Our rabbi, professional staff, and lay leaders work together to make our community welcoming and to keep our congregation running smoothly. They teach, organize, support members, and help create the warm and connected synagogue life we cherish. We invite you to meet the people who make our congregation feel like home.
Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz
Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz brings warmth, intellectual curiosity, and a deep love of Jewish life to our congregation. Born in Amsterdam and raised in southern Spain, Rabbi Hugenholtz grew up navigating languages, cultures, and identities. That global upbringing continues to shape her rabbinate: open-hearted, attentive to the many ways people find their way into Judaism, committed to building communities rooted in belonging and justice..
Before entering the rabbinate, Rabbi Hugenholtz earned her M.Sc. in Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of Non-Western Societies from the University of Amsterdam.
Her Jewish learning spans Europe, Israel, and the United States. She studied at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem and was an E. Levinas Fellow at Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden. She began her rabbinical training at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, affiliated with the Conservative/Masorti movement, and completed her ordination at Leo Baeck College (London) in 2013.
Having served Sinai Synagogue in Leeds for four years as an assistant/associate rabbi, Rabbi Hugenholtz and her family immigrated to the United States in 2017 to serve Agudas Achim. She quickly embraced the rhythms of Midwestern life—apple picking in the fall, snow pants in the winter, and the renewal of spring and summer—finding in each season a reminder of Jewish time and sacred possibility.
Rabbi Hugenholtz is passionate about making Jewish wisdom, ritual, and culture accessible and meaningful for 21st-century life. She believes Judaism thrives when it is confident in the public space as well as the synagogue, participatory, spiritually alive, intellectually honest, and welcoming to seekers, interfaith families, and those rediscovering their heritage.
Rabbi Hugenholtz and her husband, Dave Middleton, are the proud parents of three children. Outside the synagogue, she enjoys playing guitar, composing music, writing, photography, crafts, cooking and strength-training: creative pursuits that often find their way back into her rabbinate in joyful and unexpected ways.
Rabbi Jeff Portman
Rabbi Emeritus
Rabbi Portman was named rabbi of Agudas Achim Congregation and Hillel director in 1974. He left Hillel and became full time rabbi of the congregation in 1994 and retired in 2015. During his tenure he was active in the community chairing the Iowa City Human Rights Commission and serving on the Board of Fellows of the UI Religious Studies Department. He helped the congregation transition into a new building in 2013, after about 50 years in its downtown location. In retirement, Rabbi Portman continues to serve the Agudas Achim Congregation community including teaching and occasionally leading services. Rabbi Portman was born in South Bend, Indiana, and graduated from Indiana University. He received his rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 1973. Jeff and his wife Gail reside in Iowa City.
John Wertz
Administrator
John has lived in Iowa City his whole life and spent a lot of time at Agudas Achim growing up. He’s the nephew of Rabbi Emeritus Jeff Portman. He has bachelor’s degrees from the University of Iowa in double bass performance and French. He started out as secretary and transitioned to the administrator role.
Sonja Spear
Religious School Principal
Sonja loved history and comparative mythology as a child, a passion that led her to earn a Ph.D. in Religious Studies at Indiana University. After living the glamorous life of an itinerant academic, she settled in Iowa City, where she is Religious School Principal at Agudas Achim Congregation. On any given day, she might be hiring a petting zoo, trying to get a shy thirteen-year-old to sing, training college students to teach, or holding a workshop on making Hamantaschen. Sonja’s first book, Cats and Honey Cake won the Sydney Taylor Award for unpublished manuscripts in 2021. Sonja and her husband have one daughter.
Hannah Sandler
Administrative Assistant / Outreach Coordinator
Officers (Executive Committee)
Lori McMann
President
Lori was happy to return to her Midwestern roots when moving to Iowa City a few years ago, and even happier to find such a warm, vibrant, and welcoming Jewish community! After growing up and living in Michigan, she moved with her husband and son to Atlanta, Georgia, for several years. She spent many years teaching college-level French language and literature at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and at Agnes Scott College, a womens’ liberal-arts college in Decatur, Georgia. At Agudas Achim, she enjoys working with her fellow Social Committee and Board of Trustees members, and pursuing study of Mussar, a traditional framework of ethics and spirituality. The time she spends painting, exploring museums, and traveling to new places with her family is deeply rewarding. You will always find her willing to talk about the most recent memoir she has read, beautiful destinations in Michigan, Detroit Tigers baseball, backyard chicken-keeping, art and architecture, or what to serve at the next party.
