Bio
Elana Naftalin-Kelman has been working at the intersection of special education and Jewish education for over 20 years. She was inspired on this path by her time as a camper at Camp Ramah in Ojai, where she currently works as Tikvah consultant after directing the program for 18 years. These programs include a camper program, a vocational program for young adults and a camp for families that have children with disabilities. Elana is an adjunct professor of Special Education at San Francisco State University where she teaches in the Special Education Department. She has taught in the Education Department at the AJU for the last 3 years and consults with Jewish institutions of all types to aid them in thinking about how to be more inclusive of Jews of all abilities. She has taught professional development courses in differentiated instruction, behavior management, accessibility, universal design for learning and teaching Hebrew. She lives in Berkeley, California with her husband and three sons.