Faculty Profiles

Elaine Leeder, MSW, MPH, PhD

is a Professor of Sociology and the Dean of the School of Social Sciences. Twice she was a visiting scholar at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and was a founding member of the Ithaca College Jewish Studies Program in Ithaca, NY. She wrote a book on a Jewish labor organizer, Rose Pesotta (ILGWU) that was published by SUNY Press in 1993.

Will Johnson

is a composer and performance artist with strong interests in the social history of music. While teaching at SSU he has developed a number of courses for the music department focusing on relationships between music and the society that produced it. The genesis of his course on Yiddish Musical Theater and the Roots of Broadway was the SF Symphony Evening with the Thomashefskys, Michael Tilson Thomas’s grandparents and founding members of the New York Yiddish Theater. Using music as the primary text, the course will explore and contrast Jewish and other immigrant perspectives on, and contributions to, the development of the American musical. 

Dr. Adrian Praetzellis

is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Anthropological Studies Center at Sonoma State University. A board member and Secretary/Sofer of Hillel of Sonoma County since 1999, he also serves on the Lifelong Learning committee at Congregation Shomrei Torah in Santa Rosa. Adrian is an archaeologist with experience in England, Virginia, the Great Basin and California.


Dr. Myrna Goodman

is the Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust and an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology. She is a graduate of Sonoma State University and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Sociology from the University of California, Davis. Her Ph.D. degree includes a Designated Emphasis in Social Theory and Comparative History. Dr. Goodman's dissertation was an analysis of the contributions of ideology, culture and political process in the formation of the Danish Resistance Movement and the rescue of the Jews in Denmark during World War II. Dr. Goodman coordinates the annual Holocaust Lecture Series: Perspectives on the Holocaust and Genocide and is the faculty advisor to the SSU Human Rights Club.

Nitzhia Shaked

received her Juris Doctor degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a master’s in law from Harvard Law School. She has been a member of both the Israel and California Bar associations. In addition to her law career, she has been engaged in Jewish text research and teaching since the 1970s. She has taught at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, and Sonoma State University. She is currently working on a book that legally analyzes the Trial of Jesus. Nitzhia has also been a Lehrhaus faculty member for fifteen years. She is also a published artist.

Bruce Bramlett

is a religious studies scholar and an ordained Episcopal priest who did graduate work at Union Theological Seminary, the Episcopal Divinity School, and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He has studied at Yad Vashem and was a Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He has taught at several Bay Area institutions and has also lectured through Lehrhaus Judaica’s adult education program. He is presently the Program Coordinator for the “Extremes of Hate: Holocaust Studies and Critical Thinking” program at Silicon Valley FACES in San Jose. In 1996, he won the Martin Luther King Award from the Marin County Human Rights Commission.

Dr. James J. Preston

is the former Professor and Chair of the Anthropology Department and Chair of the Religious Studies Program at the State University of New York, Oneonta.  Presently Dr. Preston is a Lecturer at Santa Rosa Junior College, the Osher Life Long Learning Program at the University of California, Berkeley and in several departments at Sonoma State University including psychology, anthropology and sociology. Dr. Preston has published 4 books and numerous articles on a wide range of topics in the study of religion.

Ron H. Feldman

co-edited and wrote the Introduction for The Jewish Writings of Hannah Arendt, an expansion of The Jew as Pariah, a collection Ron published in 1978. He has also written Fundamentals of Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah, an introductory book about Kabbalah, as well as numerous essays and book reviews on Jewish subjects. He is currently working on a book examining environmental aspects of the Jewish calendar and time. Ron received his Ph.D. in Jewish History and Culture from the Graduate Theological Union and has taught Jewish studies at universities throughout the San Francisco Bay area.

Henry Shreibman, Ph.D., Rabbi, DD

has been an adjunct faculty member over the last three years at Dominican University, Sonoma State, and UC Davis in Comparative Religion, History, Ethics, and Philosophy. He is the West Coast Director of Advancement and Outreach for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. He serves as Senior Research Fellow for the Levine Lent Foundation. Throughout his career, Shreibman has been cited for his service as an outstanding professional and educator. In 2008 Shreibman was awarded the Teacher of the Year at Dominican University as an adjunct. He received the Executive of the Year Award of the JCF in 2000. He served as the Head of School of Brandeis Hillel Day School for 13 years and was on the board of the California Association of Independent Schools.