Ann F. Lewis, Board of Directors

Ann Lewis is a leading American Democratic Party strategist and communicator. She is CoChair of the Board of Democratic Majority for Israel , and member of the Board of Directors of Zioness Movement. From 1994 to 1995, Lewis was the Vice President for Public Policy at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, where she was responsible for policy, legal and communications initiatives. She was Chief of Staff to then Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski , and as Political Director of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 1981 to 1985.

Lewis was Director of Communications and Deputy Campaign Manager for the Clinton-Gore Reelection Campaign in 1995 to 1996. From 1997 to 2000, Lewis served as Director of Communications and Counselor to President Bill Clinton in the White House. She then served as senior advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 campaign for U.S. Senate. She served as Director of Communications for HillPAC and Friends of Hillary 2005 to 2007. She also served as National Chair of the DNC Women’s Vote Center, where she led the Democratic Party’s major initiative to reach, engage, and mobilize women voters from 2003 to 2004.

Lewis was Senior Advisor for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns, as well as co-chair of Jewish Women for Hillary 2016.

In 2001, Lewis was the Richman Visiting Professor at Brandeis University, teaching a course on the Presidency entitled “The West Wing and The Real World” and a Public Policy Fellow at the Annenberg School of Communications of the University of Pennsylvania.

Lewis was appointed by President Clinton as Co-Chair of the President’s Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History and she was appointed by the President and Senator Daschle to the Women’s Progress Commission, established by Congress to report on women’s historical sites. She speaks and writes about the campaign for womens suffrage, and maintains an archive of suffrage memorabilia.  

Deborah Marinoff Marcus, Board of Directors

Deborah Marcus is an executive at leading entertainment and sports agency, Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Marcus joined CAA in 2019 and leads their work in education, public health, and fighting antisemitism, designing social impact strategies for clients and employees. Since joining CAA, she has launched and or co-founded initiatives including READY SET, a national tutor and mentor recruitment campaign; the Roybal Film and Television Magnet, a public high school in Los Angeles founded by CAA Client George Clooney that trains underrepresented students for production jobs in Hollywood; #FirstRespondersFirst and ALL IN Well-Being First for Healthcare which launched during the pandemic to support the well-being of our healthcare workforce; and most recently, LetAmericaRead, a social media campaign to fight book banning and censorship in American schools and libraries. 

Prior to joining CAA, Marcus served for nearly a decade as Executive Director of Communities in Schools of Los Angeles, the nation’s leading high school dropout prevention organization.  Appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 to LA City Commission on Community and Family Services, she served as its Vice Chairperson until July 2023.  She currently serves as Vice Chairperson and National Board Member of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation, Founding Board Member, Zioness Action Fund and Treasurer and Board Member, LAUSD Education Foundation.   She also serves and in advisory capacities with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and If You Heard What I Heard, an organization whose mission is to record the stories of grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.  She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

Sharon Nazarian, Board of Directors

Dr. Sharon S. Nazarian is the President of the Y&S Nazarian Family Foundation, with a regional office in Israel named the Ima Foundation and is the Founder and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
Mostly recently, Dr. Nazarian served as the inaugural Gahl Hodges Burt Distinguished Fellow in Policy at the American Academy in Berlin May 2024. During Dr. Nazarian’s tenure in Germany, she actively researched the intersection of antisemitism and the degradation of democratic institutions worldwide. She conducted in-depth interviews and engaged with government officials, university presidents and faculty, teachers, labor union leaders, and civil society organizations to develop a comprehensive understanding of how Germany is facing and addressing the global and domestic rise of
antisemitism.
In the fall of 2023, three days before the horrific Oct. 7th gruesome Hamas attack on Southern Israel, Dr. Nazarian designed and piloted a first of its kind course at UCLA in the Global Studies department titled The Globalization of Antisemitism: A Survey of Transnational Trends – a senior seminar on understanding antisemitism through a global lens. As an experienced
educator and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Dr. Nazarian’s firsthand experience with the campus climate on US university campuses provided her with firsthand classroom experience at an especially sensitive time.
In 2017, The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) appointed Sharon as Senior Vice President in International Affairs. Sharon served in this role for five years heading ADL’s work fighting antisemitism and racial hatred globally, including in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and ADL’s Israel office. She stepped away from that position in August of 2022 and was immediately invited to join the National Board of Directors of ADL where she continues to serve.
Sharon’s interests are reflected in the myriad of organizations she devotes her time, talent, and energies to – she is the founder and chair of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, sits on the Board of Governors of Haifa University, and is a member of the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI). She also sits on the National board of Freedom House and is a member
of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR).
Her undergraduate studies took place at the University of Southern California (USC), double majoring in Journalism and International Relations. She received her master’s and Doctor of Philosophy degrees also from USC in Political Science, specializing in Political Economy and Economic Development in newly industrialized countries.
She is an integral member of Nazarian Enterprises, a family investment office with holdings across a broad spectrum of industries, including real estate, hospitality, manufacturing, technology, and clean energy.

Amanda Berman, Executive Director

Amanda Berman (she/her) is the Founder and Executive Director of the Zioness Movement, where she works to empower and activate Zionists on the progressive left to stand proudly in social justice spaces as Jews and Zionists. She is also a civil rights attorney who previously worked to fight antisemitism legally, spearheading such groundbreaking initiatives as the international action against Kuwait Airways for its discrimination against Israeli nationals, and the dual cases against San Francisco State University for its constitutional and civil rights violations against Jewish and Israeli students and community members.

Amanda writes on Jewish and civil rights issues and is a media contributor across various mediums and outlets. She has spoken and presented before diverse audiences including Hadassah, JNF, B’nei Brith, Jewish Federation, AIPAC, JCRC, Hillel, and many others. She is a graduate of the Anti-Defamation League’s Glass Leadership Institute, the recipient of Hadassah’s prestigious Myrtle Wreath Award, and was listed by the Algemeiner as one of the top “100 people positively contributing to Jewish life” in 2018.

Amanda graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Diplomatic History and a Master of Governmental Administration and received her Juris Doctor from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she was a Public Service Scholar; served in the Bet Tzedek Legal Services Clinic, providing legal services to the underrepresented; served in the Advanced Human Rights Clinic, providing legal services to immigrants and refugees; sat on the Executive Board of the Cardozo Advocates for Battered Women; and was a Fellow in the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Clinic. She practiced securities litigation at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP before dedicating her career to the advancement and protection of the Jewish people and the Zionist community.