Board of Directors
July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011
Wayne E. Batavia, President
Ruth Phillips, Vice President
Jeanne Reisman, MD, Secretary
Peter E. Metzner, Treasurer
Ben Hamburg, Immediate Past President
Wayne joined the JFCS/East Bay board in December 2007 and began his term as president in July 2010. Since 1991, he has served as the president of Batavia Land Company, a real estate consulting and development company. Wayne has previously served on the boards of Temple Sinai in Oakland, the former East Bay Foundation for Diabetic Children, and the Diabetic Youth Foundation. Wayne also served for six years as a planning commissioner in the city of Piedmont. He holds a B.S. in business from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.S. in business, emphasis in Economic Equity Analysis and Advanced Appraisal, from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Wayne has been married for more than twenty-five years, has two daughters, and resides in Piedmont.
Ruth was the program director of the JCC of the East Bay from 2000 to 2006. Previously, she served for over twenty years as the director of a federally funded program for low-income single parents and re-entry women at the College of Alameda. Her other professional experience includes career counseling, women’s studies instructor, and early childhood educator. She earned her B.A. from Roosevelt University in Chicago and her M.A in psychology from the University of San Francisco. Ruth and her husband, Barry, live in Berkeley and have three children and two grandchildren. She joined the board in 2007.
Jeanne is a primary care physician currently serving as Chief of Health Education at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland. Her work at Kaiser also includes working in the chronic pain program and in promoting programs and services for non-English-speaking patients. Jeanne has also been on the clinical faculty at UCSF and teaches medical residents. She has previously served on the boards of Tehiyah Day School, Congregation Netivot Shalom, and LifeLong Medical Center. Jeanne lives in Oakland with her husband, Len, and teenaged daughter, Deborah; all three of them are JFCS/East Bay volunteers. Jeanne joined the board in 2008.
Peter joined the board in 2008. For the past twenty-five years, he has worked in the financial services/investment banking industry, and presently works for Cypress Financial Corporation, a private investment fund based in San Francisco. Peter previously served on the board of Temple Isaiah. He is a graduate of University of Southern California (1975) and received an MBA from San Francisco State University (1978). He lives in Orinda with his wife, Aliza, and has two daughters, Julia and Claire.
Ben joined the JFCS/East Bay board in 2005 and served as president from July 2008 through June 2010. He is an attorney with the Hamburg Law Corporation in Berkeley. His practice focuses on business and real estate transactions and litigation. In addition, he serves as a neutral mediator. Ben obtained a B.A. from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1975, and a J.D. from the University of California Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law in 1979. Ben lives in Oakland with his wife, Sandy, and has two daughters, Alison, a graduate of Wesleyan University, and Rachel, a student at Pomona College.
Rhoda has been on the board since early 2006. She is a professor emerita of communicative sciences and disorders at California State University East Bay (Hayward) and the owner-director of Communication Associates in Albany. She specializes in voice improvement and speech training/therapy for public speakers in business, education, and the performing arts. Rhoda completed her doctoral training in craniofacial anomalies and laryngeal physiology at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago. In April 2008, she was appointed Consulting Director of the Department of Communication Disorders, the University Center in Ariel, Israel.
Sandra P. Epstein, Ph.D.
Sandra has been on the JFCS/East Bay board since 2004 and served as president from July 2006 to June 2008. She has a forty-year record of professional accomplishment in geriatrics and education that spans both sides of the San Francisco Bay. From 1984 to 2004, Sandra served as administrator/COO of the Jewish Home for the Aged in San Francisco. Sandra is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and received both her master’s and her doctorate in higher education policy and administration from the University of California at Berkeley. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, Edwin, and has two children and two grandchildren.
Leo joined the board in 2007. He is a global trader at Mellon Capital Management, an investment management firm in San Francisco. Leo is responsible for trading in U.S. and international capital markets across all asset classes, including equities, currencies, index, interest rate, and fixed income derivatives. He has previously worked at AXA Rosenberg, Schwab Capital Markets, and Goldman Sachs. Leo earned his master’s degree from New York University’s Stern School of Business with concentrations in both business administration and computer science. Leo is married to Anna Levin, another NYU graduate; they live in Walnut Creek with their two children, Adina and David.
Rick joined the JFCS/East Bay board in 2007. He is a clinical psychologist specializing in work with children and families and currently serves as an adjunct professor at Alliant International University in San Francisco and at the Wright Institute in Berkeley. Rick has taught at many Bay Area universities and has provided training and supervision for numerous Bay Area nonprofits. He is the author (along with David Epston and Ali Borden) of Biting the Hand that Starves You: Inspiring Resistance to Anorexia/Bulimia (Norton, 2004). Rick maintains an active private practice in Berkeley and Walnut Creek and has two delightful young daughters.
Rabbi Mates-Muchin is the Associate Rabbi at Temple Sinai in Oakland. She received both her ordination and her masters in Hebrew Letters at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. Rabbi Mates-Muchin serves on the national board of the Women’s Rabbinic Network of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and on the Shalom Bayit Rabbinic Advisory Committee. She and her husband, Jonathan, have four children. Rabbi Mates- Muchin joined the JFCS/East Bay board in 2009.
Janis has been on the board since 2005. She programmed and produced the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival for twenty-one years and is now is film programmer of documentary and world cinema for the Mill Valley Film Festival. Janis currently teaches film classes at San Francisco State University and has also taught at Stanford University. She received a double master’s in social work and Jewish community studies from the University of Southern California and Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles.
Mark is a physician with Kaiser Permanente in the East Bay. He also serves as an assistant clinical professor at UCSF Medical School. In addition, he volunteers at San Francisco General Hospital, where he supervises medical students and residents. Mark attended the Medical College of Wisconsin and did his residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. He joined the board in 2007.
Helaine attended the University of Rochester and was a reporter for daily newspapers in the Bay Area for ten years, covering government and legal affairs. Subsequently, Helaine attended law school at the University of San Francisco, earning her J.D. in 1988. She worked as a litigator and trial counsel until 1995. Most recently, Helaine worked as a development director at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall). She has served on the Tehiyah Day School board of trustees and currently chairs the Head-Royce School Annual Giving Council. Helaine and her husband Marc, live in Oakland with their son, Matthew, and are longtime members of Beth Jacob Congregation. She joined the board in 2009.
Philip is an attorney in the finance practice at the firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in San Francisco. He attended Brandeis University and received his J.D. from UC Berkeley, Boalt Hall. Philip is an active member of the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative Alumni Network, and his legal pro bono work has included clients of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area Legal Services Clinic. Philip and his wife, Delphine, live in Berkeley. He joined the board in 2009.