David Lubaroff
Past President
David is professor emeritus from the UI Holden Comprehensive Cancer, where he taught classes in immunology and investigated the use of vaccine immunotherapy for prostate cancer. He also was the director of a summer cancer research training program for underrepresented college students. Both research and training continue. David and Martha, along with Saul, Scott, and Matthew, moved to Iowa City in 1973 from Philadelphia. He is blessed with a wonderful wife, three sons and daughters-in law, five grandsons and one granddaughter. David has been involved with Agudas Achim in various roles for most of his life in Iowa City. He enjoys exercising, reading, cooking, gardening, and, most of all, his family.
Lisa Heineman
President Elect
Lisa is a deeply-rooted transplant to Iowa City, having lived here across two millennia – since 1999. After growing up in Philadelphia, she spent twenty years as a “Wandering Jew,” moving among diverse American and European locations before settling in Iowa City. She’s on the History and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies faculty at the University of Iowa, where she co-directs the Jewish Studies Certificate. At Agudas Achim, she’s especially excited about bringing Jewish wisdom and a Jewish presence to the larger community with Public Space Judaism. Her current extracurricular passion is pounding wool, aka felting, and if you ever attend a Board meeting, she’ll be the one wielding a pair of knitting needles. She adores her family, including husband, ex, two sons (one still under her roof, one flown the coop), cat, dog, and vegetable garden.
Jayne Sandler
Vice President
Marcus Nashelsky
Treasurer / Ways & Means
Ruth Nathanson
Secretary
Ruth was born and raised in Queens,NY. She attended the other Cornell (Ithaca, NY) and then earned her MSW from Syracuse University. She is a retired pediatric social worker. Since marrying Doug they have gradually moved west, spending 10 years in New Jersey, 30 years in Pennsylvania and arriving in Iowa City in 2023 to be near their son, daughter-in-law and grandson.
Since arriving here Ruth is a regular at services, participates in 2 synagogue book groups and is a member of the social committee. She enjoys exploring her new home and all the beautiful parks and trails here, as well as traveling, reading, theatre and most especially, spending time with her grandson.
Chairs of Standing Committees
Karen Lipman
Membership
Joseph Chase
Education
Bernie Miller
Ezra Hendelkin
Ritual Co-chair
Ezra Hendelkin was born and raised in Cedar Rapids, IA – and they have been trapped in Iowa ever since. They studied English Literature at Coe College, earning their BA in 2022. While dabbling in academic religion in undergrad, Ezra took Rabbi Hugenholtz’s Introduction to Judaism course and then completed their conversion process on 7 Elul 5783.
As Ritual Co-Chair, Ezra is interested in the work of creating and maintaining pluralist, accessible, meaning-rich, spiritual spaces. In addition to their committee duties, Ezra lay-leads Shabbat services, leyns Torah and Haftarah, teaches Hebrew and t’fillah in the Sunday School, and organizes events for the queer and young adult affinity groups. During the week, they work as an administrative services and fellowship coordinator in Pediatrics – Neonatology for University of Iowa Health Care. In their spare time, Ezra enjoys studying Talmud using the SVARA framework, practicing Mussar, crocheting yarmulkes, writing poetry, and riding public transit. They live with their two cats: Tony (a tuxedo) and Charlie (a torby).
Margaret Phillips
Social
Margaret Levin Phillips was born in Saint Louis and grew up in upstate New York. She received her PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Illinois and her Master of
Health Science degree from Johns Hopkins University. After a career as an industrial hygienist and a professor of occupational health at the University of Oklahoma, she
retired to Iowa City to be near her granddaughter, daughter, and son-in-law. She has a son in Kansas City, Missouri and a stepson in Berlin, Germany. Margaret enjoys gardening, cooking, sewing, epic walks, roadtrips, and kayaking. She chairs the Social Committee, which coordinates the “let’s eat” part of Jewish holidays.
Barney Sherman
Adult Education
Barney retired to Iowa City in 2024 after many years with Iowa Public Radio. A Chicago native, he has written for the New York Times, The Atlantic, Oxford University Press, and many other outlets. For him, lifelong learning is not a motto but a mild addiction, and he’s grateful for the chance to help spread it at Agudas Achim.
