Leadership

Los Angeles, CA

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Elana Wien is the inaugural Executive Director of the Safety Respect Equity (SRE) Coalition, a national Jewish coalition mobilized to create safe, respectful, and equitable workplaces and communal spaces, through sharing resources, raising awareness and accelerating a broader cultural shift toward addressing sexual harassment, sexism, and gender discrimination.

A trusted community leader, Elana brings a wealth of experience, most recently as vice president for the Center for Designed Philanthropy at the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles where she led grant programs and provided philanthropic counsel to individuals and families, overseeing $100M in grants benefitting hundreds of nonprofits over the course of her tenure.

Elana has a strong track record of supporting innovation, building capacity, fostering meaningful partnerships, and taking projects and organizations to scale. With a passion for civil rights, community relations, strategic communications, fundraising and advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, her prior roles have included assistant regional director of the Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles and consultant to nonprofit clients including a regional medical center, a national early childhood think tank, a major LA County community clinic system, and a youth homeless services agency.

Elana graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in geography and received a master’s degree in anthropology from the Universidad de las Americas as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to Mexico. Elana is a Wexner Field Fellow (2018-2021), a graduate of the Coro SoCal Women in Leadership Cohort 2, a member of the LGBTQ Professionals Network of Southern California Grantmakers, a member of the SAM Initiative women’s giving circle, and a partner of Social Venture Partners LA. She was featured as an “Amazing Woman in the World of Philanthropy” in local Los Angeles media. She was born and currently resides in Los Angeles with her wife and children, having lived in the Bay Area, Washington, D.C., NYC, Brazil, Mexico and Spain.

Read the Press Release

Read Elana’s Open Letter to the SRE Community

Toronto

Dr. Guila Benchimol is the Senior Advisor on Research and Learning with the Safety Respect Equity Coalition. As a researcher and public educator on sexual violence, she has crafted standards and policies for Jewish workplaces, institutions, and communal spaces and has been invited to address Jewish professionals and clergy across Canada and the US, as well as other faith communities.

Guila holds a PhD in Sociological Criminology and an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, completed under the supervision of Dr. Myrna Dawson, Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence. Her doctoral dissertation examined how victims of sexual violence become advocates and activists against sexual violence, and explored the processes that survivors experience, including victimization and disclosures, which lead them to advocate. Her MA thesis examined the 2011 Kletzky murder in Brooklyn, NY and its impact on the orthodox Jewish community as they discussed addressing communal concerns that arose from the crime and its aftermath. Guila’s first career as a Jewish educator informed her understanding of the need to address victimization of all kinds in Jewish communities. She was the Director of Judaic Studies at Tiferes Bais Yaakov where she also taught grades 9 through 12. She was also the Managing Director for the National Conference of Synagogue Youth in Canada where she founded and directed an international camp for high school girls. She serves as a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence where she works on projects related to homicide and domestic violence deaths. She also sits on the board of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).