Congratulations to the 2023 award winners!
Hebrew Free Loan partnered with National Council of Jewish Women San Francisco Section (NCJW SF) to award eight scholarships to Jewish women students who are studying or working in the area of social justice and who intend to pursue social justice after graduation. This year’s group of applicants was so outstanding that NCJW SF awarded not only four scholarships of $1,250 each, as it does every year, but an additional four scholarships of $500 each.
$1,250 AWARD WINNERS
Becca Bleil is a clinical psychology doctoral student who is passionate about working with underserved communities. She’s worked with children and their families for over a decade and quickly saw a need for accessible mental health services for those facing trauma and grief. Her clinical training has provided her opportunities to work with children and adolescents, low-income and multi-stressed families, survivors of suicide attempts, and elderly and disabled adults. She is in the process of completing her dissertation, titled Queer Thriving: Barriers to Quality of Life Among LGBTQ+ Adults, which seeks to understand issues of freedom and inequality in young adults in the LGBTQIA+ community. She currently provides neuropsychological assessment services to adults and adolescents in the Bay Area. In her free time, Becca enjoys reading, cooking, creating, and laughing with her loved ones.
Lily Gold is currently in her final semester of nursing school at New York University. Born and raised in California, Lily got her first bachelor’s degree in Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. After graduation, she worked as a Reproductive Health Specialist at Planned Parenthood where she discovered her passion for providing individualized, affordable, high-quality reproductive and sexual healthcare. She also volunteered at a free health clinic in Richmond, CA that offered urgent care services to uninsured community members. As a nurse, Lily plans to continue working in the field of reproductive health so that she can support patients’ access to birth control, safe abortion services, and empower birthing people throughout pregnancy and the birth process. Lily plans on continuing her education by obtaining a degree in Midwifery so that she can return to Planned Parenthood as a clinician and provide holistic, patient-centered care.
Danielle Horovitz is a midwifery student at New York University. She was inspired by the experiences of her mother, sisters, aunts, and friends to commit her life to the pursuit of reproductive justice. Danielle discovered her passion for birth work while volunteering as a doula at San Francisco General Hospital. Today, she works as a labor and delivery nurse in New York City. When not in class or at work, she loves to hike, do yoga, and perfect her sourdough recipe.
Hannah Schlacter (she/her) is pursuing her MBA full-time at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, where her coursework has focused on product management. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Gies College of Business in 2017 with high honors. As a Petullo Scholar and part of the College’s Business Honors Program, she double majored in marketing and entrepreneurship. In 2017, Hannah moved to San Francisco. She began her career at Accenture in management consulting, where she served big tech clients in the Bay Area. In 2019, she joined Uprising, an impact-focused venture capital firm, leading strategy and financial operations as well as supporting startups and investors. Hannah is set to earn her MBA in 2024, and she hopes to pivot into product-focused roles at a tech-focused company. Hannah is an active community builder in the Jewish community. She has served on various Jewish non-profit Boards (San Francisco-based and global) in governance and diplomacy roles, she has represented Jewish community interests in the UAE and Taiwan, and she has organized hundreds of events engaging over 1,500 young professionals over the last 6+ years. In 2020, she ran a solo marathon throughout San Francisco, where she built a digital collective comprised of 100+ photos of what ‘love’ meant to individuals as well as fundraised for an Impact Fund that donated over $16,000 to 9 non-profit organizations. When not studying or building community, Hannah enjoys skiing, running, baking with rainbow sprinkles, and biking (HIIT and Hills Peloton rides are her favorite).
$500 AWARD WINNERS
Amy Bergstein is a student at the School of Visual Arts, filmmaking. She has extensive volunteer and creative work experience in film-making and the arts. Her goal is to develop a comprehensive expressive arts program in the San Francisco Bay Area for teenage girls, especially girls who have experienced trauma.
Alexa Kupor is a born-and-raised Californian and third-year undergraduate at Stanford University, where she studies history and digital humanities. She is currently Chief of Staff for her campus’ Jewish Student Association and a former college writing fellow for the Jewish pop culture media group Hey Alma, with work also featured by Hillel International. A strong believer in studying the past to craft a better future, Alexa is particularly passionate about expanding and protecting voting rights, which she pursues as leader of the nonpartisan civic engagement organization StanfordVotes and Director of Legislative Advocacy on the national student board of Every Vote Counts. Having spent the previous summer as a legislative intern at the US Senate, she ultimately hopes to attend law school and pursue a legal career in election law.
Marissa Rosenberg-Carlson is a third-year law student at UCLA School of Law, focusing on deportation defense and related advocacy for immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. Born and raised in San Francisco, Marissa studied Near Eastern Studies and Spanish Language and Cultures at Princeton University. She graduated from Princeton in 2018 and moved to New York City, where she worked for several years as a case manager for Spanish-speaking survivors of human trafficking. After law school, she plans to work as a nonprofit immigration attorney serving survivors of gender-based violence in the Bay Area.
Annie Strugatsky is a graduate student in the School of Education at UC Berkeley. She is studying Education with a concentration in Policy, Politics, and Leadership and is deeply committed to creating an equitable education system for all students. Prior to her studies at UC Berkeley, Annie was a fifth grade public school teacher in Oakland. She is interested in ensuring equitable access for multilingual students, and has served on panels and English Language Development curriculum teams to advocate for students’ learning. She is also studying the impacts of school privatization and its relationship to school segregation. After graduate school, she plans to work for a research agency to help influence better policy decisions that improve outcomes for all students.
Hebrew Free Loan provides interest-free loans to Jewish individuals in Northern California to help them achieve self-sufficiency. Our loans support individuals who are overcoming financial challenges or pursuing lifelong dreams.
Inspired by Jewish values, the National Council for Jewish Women (NCJW) strives for social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms.
The Tanette Goldberg Scholarship for Social Justice was established in memory of Tanette Goldberg (1926-2013), past president of NCJW SF from 1990 to 1993. Tanette was recognized for her work in 2007 when she received the NCJW Hannah G. Solomon Award. Tanette was a tireless and committed community volunteer. She worked to solve issues in the public schools where her children attended and in the community. She fervently believed in justice, equality, and effecting positive change, whether in the Jewish community or her neighborhood.
