity she led the “Pedagogical Horizon” program designed to emphasize the teaching of higher order thinking in Israeli classrooms. Her areas of academic expertise include: science learning, learning and instruction, the development of students’ thinking, metacognition, teachers’ professional development in the context of teaching thinking, gender and science learning, gender and education for the gifted, bridging the gap between educational policy and changes in learning and instruction, and how to upscale educational projects in the field of developing students’ thinking with an eye to wide implementation.