JOWMA (Jewish Orthodox Women's Medical Association) Podcast

Dr. Jessica Jacob is a board-certified Obstetrician and Gynecologist. She completed her medical degree at NYU School of Medicine and her OB/GYN residency at North Shore University Hospital, where she served as chief resident. She has won numerous awards including the Physician’s Recognition Award from the American Medical Association.

Dr. Jacob has delivered more babies than any other healthcare professional at Northshore University Hospital, and she has extremely low C-section and complication rates. She teaches residents and medical students as well at Northshore. 

Dr. Jacob has participated in numerous television panels and medical conferences, and regularly speaks at shuls, schools, and community events. She has seven children and lives with her husband in Great Neck.

Gelly Asovski, LCSW-R RPT-S is a mother, grandmother and Yiddish speaking Child and Family Therapist practicing in Monsey, NY for the past 20 years. She s a Registered Play Therapy Supervisor and EMDR Consultant, bringing the best of cutting edge therapy to the frum community. In addition to her private practice, Asovski runs her parenting program, Playful Parenting, both as a 6 week heimishe telecourse and as an online yearlong program.She enjoys being a grandmother and loves reading, learning, traveling and having fun time with family and friends. Find out more about her work at parentingwithgelly.com. 

Rena Kravitz, DDS, FAAPD, DABPD received her undergraduate degree from Barnard College where she graduated cum laude, and was awarded her dental degree from Columbia School of Dental Medicine. She completed residency training in General Dentistry at Kings County Hospital, where she is the Director of Pediatric Dentistry, and subsequently completed her postgraduate training in Pediatric Dentistry at Maimonides Medical Center. Dr. Kravitz has completed her boards in Pediatric Dentistry with distinction, and is also a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry.

Dr. Kravitz is currently the Program Director of Pediatric Dentistry at Maimonides Medical Center, as well as a clinician and educator who has lectured on both regional and national levels. She is a mother of five and a grandmother.

Dr. Maureen Nemetski is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine Attending Physician at Hackensack University Medical Center - Joseph M Sanzari Children’s Hospital, and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. She obtained her MD/PhD from New York University School of Medicine, and completed a Pediatrics Residency at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, and a Fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. In 2019, she joined JOWMA as the first chair of the Preventative Health Committee and launched our vaccination hotline and preventative health podcasts. She stepped down from her role as the JOWMA Preventative Health Committee Chair in May 2020, in order to devote her energies to the medical advisory committees of Yeshivat Frisch and Ben Porat Yosef, and the New Jersey Yeshiva Joint Medical Committee as it worked with Jewish day and high schools in and around Bergen County to reopen - and stay open - safely during this pandemic.

Avishai T Neuman, MD, MSc, is a board-certified anesthesiologist and Sackler alumus of the class of 2006. Currently Dr. Neuman is the Medical Director of Centurion Anesthesia – an anesthesia group that provides services to over 100 ambulatory and office based practices in 10 states, primarily in NY, NJ and Florida. Additionally, Dr. Neuman has been an attending on staff at New York Presbyterian Queens since 2010  and is also on staff at NYU Langone Medical Center. He served as the Director of Anesthesiology at Peninsula Hospital center in Far Rockaway and as the medical director at a number of Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASC) in the New York Metro area.

Dr. Neuman completed his internship in Internal Medicine at Maimonides Medical Center. Following his intern year, he was awarded the prestigious Nursing Partnership Award for his work and involvement in restructuring the Hospital Code team. He continued his residency in Anesthesiology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. 

Throughout his medical training Dr. Neuman has been involved in research and has been published in the prestigious Journals of Anesthesia & Analgesia and the British Journal of Anesthesia. He has also presented posters and case studies at a number of national medical conferences.

In his spare time, Dr. Neuman volunteers as a Reginal Emergency Medical Advisory Committee  (REMAC) physician, in Haztolah (RL) and serves as the medical director for Hatzalah Air, the aviation division of Hatzalah.

Dr. Neuman resides in Valley Stream, NY with his wife and four children, where he serves as the President of his Synagogue, Beis Haknesses of North Woodmere (BKNW).

