Tikvah-Beren Collegiate Forum

Keren Binyamin is a junior marketing and management double major at the University of Maryland. She plans to get a master’s degree in Supply Chain Management. Currently, she serves as the co-president of Terps for Israel, UMD’s leading Israel advocacy student organization. She is also the Vice President of Branding at the TAMID group at Maryland. Lastly, but certainly not least, she serves many roles in my Jewish a cappella group, Kol Sasson.

Ilan Eisenberg is a rising sophomore at Yale from the Bay Area. He is passionate about history, philosophy, and politics and spent the past year studying seminal texts of the Western tradition as part of Yale's Directed Studies program. He enjoys playing and writing music and is a tenor in the Yale Russian Chorus. He has participated in several Tikvah programs over the past three years, and he's excited to continue discussing Jewish ideas this summer.

Spencer Glassman hails from West Orange, New Jersey and is a sophomore at Harvard College studying history with a secondary in government. He is the Chairman of the John Adams Society, a columnist for The Crimson, and an active member of Hillel where he leads the regular trivia nights. Between freshman and sophomore year he went to Israel where he spent his first 4 months doing community service in Beer Sheva and Nahariya and the second 4 months at an internship in Tel Aviv.

Zachary Herrmann hails from a Jewish community in Vancouver Washington. After spending a year studying abroad in Prague, Czech Republic, Zachary has just completed his undergraduate degree in religious studies and BioEthics through the University of Puget Sound. In 2017, Zachary served as the President of NFTY, the reform Jewish youth movement. In the years to come Zachary hopes to continue innovating new approaches to Jewish education and publish his own testimonial to share his experience in Jewish youth programming.

Zach Kessel, a New Jersey native, is a rising senior at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where he serves as president of the school’s Alexander Hamilton Society chapter. He has anchored the university’s cable news-style politics program and worked as an opinion columnist for The Daily Northwestern, a role he used to argue in favor of philosophical conservatism and a vigorous defense of the Jewish people. His writings have appeared in several other publications, including The Washington Post and National Review. Zach hopes to pursue a career within the conservative public intellectual sphere after graduating.

Brandon Leach is from Chevy Chase, Maryland and is a freshman at American University. He has always engaged in service activities, from volunteering in homeless shelters to lobbying Congress on behalf of veterans. He spent two rewarding summers interning with the Jewish War Veterans organization, and was also part of the student leadership for his high school’s JROTC program where he spearheaded a mentorship program and started their CyberPatriot team. He plans on majoring in International Studies with a focus on the Middle East, and is also part of the Lincoln Scholars Program, which is a great books program focused on political philosophy. He aspires to have a career in national service.

Samuel Marks is a senior at Swarthmore College, where he is a double major in economics and history. At Swarthmore, he is co-president of Swarthmore’s Conservative Society and co-president of Swarthmore Students for Israel. Samuel has written for The Daily Wire and Fretboard Journal Magazine and plays jazz guitar and banjo professionally in the Boston area. He founded an online musical instrument shop in high school, after studying musical instrument construction and restoration, and enjoys learning about and working on musical instruments in his free time. He is passionate about Jewish learning and American politics and hopes to pursue a career in public policy or academia.

Gabriella Negrin, from Westchester, New York, is a rising junior at The George Washington University majoring in political science with a concentration in public policy. Gabriella is also pursuing a minor in psychology and economics. Currently, she serves as a member of the political committee for the GW for Israel organization, GWU’s leading Zionist organization on campus. She is also a member of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority. This summer, she will intern for the Jewish Community Relations Council in New York City. In her free time, Gabriella enjoys running, reading nonfiction, photography, and traveling.

Eli Nirenberg is a junior at Washington University in St. Louis and he hails from Northwest Indiana. Besides studying economics and political science, he serves as President of the WashingtonU-Israel Public Affairs Committee (WIPAC), a pro-Israel education and political action organization. He is also a board member for World Without Genocide WashU, a group which fosters social awareness about human rights issues of the past and present. Eli’s aspiration to contribute to the wellbeing of the United States, the Jewish people, and the State of Israel is what brought him to the Tikvah Fund. He hopes to make a difference in policymaking, business, and international relations in the future.

Alexandra Orbuch of Los Angeles, California is a freshman at Princeton University, where she is hoping to concentrate in Politics with a Certificate in Creative Writing. At Princeton, she writes for The Princeton Tory, Nassau Weekly, and Princeton Legal Journal. In addition, Alexandra is a fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions in the Department of Politics at Princeton University and works as a Research Assistant in the Princeton University Psychology Department. Alexandra is fascinated by the law and has spent time working in the worlds of both corporate activism and criminal justice, at Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft LLP and the Loyola Project for the Innocent respectively. In her free time, Alexandra enjoys hiking, yoga, writing poetry, and reading.

Penina Spearman, born and raised in Queens, New York, arrived at Yeshiva University and the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought in 2020 after spending a year studying in Israel at Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim (MMY). At Stern College for Women, Penina is pursuing a degree in Philosophy and is a Jewish Foundation for Education of Women (JFEW) scholar. Penina has interned at the Kohelet Policy Forum and at the Kings County Supreme Court. On campus, Penina sits on the American Enterprise Institute’s YU Executive Council, and she is the Logistics Officer for the Alexander Hamilton Society (AHS) Yeshiva University chapter.

Jared Stone, a native of Las Vegas, is a junior at Princeton concentrating in Politics with certificates in Classical Greek Language, Hellenic Studies, and Judaic Studies. On campus, he serves as president of Tigers for Israel and the Koach Conservative Minyan, chair of the conservative debate society and AEI Executive Council, and a member of the Israel Advisory Committee and the Princeton Hillel/CJL Board of Directors. He is also active within the Princeton Tory, James Madison Program, and Princeton Rose Castle Society. Beyond the classroom, he has worked in think tanks and federal political campaigns.

Zoe Tara Zeigherman grew up in London and is a junior at Georgetown University, where she studies English and is pursuing minors in Film and Media Studies and Jewish Civilization. On campus, she has been part of the dance team. She has also written and edited for the campus arts and culture magazine. Long term, Zoe Tara is interested in combining her passion for film and Zionism to promote Jewish confidence. During 2021 she moved to Berlin for a year to work in film and became personal assistant to Jewish filmmaker Leo Khasin. She currently serves on the board of Chabad Georgetown.