| Home > About Us > People
Bonnie Dimun, Executive Director, joined the Eldridge Street Project in April 2007, bringing a wealth of experience in the non-profit, corporate and university arenas. She founded and was president of Dynamics for Change, a management consulting firm focusing on client relations, business development, and alliance partnerships. Ms. Dimun also served as National Director of Education and Public Policy at Hadassah, the world’s largest women’s non-profit organization. There she created and managed the Leadership, Education and Training Center. Prior to that, she was Executive Director of Organization Advancment for Middlesex County College. Ms. Dimun holds an Ed.D from Columbia University as well as two degrees from Rider University, where she serves on the Board of Directors. She resides in Short Hills, NJ, with her husband Anthony J. Dimun. They have two children, Ross and Amy, and two grandchildren Maya and Isaac.
Victoria Baritz, Development and Program Associate, recently graduated from New York University with degrees in Fine Arts and Metropolitan Studies. She spent a semester abroad in Florence, Italy, studying art history and urban planning. She began as an intern at the Eldridge Street Project, overseeing the archiving of photographs and images, and now supports fundraising, communication and development activities, including our Six Points Junior Committee.
Eva Bruné, Director for Institutional Advancement, oversees all of the Eldridge Street Project's fundraising efforts, including both the annual fund and the Capital Campaign. She joins the staff with thirty years of development experience, having served in senior management positions at a variety of major cultural institutions, including San Francisco's A Traveling Jewish Theater and New York's Big Apple Circus, Young Audiences, CityKids Foundation, INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center, and the Dance Theater of Harlem. She has served as a grant evaluator and/or panelist for numerous institutions and agencies, including the Arts and Business Council, the State Arts Councils of Alaska, Florida, and New Jersey, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is an official "BigApple Greeter" for the City of New York and serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors or Origin Theatre Company. Eva and David Brune are the parents of Isaac Brune and Jared Chung.
Hanna Griff, Director for Programs, conceives, plans and runs the Eldridge StreetProject's concerts, lectures, readings, festivals, art installations and other cultural offerings. Prior to joining the Project's staff, Ms. Griff was a Program Officer in the Folk Arts Program of the New York State Council on the Arts and, for one year; the program's Acting Director. She holds a Ph.D. in Folklore and American Studies from Indiana University. In the early 1990s Ms. Griff directed Toldot Iowa, which collected oral histories of Jews in Iowa, and more recently served as Oral Historian for the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in Jackson, Mississippi. She has been a Senior Lecturer in American Studies at Grinnell College and was for two years Assistant Professor, Faculty of International Studies, Sanyo Gakuen University, Okayama, Japan, and Visiting Associate Professor at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Ms. Griff has published in academic journals and has been a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars.
Amy Milford, Deputy Director, has more than 15 years of experience in communications, event planning and fundraising for non-profit cultural institutions in New York City, including The Jewish Museum, the Writers Room, and the Eldridge Street Project, where she has been on staff since 1997. Ms. Milford has created a number of special programs for Eldridge Street, including the "Garden Cafeteria Literary Series," and now serves as the Project's public information representative and primary liaison to its multiple constituencies. Ms. Milford is the mother of two daughters, Hester and Flora, and lives with her husband on the Lower East Side, two blocks from the Eldridge Street Synagogue.
Annie Polland, Director for Education, divides her time between managementof school programs, public tours and docent training and education. She recentlycompleted a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, with a dissertation on"The Sacredness of the Family: New York's Immigrant Jews and Their Religion,1890-1930." Ms. Polland has served as a visiting instructor for the Jewish Theological Seminary's Department of History, and as a tour guide for Big Onion Walking Tours, designing and leading tours of the Jewish Lower East Side, BrooklynBridge, Brooklyn Heights, Ellis Island, and other areas. She is the proud motherof daughter Lily.
Amy E. Waterman, Special Projects Manager, has been a museum staff member or consultant for morethan twenty years. Before coming to Eldridge Street in late 1991, she was involvedin the creation of the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York,and with exhibits and programs at cultural institutions around the country asa Senior Associate of American History Workshop. Throughout her career, Ms. Watermanhas been involved in interpretive public programs, as well as public relations,development and strategic planning. She is a former Chair of the Council of AmericanJewish Museums and has served on the Steering Committee of the New York City MuseumEducators Roundtable. In addition, she has been a freelance writer on performingarts subjects. Earlier in her career she was a teacher of hearing-impaired children.She holds a Ph.D. in Communication. | |
STAFF