Sept. 2025
Wendy Schneider
Hamilton’s Jewish community is fortunate to have a new wave of emerging lay and professional leaders, bringing fresh ideas and a deep commitment to ensuring Jewish continuity. Their growing involvement is the result of intentional outreach by Hamilton Jewish Federation CEO Gustavo Rymberg, who has prioritized engaging professionals under 40 for his team and recently welcomed four new board members under 45. For generations, Jewish communities have recognized that investing in young leaders is essential to ensuring a thriving and enduring community. The individuals highlighted in the following pages embody that promise, offering both inspiration and confidence in the continued strength of our community.
The four new board members introduced at Federation’s AGM last May are motivated by a genuine desire to make a meaningful contribution to their community. Each bringing a unique blend of personal experience, professional expertise, and deep-rooted values, they share a commitment to shape a resilient and vibrant future for the community.
Misha Apel
Misha Apel’s deep-rooted Jewish pride and passion for activism were instilled in her from an early age. The eldest of three children born to Yves and Luba Apel, who immigrated to Hamilton from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, she was raised in a home that cherished the freedom to live openly as Jews and embraced a strong sense of community responsibility. Now based in Toronto, where she works at a Bay Street law firm, Apel maintains close ties to Hamilton and readily accepted a position on the Federation board, seeing it as a meaningful way to give back to the community that helped shape her.
“I think there’s something really special about the Hamilton Jewish community,” she said. “All the people I love are there.” For Apel, one of the most pressing challenges facing the community is a decline in volunteerism and active engagement. Her vision is to help build a stronger, more cohesive community — “one that supports and uplifts each other.”
“I think that volunteerism and active participation are really the lifeblood of any community, and that’s how we foster a sense of belonging and strengthening communal bonds,” she said. As a smaller city, Apel says Hamilton’s greatest resource is its people—both the dedicated professionals who serve the community and the many others whose potential remains untapped. “I think that there are tons of young people who want to give back.”
Joda Eisenberg
Hamilton native Joda Eisenberg, a father of two daughters nearing bat mitzvah age, says he’s becoming increasingly aware of the importance of belonging to a strong Jewish community. The events of October 7, 2023, further deepened his connection to Jewish identity — especially given that his father’s sister made aliyah decades ago and several of his first cousins live in Israel.
When asked which core values guide his volunteer work, Eisenberg — who holds a Chartered Professional Accountant designation — emphasized the importance of integrity. “Doing the right thing when nobody is watching is as important as doing the right thing when everyone’s watching ... integrity is just kind of a hallmark of being a good finance person.”
Eisenberg sees the biggest challenge facing Hamilton’s Jewish community as fragmentation, and believes the Hamilton Jewish Federation can be the glue that brings the community together. “That’s really important to me,” he said.
Aviva Millstone
Aviva Millstone is deeply rooted in Jewish life and community. A Thornhill native who spent her summers at Camp Ramah, Millstone participated in several Israel-based programs, and spent a year working with the Joint Distribution Committee in Warsaw and Estonia — helping to build Jewish community across diverse backgrounds and denominations.
The mother of four moved to Hamilton during the COVID-19 pandemic with her husband, a Dundas native. Her decision to join the Federation board stems from a strong desire to give back. “Giving to my own community feels really important to me,” she says. “I think the Federation does really amazing work.” Millstone hopes to bring a thoughtful and inclusive perspective to the board. “Being open-minded to all opinions and all ideas ... but coming back to Torah and Jewish tradition to help guide us.”
Leora Sas van der Linden
When Leora Sas van der Linden moved to Hamilton from Toronto with her husband and three children — just months before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — her focus was naturally on adjusting to a new city, a new baby, and a new role at McMaster University.
There, she works within the Faculty of Social Sciences, overseeing research partnerships between faculty, students, and community organizations. It wasn’t until after the events of October 7, 2023, that she felt a strong pull to get involved in Hamilton’s Jewish community. “As soon as I walked into the Federation office, I felt it,” she says. “This is my community.”
