Jewish Learning

Rabbi Peretz Shapiro is a Chabad Rabbi and spiritual leader of The Jewish Life Network, a Chabad-Lubavitch organization committed to enhancing the spiritual lives of Jewish senior citizens by creating meaningful, educational, spiritual, and cultural programming. He is also a chaplain at Vitas Healthcare Hospice and has been an instructor in the Melton and Gesher Adult Educational Programs at the J since 2005. Rabbi Shapiro lives in Dallas with his wife Michal, Judaics teacher at Yavneh, and four daughters and one son.

Laura Seymour has been known by many names throughout her long tenure of 40+ years at the Jewish Community Center of Dallas. Today her official title, and first love, is Director of Camping Services. Laura writes a weekly column in the Texas Jewish Post and is known as “The Shabbat Lady” and she teaches in Melton School at the J. Laura is a Jewish educator for all ages sharing her love and knowledge of Judaism with toddlers to seniors. She makes Jewish learning fun and thought provoking while remaining accessible to all learners. Laura and her husband Jeff have raised three children in Dallas and have been involved in all aspects of the Jewish community.

A native Las Vegan who didn’t have the aspirations to be a showgirl, Beri Kaplan Schwitzer put her time, energy, and enthusiasm into education. Upon graduating the University of Nevada, Reno with a degree in Journalism, she began a career that has provided her with extensive experience in Jewish education, non-profit management, and corporate human resources/training. Her true passion remains in Jewish education where she has served in a variety of capacities over the last twenty years. Beri is a nationally recognized Jewish educator honored by Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA) and by the National Association of Temple Educators (NATE) for her work in creating a special needs learning lab and curriculum in supplementary Jewish education. She believes in creating a welcoming environment where students can grow in a Jewish playground allowing learners of all ages to romp and wrestle with their spirituality, history, and rich heritage. Beri and husband Joel are proud parents to twins, Miriam and Hannah. She is a marathoner, an amateur genealogist, and veracious reader of Jewish fiction.

Laura Seymour has been known by many names throughout her long tenure of 40+ years at the Jewish Community Center of Dallas. Today her official title, and first love, is Director of Camping Services. Laura writes a weekly column in the Texas Jewish Post and is known as “The Shabbat Lady” and she teaches in Melton School at the J. Laura is a Jewish educator for all ages sharing her love and knowledge of Judaism with toddlers to seniors. She makes Jewish learning fun and thought provoking while remaining accessible to all learners. Laura and her husband Jeff have raised three children in Dallas and have been involved in all aspects of the Jewish community.

Mark Kreditor is the grandson of a cantorial student from the Ukraine and sang in Synagogue, leading services, since he was 8 years old. As a student in Boston he played piano 5 nights a week in sing-a-long bars and pubs, where he began to correlate the biographical connections of the Jewish songwriters, their religious upbringing, and the melodic flavors of their songs. While building a residential property management company in Dallas, he also taught music history and lectured around the country about the Jewish songwriters that built the American Songbook. He has spoken annually at The Highland Park Methodist Church in the Rejebian lecture series and at many other churches and Synagogues in the Metroplex. As a songwriter, his original compositions have been featured at area religious day schools and nationally at real estate conferences. He lives in Preston Hollow with his wife Carol, a former executive at Trammell Crow Company. Mark is a past VP of the J Board and is a much beloved faculty member in The Gesher Program at the Aaron Family JCC in Dallas, dynamic, engaging and life-changing Jewish learning opportunity at the J! Gesher courses are developed by the Dallas area Rabbis and Educators for JCC Dallas.

He is immediate past president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas.

David Patterson holds the Hillel A. Feinberg Distinguished Chair in Holocaust Studies at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, University of Texas at Dallas and is a Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).  He is a commissioner on the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission and a member of the Executive Board of the Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches.  He has lectured at universities on six continents and throughout the United States.  A winner of the National Jewish Book Award, the Koret Jewish Book Award, and the Holocaust Scholars’ Conference Eternal Flame Award, he has published 40 books and more than 240 articles, essays, and book chapters on antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish studies.  His most recent books are Judaism, Antisemitism, Holocaust: Making the Connections (Cambridge, 2022), Shoah and Torah (Routledge, 2022), Portraits: Elie Wiesel’s Hasidic Legacy (SUNY, 2021), The Holocaust and the Non-Representable (SUNY, 2018), and Anti-Semitism and Its Metaphysical Origins (Cambridge, 2015).