FOUNDER Isabel “Liz” P Dunst

Isabel P Dunst (‘Liz”) is a longtime activist within the Jewish community, and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Union for Reform Judaism, and as a member of the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. She is the immediate past Chair of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, and remains an active member of the Commission, with a major interest in its racial justice agenda. She has served in many positions in her home congregation (Temple Sinai DC), including serving as its president.  She is currently working in the temple as a member of Multi-Racial Sinai to fulfill the temples’ commitment to undertake the transformational steps to affirm and enhance its identity as a multiracial Reform Jewish Community, and to become an affirmatively antiracist community. Liz is active in the broader Jewish social justice community, having served as a member of the Board of Directors, of Bend the Arc and on the Advisory Board to JOIN for Justice (Jewish Organizing Institute and Network).

Her advocacy on the issues regarding the equality of women is also long-standing- sparked by her rejection at the age of 14 of becoming a page in the U.S. Senate because it was not deemed a position “suitable for girls” – and extending to the issues of discrimination during her law school years, and with the founding of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund in 1971 (now the Partnership for Women and Families) in which she remains involved.

Liz carries a strong passion for hands-on social justice work which has included trips to New Orleans to help rebuild the city and standing guard at Planned Parenthood Clinics, where she felt the power of “making a difference with our bodies”.  Liz is committed to raising up the next generation of leaders to continue the fight for social justice.

Liz currently resides in the Washington DC area, and holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin, the New York University School of Law and the Harvard School of Public Health. Professionally Liz has practiced law for almost 50 years.  Almost half of her career was spent in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, culminating in her service as its Deputy General Counsel, the senior legal position. The remainder of her career was spent as a partner at Hogan Lovells, LLP (formerly Hogan & Hartson), an international law firm, where she practiced law on a broad array of health care issues, and led the firm’s Health practice.  She retired from the active practice of law in 2019 to pursue her passion for social justice.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Peri Smilow

Educator, musician, youth worker and non-profit entrepreneur, Peri Smilow was raised in a household that valued racial equality, Jewish values, volunteerism and a commitment to civic participation. She spent a summer in her teens visiting with and providing community service to a number of deeply impoverished communities including coal miners in Appalachia and former sharecropper families in the Black Belt of Alabama. These experiences provided a first-hand introduction to the structural inequities in American society and planted in Peri a life-long passion to understand and work towards the dismantling of these historical inequities.

Peri’s introduction to Jewish life came through her synagogue. She spent six months living in Israel as a participant in the Reform Movement’s EIE high-school abroad program. She returned conversationally fluent in Hebrew and began a life-long relationship with and connection to the country and its people.

After graduating from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Letters, Peri served in leadership roles in a wide array of non-profit youth serving organizations in Boston and NYC.  She also worked as a musical theater performer, attaining membership in Actor’s Equity, and led educational travel trips for teens in China, Israel and the former Soviet Union. Peri went on to complete an M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and is a proud graduate of LeadBoston and the National Coalition Building Institute’s year-long diversity training program.

More recently Peri served as the National Director of Program and Engagement for ARZA, the Reform Movement’s Israel organization and was the first Director of Intergenerational Program Engagement at DOROT, a nationally recognized senior service organization.

Throughout her years of non-profit leadership Peri maintained her connection to the Jewish community serving as Cantorial Soloist in Reform Jewish congregations. While working in congregational life Peri began to compose and perform contemporary Jewish music. Over time, Peri and her music became a feature of the Reform Movement (URJ) nation-wide. Not surprisingly, her music focuses on themes of social justice and community engagement. Interest in her music led Peri to become a nationally recognized recording and touring artist. For 25+ years Peri used her music as a tool for social change throughout the US, Canada, England, Israel and Singapore.

For her work Peri has been recognized with the Beloved Community Award in her community of South Orange, NJ as well as a lifetime achievement award from ARZA. Peri’s most cherished role is being mom to daughter Allie.