Meet the Team – European Academy for Jewish Liturgy

EAJL's Management Team

EAJL is run by volunteers, we only pay our teachers and our finance administrator. The current team consists of four individuals who each offer different but supplementary skills, enabling EAJL to run effectively and grow. They have officially been in position since December 2022, but together they ran EAJL during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking EAJL's work online and offering learning opportunities to hundreds of individuals from all over the world.

Our management team are: James Burns, Liz Preter, Chasan Jalda Rebling and Jay Schlesinger.

The management team are supported by Chazan Bex Blumenfeld and Moriah Ferrús who help coordinate EAJL's programming, focusing on Ashkenazi and Sephardi nusach respectively, and Rabbi Joel Levy who is our Director of Rabbinical Studies and offers rabbinical guidance where needed.

James Burns - Director of Finance and Technology

James Burns runs Jump Ahead Media Limited, a company which specialises in writing apps, software, and websites, he is also a Microsoft Dynamics Development Consultant. He has a wealth of experience in business management and has worked extensively in the IT industry over the past 30 years, working with companies including the Football Association, IndyCar, International Cricket Council, Moss Bros, and Smith and Nephew. James is the Chair of Governors at Alma Primary, a trustee at Kol Nefesh Masorti Synagogue, and has worked with the Community Security Trust (CST) in full, part-time and voluntary roles since 1989.

James is also the editor-in-chief at JediNews.com, one of the biggest Star Wars fan sites in the galaxy, reporting daily news on the popular franchise. James is married with three children.

Liz Preter - Director of Funding and Communication

Liz has a professional background in conference organising and lives with her family in North London. She is very involved in leadership and development of community life at Kol Nefesh Masorti Synagogue in Edgware, where she was co-convenor for three years, and can regularly be found leading services as a Sh’lichat Tsibbur. Liz was inspired to volunteer with EAJL after experiencing her first EAJL T'filla leaders retreat and through her learning with Chazan Jacky Chernett.

Liz continues to enjoy her learning journey as a Sh’lichat Tsibbur while juggling home, kids, cats, dogs and other volunteer work!

Chasan Jalda Rebling - Director of Studies

Chazan Jalda Rebling grew up with the Yiddish songs of her mother, a Shoah survivor. She is an alumna of the famous acting school “Ernst Busch” in Berlin and as an actor worked for many theatres and in TIV and film productions. Since 1978 she has dedicated her life to Jewish music. In the mid 90’s she joined, and was actively involved in, the first egalitarian Synagogue in Berlin, Oranienburger Strasse.

She started her studies in Chazanut in the ALEPH cantorial program and immediately began teaching in Germany, and later in Europe and the US. She gained her S'micha as Hazzan in 2007 from ALEPH. In 2010 she met Chazan Jacky Chernett at the Conservative Yeshiva and developed a very fruitful friendship. Since then, she has been a teacher for EAJL and helped to develop several EAJL programmes, leading to her current role as Director of Studies. She is a mum of three and a proud grandma.

Jay Schlesinger - Director of Strategy and Development

Jay Schlesinger works as a consultant specialising in drugs and poisons, covering numerous aspects from the analytical to the regulatory. For his day job, Jay is the managing director of T-Regs Consulting Ltd, a small consultancy business that provides technical support and expertise to bioanalytical facilities operating in or wishing to join a GxP environment. Outside of the laboratory, he is a synagogue Trustee and the Head of Services, in two Masorti communities in London.

Jay is a proud graduate of the Adam Science Leadership Programme and a Faculty member of the MASA Wilf Global Leadership summit focussed on Adaptive Leadership. Jay is also a student of EAJL’s Ba’al T’fillah diploma programme and facilitates many online courses at EAJL.

Chazan Bex Blumenfeld

Teacher & Programming Team

Chazan Bex is a Spiritual and Liturgical Leader, and a Jewish educator. She graduated from Hebrew College in Boston in 2015 with cantorial ordination (smicha) and a Masters in Jewish Studies and she moved back to the UK (where she was born) with her family in 2016. Chazan Bex is a teacher and mentor for the European Academy of Jewish Liturgy, she works for the Oxford Jewish Congregation and is the Scholar in Residence for Shema Koleinu: Masorti Judaism's Tefila Team.

Rav Moriah Ferrús

Teacher & Programming Team

Moriah Ferrús has a Bachelor Degree in Hebrew Philology and PhD Candidate in History of Art and Musicology with the research project "The Liturgical and Musical Legacy of the Scuola (synagogue) Catalana of Rome 1532-1908". She is the Founder and President of the Nova Escola Catalana, Association for the Preservation of Catalan Jewish Legacy and Former Director of Education and Liturgy of Atid Jewish Community of Catalonia. In the summer of 2025, Rav Haim Ovadia granted Moriah s'michah in Israel.

