Meet Our Team

Leadership

Dr. Deborah Fripp

Executive Director

A professional educator, Yad Vashem trained Holocaust educator, and a storyteller, Deborah is the author of five books including Light from the Darkness: A ritual for Holocaust remembrance.

Now based in Singapore, Deborah holds a PhD from MIT in communication and learning in formal and informal settings.

Violet Neff-Helms

Executive Vice President

Known as Tante by the many kindergarten children she taught for fourteen years at Congregation Kol Ami in Flower Mound, Texas, Violet is an experienced storyteller, a Yad Vashem-trained educator, and the co-author of Light from the Darkness: A ritual for Holocaust remembrance.

Violet is based in North-East Texas.

Lynne Feldman

Director of Holocaust Scholarship & General Manager

Lynne is a pioneer in guiding with storytelling, certified as an Educational Holocaust guide by Yad Vashem and a Poland Tour Guide by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism.

Based in Tel Aviv, Lynne is also a dedicated Holocaust scholar and researcher with an MA in Holocaust Studies from the University of Haifa.

Other Team Members

Jennifer Rudick Zunikoff

Storytelling Mentor

A professional Jewish storyteller, educator, facilitator, and coach, Jennifer has been teaching people to tell the stories of Holocaust survivors with empathy and love for more than 15 years.

Based in Baltimore, MD, Jennifer serves as a storyteller-in-residence at synagogues across the US and is the founder and director of The Golden Door: Storytelling for Social Justice.

Cantor Karen Webber

Poet, Liturgical Artist, & Support Team Lead

Karen is a performance, teaching and liturgical artist who crafts music/theatre pieces for use in Zoom rooms, senior centers and on the bimah. Ordained as a cantor by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, DFSSM in 1990, Karen has served congregations large and small in all 4 corners of the U.S.

Tanya Wisoker

Board Member, Storyteller, Instructor, & Workshop Facilitator

Tanya has been telling stories her whole life, starting with reading to her little sister. She worked with preschoolers, as a museum interpreter, and as a Religious School principal. Tanya was a Day School science teacher and drama coach for 11 years before retiring to pursue her many other interests.

Leora Lazarus

Storyteller, Instructor, & Workshop Facilitator

Leora is an author, storyteller, early childhood educator, supplemental school teacher, and best-selling children’s author. Educated in Cape Town, South Africa, she is now based in San Diego, CA.

Leora is the granddaughter of survivors and is dedicated to telling her family’s stories.

Storytellers

We have more than 100 active Teach the Shoah-trained storytellers.

Let us tell you about a few of them.

Joel Loeb

Joel is the son of German Holocaust victims. His grandfather Josepf Joseph (a noted lawyer), grandmother Lilly, and mother Liesl, were passengers on the MS St. Louis.

Tamara Filipovic

Tamara Filipović lives in Seward, Alaska and has been a Holocaust storyteller since 2009. She is a graduate of the Goucher College Oral History of Holocaust Survivors course.

Joanne Gilbert

Joanne is an author, educator, personal historian, public speaker, and consultant for the Sperling Kronberg Mack Holocaust Resource Center’s Teacher Training program, currently living in Las Vegas, NV.

Gregory Eftimie

Greg a holistic practitioner of massage therapy and folk herbalism in Flower Mound, TX. He is a first generation son of immigrants of Balkan and Eastern European descent. Romanian was his first language.

We are always looking for new storytellers.

Would you like to be a storyteller with Teach the Shoah?

Interns

Acadia Schechter

Communications Intern 2024

Acadia is a student of Religious, Medieval, and Judaic Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. She has worked at various Jewish educational institutions over the past 7 years.

Nicholas Zhong

Technology Intern 2024

Nick studies Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He helped build a web app for using stories as part of Holocaust-oriented walking tours.

Rowan Fripp

Management Intern 2023

At the time of their internship, Rowan was a student at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, studying biology. They worked with Dr. Fripp doing behind-the-scenes work in order to make the website and foundation work smoothly.

We are accepting applications for interns for the coming summer.