Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz
Rabbi
Welcome to our community!
Have you ever dreamed of living in a vibrant, bustling college town with every amenity at one’s disposal and only a stone’s throw away from the beautiful cornfields of Iowa? The Iowa City/Coralville area has provided a welcoming community with a high quality of life for our Jewish community for over a century. A hidden gem of the Midwest, our area is culturally diverse, is known for excellent schools and hospitals, and balances the charms of a university town with the opportunities for outdoors escapes.
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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 Sonja’s first book, Cats and Honey Cake won the Sydney Taylor Award for unpublished manuscripts in 2021.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
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
Margaret Phillips
Social
Barney Sherman
Adult Education
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 and Tikun Olam committees.
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