EAJL's Advisory Board - Va’ad

EAJL’s advisory board, or Va’ad, consists of chazanim, rabbis and academics. The Va’ad provides educational and spiritual support underpinning our teaching. Members of the Va’ad are top-level professionals who supply EAJL with advice to help maintain the high standards of teaching of nusach hat’fillah in our Ba’al T’fillah and cantorial S’micha programmes. The Va’ad is also consulted in development of new programmes, but bears no responsibility for EAJL’s teachers or students. The Va’ad serves in an advisory capacity only.

Our Va’ad are Matt Austerklein, Chazan Jacky Chernett, Cantor Jason Green, Rabbi Joel Levy, Cantor Dr. Brian Mayer, Cantor Steven Robins, Rabbi Geoffrey Shisler, and Hazzan Ramón Tasat.

Chazan Matt Austerklein

Chazan Matt Austerklein is a musician, scholar, and innovator in the American cantorate. Growing up in Alexandria, Virginia, he received a rigorous training in Jewish liturgy and music from his bar mitzvah tutor and from his two cantors. He received a Master of Sacred Music and cantorial ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2011.

Chazan Jacky Chernett

Chazan Jaclyn Chernett was granted S’micha in 2006 from AJR, (a pluralist rabbinical/cantorial seminary in New York) and is the founder of EAJL. She was influential in establishing two Masorti Synagogues and the Masorti Movement in the UK of which she is a Vice-President.

Cantor Jason Green

Cantor Green holds a diploma in Nusach Hat'filah (Prayer modes) and Chazanut (Cantorial Art) from the London School of Jewish Studies, having studied primarily with Cantor Stephen Robins. He studied voice production with Cantor Jerome Kopmar and Robert Davis.

Rabbi Joel Levy

Rabbi Joel Levy became the rabbi of Kol Nefesh Masorti in September 2001. He lives in Jerusalem and is at Kol Nefesh roughly one Shabbat each month, as well as each year for the Yamim Nora'im and Shavuot. Joel is Rosh Yeshiva at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, where he is active in inter-denominational and inter-faith work.

Cantor Dr. Brian Meyer

Cantor Mayer is associate professor of Jewish Music and dean of the School of Jewish Music at Hebrew College in Boston. He taught for 14 years at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York as an assistant professor of Hazzanut. He was ordained at JTS, where he later earned a Doctor of Sacred Music degree.

Cantor Steven Robins

Cantor Stephen Robins ARCM is one of just a handful of chazanim who trained at a full time course in the former Jews College under the tutelage of the late Rev L Bryll. He is recognised as a leading teacher of Nussach Hatefilah, prayer motifs and has taught at Jews College (now the LSJS) for almost 20 years.

Rabbi Geoffrey Shisler

Rabbi Shisler commenced his career as Cantor of the famous New Synagogue, Egerton Road, Stamford Hill London N.16 where among his predecessors were the illustrious Jacob Goldstein and Ephrayim Rosenberg. In 2014, he retired as Rabbi of the New West End Synagogue in London, where he occupied the pulpit from 2000.

Hazzan Ramón Tasat

Ramon Tasat is the Hazzan of Shirat HaNefesh (Song of the Soul), an emerging Jewish congregation in southern Montgomery County, MD. He is also the president of Shalshelet: The Foundation for New Jewish Liturgical Music.

EAJL's Trustees

EAJL's trustees have independent control over, and legal responsibility for our management and administration. They are there to offer advice and a helping hand when needed. They ensure we are running to the best of our ability and are meeting our objectives and goals.

Our trustees are Chazan Jacky Chernett, Steve Griffiths, Rabbi Joel Levy, Allan Myers, Liz Oppedijk, and Rabbi Chaim Weiner.

Chazan Jacky Chernett

Steve Griffiths

Rabbi Joel Levy

Allan Myers

Liz Oppedijk

Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Past Members of EAJL's Va’ad

Hazzan Jack Kessler z"l

Hazzan Jack Kessler z"l served as a member of our Va’ad and was a mentor to several EAJL students in the 1-to-1 mentoring programme until September 2024. He was also a mentor at our very first EAJL Residential Retreat. Hazzan Jack’s passion and love for our oral Torah of music, our people and our tradition will live through us and our students, l’dor va’dor, through every generation.