Meet Our Team

Mark Kligman, Mickey Katz Endowed Chair in Jewish Music, specializes in the liturgical traditions of Middle Eastern Jewish communities and various areas of popular Jewish music. He has published on the liturgical music of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn in journals as well as his book, Maqām and Liturgy: Ritual, Music and Aesthetics of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn (Wayne State University, 2009), which shows the interconnection between the music of Syrian Jews and their cultural way of life. His other publications focus on the intersection of contemporary Jewish life and various liturgical and paraliturgical musical contexts. He is the academic Chair of the Jewish Music Forum and co-editor of the journal Musica Judaica. He is also on the board of the Association for Jewish Studies and Chair of the Department of Ethnomusicology.

Lorry Black (’09), Ph.D. is a percussionist, pedagogue, and Jewish music specialist. Deeply rooted in the Los Angeles performance scene, he has performed with various ensembles and had the privilege of performing under the baton of great conductors including John Williams, Alan Silvestri, David Newman, and James Conlon, as well as recording for various artists. As an active member of the Jewish music community, Black is a sought-after percussionist, conductor, and arranger. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts in Sacred Music from the USC Thornton School of Music where he specialized in Jewish music and music of the Holocaust. Previous degrees include a Bachelor of Arts from the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and a Master of Music in orchestral percussion from USC.

Jeff Janeczko (’09), Ph.D.  is the Curator and Chief Operating Officer of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music, a project of the Milken Family Foundation devoted to the preservation and dissemination of music of the American Jewish experience. He holds a Doctoral Degree in ethnomusicology from UCLA, and a Bachelor of Arts in music from the Metropolitan State College (now University) of Denver. His publications include “A Tale of Four Diasporas: Case Studies on the Relevance of ‘Diaspora’ in Contemporary American Jewish Music” in Perspectives on Jewish Music: Sacred and Secular, edited by Jonathan L. Friedmann (Lexington Books, 2009), and “Negotiating Boundaries: Musical Hybridity in Tzadik’s Radical Jewish Culture Series,” which appears in the Annual Review of the Casden Institute for the Jewish Role in American Life (Purdue University Press, 2011), edited by Josh Kun.

Beth Kraemer has extensive experience in nonprofit program and organizational development. Her work includes leadership roles in a variety of nonprofit organizations, including the position of founding President and CEO of Social Enterprise Alliance, a national membership organization focused on helping nonprofit organizations generate earned income. She has also served as Vice President, Community Affairs for a large regional bank, where she managed an award-winning corporate philanthropy program. Beth has held educational positions at the USC and Rutgers University schools of social work where she trained bachelors and masters level students. Beth’s career began in the organized Jewish community, where she worked in a variety of organizational settings, including Hillel Council at UCLA. She has a Master of Social Work from Yeshiva University, where she concentrated on community organizing, planning and administration.