Dr. Céline Gounder is the CEO/President/Founder of Just Human Productions, a non-profit multimedia organization. She’s also the host and producer of American Diagnosis, a podcast on health and social justice, and Epidemic, a podcast about the SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic.

From November 9, 2020 to January 20, 2021, Dr. Gounder served on the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board.

She is a CNN Medical Analyst, and prior to that, was a frequent expert guest on CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, HLN, BBC, Al Jazeera America, MTV, Dr. Oz, and Oprah Prime. She's written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian US, The Washington Post, Reuters

Executive, planner, author and speaker, Rabbi Reuven Becker formerly was responsible for the quality of all the long-term care beds in New York County under the aegis of the federal government. He has lectured on quality assurance, assisted in the delivery of the first geriatric medical residency, designed the first medical adult day program and the first clinical rotation for physician assistants in geriatric medicine. Most importantly, Rabbi Becker has been an advocate for caregivers and their families for over 40 years through many programmatic initiatives, among other accomplishments in the field of gerontology.

Passionate about bringing state of the art information from the public health arena across the country to local communities to assist families meet the challenges of elder care, Rabbi Becker founded and directs the L’Orech Yomim /Center for Healthy Living, organizing seminars, authoring books and articles – topics ranging from healthy aging to end of life care - and providing overall information and referral guidance. The website www.lorechyomim.org contains a wealth of resources on eldercare, including the 2021 ebook download edition of his acclaimed sefer You Are Your Parents’ Keeper: Hashkafic  and Halalchic Insights into Elder Care and Kibbud Av Va’Eim.

A Musmach of Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, he is committed to advancing the role of cultural competence in health care delivery. Rabbi Becker shares his knowledge regarding Orthodox Jewish tradition and practice as they relate to health care outcomes with clinicians, academicians and service providers through presentations, roundtable discussions, and one on one consultations.

Experienced executive, Rabbi Becker’s organizational development and operations expertise, especially in long-term care, ambulatory care and managed care, instituting managerial controls, staff training and in-service, result in efficiencies and improved patient satisfaction.

Michelle Conti, PsyD received her doctorate at LIU Post’s Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program where she focused her work with children and families. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship specializing in Child Clinical Psychology and Developmental Disabilities at Westchester Institute for Human Development. Dr. Conti completed her pre-doctoral internship at the Early Childhood Center at Einstein where she was trained in parent-child therapy and early childhood development. Dr. Conti has trained in a range of clinical settings including schools, inpatient psychiatric units, UCEDDs, and outpatient clinics. Her goal was to experience the full range of development, from early childhood to emerging adulthood. 

Dr. Conti’s work with children, adolescents, families, and young adults centers on cognitive-behavior therapy techniques as well as a family-systems-based collaborative approach in order to increase positive family interactions and improve daily functioning. She has a private clinical practice in Oceanside where she offers individual, family and group psychotherapy. 

Daniel Krich, DO is a pediatric pulmonologist, a specialist in lung diseases in children. He received his medical degree at Touro college of osteopathic medicine. He did a residency in Pediatrics at Hackensack Medical Center/Rutgers and University Hospital in Newark. He did his pediatric pulmonology residency at Maria Fareri childrens hospital in Valhalla, where he currently practices.

Malka Katzenstein is a wellness coach. She likes to use the word 'wellness' rather than 'health' because to her that implies overall health- so much more than just physical health. She looks at wellness in a holistic way, taking into account the many facets that make her clients who they are, and helping them use their strengths to reach their goals.

Katzenstein's mission is to help clients bridge the gap between what they want to accomplish and getting there. She views coaching as a collaborative process; this means that she learns about her clients from what they tell her and from what she observes. They tell her what they want to accomplish and together they define specific goals. Then they strategize: working as a team to design a plan, using the client's lifestyle, strengths, and vulnerabilities to guide. 

Disordered eating and emotional eating, as well as body image, are special areas of interest to Katzenstein. With her advanced certification in Emotional Eating Psychology, she believes she can be of great help to some of the many people who struggle with this. As a volunteer on the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) helpline, Katzenstein helps callers find treatment and offer support. She is also certified as a Body Project facilitator; The Body Project is an evidence based program that is designed to help prevent eating disorders and promote healthy body image in teenage girls.

Malka Katzenstein can be found @elissamalka_wellness on Instagram.