Student Leadership
Current Student Board Members
The J Street U Student Board is the central body that sets the direction for our student driven network.
The Student Board is responsible for setting policies, guidelines and statements governing the J Street U student network and works to monitor and strengthen our overall network. The Student Board is involved in all aspects of the J Street U organization, including campaign design, staff hiring and budgeting.
Elected in the Summer of 2011, the J Street U Student Board is comprised of the following students:
Logan Bayroff
President, J Street U Student Board
University of Pennsylvania
Logan is an avid student of history, foreign policy, and all things Russia. He got hooked on the former Soviet Union a few years ago, and now splits his time between obsessing over Russia and Israel. He co-founded J Street U Penn last year, and is also the co-editor-in-chief of Penn’s undergraduate journal of Jewish Studies and Israel. Logan is a graduate of Solomon Schechter High School of Long Island – and is particularly proud that it continues to produce a disproportionately high number of J Street U activists. A devoted super-fan of the New York Yankees and the Duke Blue Devils, his biggest heroes are Alexander Hamilton, Woody Allen, Lionel Messi, and James Bond. His official motto, “crush the infamy,” is borrowed from Voltaire. Like the great Frenchman, Logan believes strongly in sharp wit and just causes.
Hannah Fishman
West Coast Representative, J Street U Student Board
Reed College
Hannah grew up in rural Washington State and loves cold, dark, and rainy climates. Hannah has been interested in Foreign Policy since she was in elementary school and first able to participate in heated dinner table arguments over the day’s news. Hannah now channels the love for detail and discussion she learned in those arguments to her classes as a Political Science major. When she isn’t worrying about Israel, Hannah spends her time considering the role of Honor in her community as a member of Reed College’s Honor Council. Really a nerd, Hannah has played the flute for many years, winning state competitions in high school, and will likely choose to listen to classical music if left to her own devices. As a hobby, she operates airfoils: sailing dinghies and flying Cessnas as a private pilot.
Morriah Kaplan
Midwest Representative, J Street U Student Board
Washington University in St. Louis
Morriah Kaplan is from Portland, Oregon and grew up spending her summers at Habonim Dror Camp Miriam on Gabriola Island, BC. After high school, she spent a year abroad in Israel with Habonim Dror Youth Movement. She is currently a sophomore at Washington University in St. Louis and is double-majoring in English and Urban Studies. She is the president of WashU J Street U and a member of the club rowing team.
Rory Silver
Southeast Representative, J Street U Student Board
George Washington University
Rory is a senior at the George Washington University, pursuing a both a BA in International Affairs with a concentration in Conflict and Security and Middle East Studies. He served as the D.C. regional coordinator for two years for the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network, a progressive student policy organization, and founded the organization’s GW chapter. He also previously served in a leadership position with a leading pro-Israel group on campus, organizing political initiatives and a large student lobby mission to Capitol Hill. After two years however, he decided to reexamine his true contribution to the conversation on campus and what his work was doing to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to a two-state solution. He came to recognize the stifling environment on campus the discourages criticism and dialogue, and sought to increase his exposure to the realities on the ground. He studied for four months at the University of Jordan in Amman, where he had the opportunity to teach English to Palestinian-Jordanians. For ten days, he backpacked throughout the West Bank and Israel, living with Palestinians and Israelis and hearing a diverse array of personal narratives. This past summer, he had the opportunity to travel back to the region as a part of J Street U’s inaugural “Engage with Israel” trip, where he met with Israeli and Palestinian civil society and government leaders. This semester, he started up the J Street U chapter at GW, where they are doing great things to change what it means to be pro-Israel on campus and develop support for the two-state solution at the expense of apathy and polarization. Previously, he’s interned with the Department of State Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Project on Middle Eastern Political Science.
Ben Elkind
Southeast Representative, J Street U Student Board
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ben Elkind is a senior at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and is originally from Silver Spring, MD. Last summer he participated in J Street U’s Engage with Israel trip, and remained in Israel for several weeks after, working with the great Libby Lenkinski Friedlander at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Outside of his work on Israeli-Palestinian politics, Ben studies philosophy, participates in social justice work on UNC’s campus, and occasionally plays Madden NFL 2009 with his roommates.