Mallory Hellman
Tikkun Olam
Mallory Hellman was born into the tiny but mighty Jewish community of New Orleans, where she developed a taste for jazz and funk music and a vehement insistence on using pecans to make charoset. She spent the majority of her childhood years in South Florida, then went to Harvard to study English and American Literature and Language. After a brief and harrowing stint in the New York publishing industry, she moved to Iowa City in 2012 to get her MFA in fiction from the Writers’ Workshop. Since 2015, she has served as the director of the Iowa Youth Writing Project. Outside of her IYWP life, Mallory enjoys yoga, cooking, grassroots activism, outdoor sports that involve mountains (a bit of a pity in Iowa), dancing, and going to concerts and music festivals. Most of all, Mallory loves teaching, which is why she is thrilled to be part of the faculty at Agudas Achim Sunday school in addition to her role as Tikkun Olam chair.
Meyer Lehman
Youth co-chair
Hannah Sandler
Youth co-chair
At Large
Samantha Brotman
Samantha (or Sam, both are fine!), she/her, was born and raised in the Seattle area. She went to University of Oregon, and has since lived all over the world – Morocco, Indonesia, DC (where she got her MA in Arabic & Middle Eastern Studies), Central Illinois, Philadelphia, and now Iowa (since 2022). She moved to Iowa City with her husband, young son, and 2 cats, where she loves baking, doing pilates, and finding humor in hard stuff. Sam’s son, Asher, started Pre-K Sunday School at the synagogue in 2024, and Sam is excited about organizing activities for member families with young kids. Sam works in nonprofit operations.
Chuck Friedman
Chuck and his family moved to Iowa City in 1992. Now retired, he was a psychometrician at ACT, assisting organizations in the development of national certification and licensure examinations. Prior to moving to Iowa City, he taught applied linguistics and was director of Camp Young Judaea in Texas. Chuck grew up in central New Jersey, studied and lived in Israel for about 18 months, and has lived in Bloomington, Indiana, Houston, McAllen, and San Antonio, Texas. He is a former president of Agudas Achim. Chuck has one daughter living in Iowa City and four sons and their families who live in Seattle, Austin, and Minneapolis.
Sue Weinberg
Sue grew up in Ottumwa Iowa, and is one of many people who came to Iowa City as a student who ended up staying. She did spend 5 years in California but still thought of Iowa City as home so she moved back, accompanied by her now husband Robert Armstrong and her first two cats, Justa Cat and Jasper.
Her degree is a Bachelor of General Studies with emphasis in computer science, book arts, and physical education. Prior to her retirement in 2021, she spent most of her career working the UIHC business office, although when she lived in California her career took a different path; she drove a horse carriage in a tourist area, and exercised harness horses as a side gig.
She is passionate about animals, residing with two cats as well as fostering kittens for the animal shelter. (Talk to me if you want to adopt a cat or kitten!) She enjoys reading, candy making, traveling, and playing Dungeons and Dragons. She has been active at Agudas Achim since 2006, participating in an adult B’nai Mitzvah, serving on the Sisterhood board, organizing a Synagogue Dungeons and Dragons campaign, and attending services and synagogue events. She served two terms as Tikun Olam chair, and served as President in 2019-2021. She is currently an at-large member of the board as well as a member of the Social committee.
Appointed Committee Chairs
Alan Weinstein
Art
A former president and frequent board member at our synagogue, Alan moved back to town in 1980 with Nina and their family. The painter and print maker (BA, Princeton, MFA, University of Iowa) designed our Aron Kodesh and was part of the building committee for our new Agudas Achim Congregation building.
Teresa Weiner
Library
Teresa moved to Iowa City in 1989 with her husband and three young children and has enjoyed Agudas Achim’s many volunteer opportunities including serving as board president. She has lived in West Virginia, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania but now considers Iowa City home. She is fortunate to have a son and daughter and their families right here in Iowa City and to travel often to visit a son and his family in Idaho. In an earlier life, she was a PhD biochemist but has been thrilled with her second life as a wife, mother, grandmother, and volunteer.
Rich Haendel
Cemetery
Kyle Fitzpatrick
Facilities
Myra Clark
Grounds
Beverly Jones
Kitchen