Sas van der Linden believes building alliances is essential in the fight against antisemitism. “It’s a huge undertaking, but we don’t have the luxury right now of anybody sort of sitting on the sidelines. We need an all hands on deck approach to this.”
Young professionals shaping Jewish life
A strong and thriving Jewish community is sustained by the partnership of devoted lay leaders and dedicated professionals who share a common purpose and vision. Together, they ensure that our institutions remain resilient and that Jewish life continues to flourish. In recent years, as our community has faced profound challenges, the role of these leaders has become even more vital. Their decision to invest their time, expertise, and energy in Jewish communal life is an affirmation of hope: a belief that our community is worth nurturing, strengthening, and passing on.
Maggie Norris and Jazmin Rymberg
Maggie Norris and Jazmin Rymberg, both staff members at Hamilton Jewish Federation, along with Jack Rosenbaum, BBYO’s Michpacha program advisor, are part of a new generation of leadership in Hamilton. Each brings fresh energy and a deep sense of purpose to the work they do — helping to shape the future of Jewish life in our community.
Both Norris and Rymberg immigrated to Canada as children. Norris’s family came to Hamilton from Israel after leaving the former Soviet Union, while Rymberg’s family was the first Argentinian Jewish family resettled in Winnipeg through the efforts of that city’s Jewish Federation.
From a young age, Norris was drawn to working behind the scenes at community programs — a passion that now drives her work as Federation’s program director, where she plans major community events and oversees initiatives like PJ Library and other JCC programming. At the heart of everything she does is a desire to foster connection and inclusivity. She sees Federation’s role as creating a welcoming space for Jews of all affiliations in a “a safe, neutral space where they can come together.”
Jazmin Rymberg was a graduate student four years ago, when her father, Hamilton Jewish Federation CEO Gustavo Rymberg, asked her to coordinate the Federation’s international conference on antisemitism. That experience soon led to a full-time role as the Federation’s director of communications — a position she assumed just four months before the events of Oct. 7, 2023.
In the turbulent weeks that followed, Rymberg and her father worked side by side to keep the community informed and reassured during an incredibly uncertain time.
A defining moment for Rymberg came in March 2024, with the powerful outpouring of support from both Jewish and non-Jewish allies that followed the Playhouse Cinema’s cancellation of the Hamilton Jewish Film Festival (which was subsequently relocated to the Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre, where it went on to break all previous attendance records.)
“Honestly,” she said, “seeing people able to get together and celebrate their Jewishness made me feel that everything we’re doing here has a purpose.”
Jack Rosenbaum
At just 23, Jack Rosenbaum has already made a remarkable impact on Jewish teen life in Hamilton. A graduate student in psychology at McMaster University, Rosenbaum was tapped by Federation to start a local chapter of the non-denominational Jewish youth group BBYO — filling a major gap for unaffiliated Jewish teens seeking community and connection.
Beginning with only a handful of participants, Rosenbaum has built BBYO’s Mishpacha chapter to 49 members — Jewish teens from across the city, many of whom are the only Jewish students in their public school classes.
“BBYO has become a huge part of their social life and a huge part of their skill development as leaders,” he said. “I’ve seen kids go from shy, reserved Grade 8 kids to Grade 10 kids who know how to manage a room of 50 people ... it’s like this complete change that’s been just amazing.
Federation CEO Gustavo Rymberg believes Hamilton’s Jewish future will be strengthened by the passion and vision of emerging leaders, and urges today’s leadership to stay open to fresh ideas.
“They’re going to make us stronger and more inclusive,” he said. “This is the generation that will lead the fight against antisemitism and shape our community’s future.”
Making space for them isn’t always easy, he acknowledged, “but that’s how we grow—and how our community becomes stronger.”
Caption: New board members, from l to r, Misha Apel, Joda Eisenberg, Leora Sas Van der Linden, Aviva Millstone
