The Wildescast

The Annual Ruth B. Wildes Memorial Lecture 2021 presents an evening with Rachel Kraus. This event is Complimentary with a suggested donation and includes a Dessert Reception & Wine Bar following the lecture. Rachel is an incredibly interesting, knowledgeable and dynamic speaker, who's topic this evening will be "The Torah's Hidden Thread to Humanity." Rachel Kraus is a marketing and brand executive and managing director of a boutique marketing and brand consulting firm. Previously, Rachel was the Vice President of Marketing at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield where led the World Trade Center retail development. Prior to leading World Trade Center retail development, she led national partnership marketing for the US portfolio and special global projects including the 2012 Olympic Games. Rachel is also the Director of Community Education at Kehilath Jeshurun on the Upper East Side where she lectures, delivers sermons and facilitates informal educational programming. Rachel and her husband Daniel also served as MJE's Downtown Directors. Rachel completed a B.S. from Stern College majoring in marketing with a minor in music including coursework and study at The Juilliard School. She completed her MBA at NYU with a concentration in finance, entertainment, media and technology. Rachel lives in Manhattan with her husband and 4 children.

Virág Gulyás is a former diplomat to the EU, communications consultant, and journalist. She is also the NYC coordinator for End Jew Hatred, a grassroots civil rights movement dedicated to ensuring Jewish liberation from centuries of persecution and achieving justice for the Jewish people through peaceful direct action. As a loud pro-Israel voice, a Hungarian, and a non-Jewish Zionist, Gulyas has created a movement that aims to change the stereotypes about Israel and the Jewish people one day at a time. She regularly writes and speaks about her journey and is well-known for her blog, “The Almost Jewish.”

In this episode Rabbi Wildes speaks with World Series of Poker winner Gershon Distenfeld. Gershon M. Distenfeld, Senior Vice President, is Co-Head of Fixed Income, Director of Credit and a member of the Operating Committee. As Co-Head of Fixed Income, he is responsible for the management and strategic growth of AB’s fixed-income business. As Director of Credit, Distenfeld oversees all of AB’s credit-related strategies, including all global and regional investment-grade and high-yield strategies, as well as their associated investment strategy, activities and portfolio-management teams. In this capacity, he leads AB’s internal Credit Research Review Committee, the primary investment policy and decision-making committee for all credit-related portfolios the firm manages. Distenfeld also co-manages AB’s multiple-award-winning High Income Fund, named “Best Fund over 10 Years” by Lipper from 2012 to 2015, and the multiple-award-winning Global High Yield and American Income portfolios, flagship fixed-income funds on the firm’s Luxembourg-domiciled fund platform for non-US investors. He also designed and is one of the lead portfolio managers for AB’s Multi-Sector Credit Strategy, which invests across investment-grade and high-yield credit sectors globally. Distenfeld is the author of a number of published papers, including one on high-yield bonds being attractive substitutes for equities and another on the often-misunderstood differences between high-yield bonds and loans. Distenfeld joined AB in 1998 as a fixed-income business analyst, and served as a high-yield trader (1999–2002) and high-yield portfolio manager (2002–2006) before being named director of High Yield in 2006. He began his career as an operations analyst supporting Emerging Markets Debt at Lehman Brothers. Distenfeld holds a BS in finance from the Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University, and is a CFA charterholder.

In this episode Rabbi Wildes talks with Elon Gold. Elon Gold is a comedian and actor who has starred in FOX's 'Stacked’ and NBC's 'In-Laws’. His one hour stand up special on Netflix, “Elon Gold: Chosen & Taken” received wide acclaim from audiences and peers alike. It is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. He has made ten appearances on 'The Tonight Show' and had a recurring role on the FOX hit show, 'Bones’. Elon was a writer/performer on ABC's 'The Dana Carvey Show' and has guest starred on 'Frasier', 'The Mentalist', 'Chappelle's Show' among others. He recently made stellar appearances on “The Late Late Show With James Corden” and Comedy Central’s “This Week At The Comedy Cellar”. His routines have gone viral and are shared by millions around the globe. He is also currently featured in the HULU movie “The Binge” and in season 3 of HBO’s “Crashing” playing his most challenging role yet…himself. Elon can next be seen opposite Larry David in a recurring role on the upcoming 11th season of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’.

In this episode Rabbi Wildes speaks with Leah Gottfried. Leah graduated with a Film Studies degree from Yeshiva University where she studied screenwriting and TV writing as well as cinematography at NYU. Leah also studied at The Actors Circle in Los Angeles and has numerous commercials and TV credits including Time Warner Cable and Yamaha ATV under her belt. She is a sought after speaker and writer, with recent speaking engagements including Yeshiva University and Limmud NY and an op-ed piece published on Mayim Bialik's Groknation website.

In this episode Rabbi Wildes speaks with Michael Eisenberg. Michael Eisenberg is co-founder and General Partner at Aleph, an early stage venture capital fund with over $500 million under management. Michael has been a venture capitalist for twenty-five years. Aleph focuses on partnering with great Israeli entrepreneurs to build large, meaningful companies and impactful global brands. Since its founding in 2013, Aleph has invested in more than forty companies, including Melio, Lemonade, Bringg, JoyTunes, Healthy.io, and Nexar. Since 2006, Michael has been writing the blog Six Kids and a Full Time Job, on topics ranging from politics to technology, Judaism, and macroeconomics. He was a contributor to TheMarker, a Hebrew-language daily business newspaper, and is the author of the “The Hummus Manifesto,” the seminal piece on Israel’s innovation scene. Michael has also published five books in Hebrew: The Vanishing Jew, Ben Baruch, The Tree of Life and Prosperity, Everyone can be Moses, and Roaring Tribe. He lectures frequently on venture capital, Israel, and entrepreneurship. He serves on the board of the nonprofit organization Yeshivat Har Etzion and is the chairman of The Shomer Hachadash. Michael lives in Jerusalem with his wife and eight children.

In this episode Rabbi Wildes speaks with Rabbi Dr. Jacob Schacter. Rabbi Shacter is arguably the most important scholar and spokesperson for modern orthodoxy today. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages from Harvard and received rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva Torah Vodaas. The other hat Rabbi Schacter wears, and wears well, is that of scholar extraordinaire. He has authored dozens of important scholarly articles and books that have become the mainstay of modern orthodox thought and he lectures worldwide to sellout crowds wherever he speaks. He is Senior Scholar and University Professor at Yeshiva University's Center for the Jewish Future.

Rabbi Chaim Miller was educated at the Haberdashers' Aske's School in London, England and studied Medical Science at Leeds University. At the age of twenty-one, he first began to explore his Jewish roots in full-time Torah study. Less than a decade later, he published the best-selling Kol Menachem Chumash, Gutnick Edition, which made over a thousand complex discourses of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe easily accessible to the layman. His 2011 compilation, the Lifestyle Books Torah, Five Books of Moses, Slager Edition was distributed to thousands of servicemen and women in the U.S. Army. In 2013, he was chosen by the Jewish Press as one of sixty "Movers and Shakers" in the Jewish world. His latest works include Turning Judaism Outward, the first full biography of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and the multivolume Practical Tanya, which has set new standards in the translation of Chasidic thought for contemporary readers. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife Chani and seven children.

In this interview Rabbi Wildes interviews Rabbi Doniel Katz. Doniel Katz is an internationally sought-after speaker and teacher. A former award-winning filmmaker and theater director in Australia, he has lived and studied in Jerusalem for the last ten years. His famous classes in Jerusalem routinely drew overflow crowds eager to hear his unique combination of mussar, self-development, Chassidus and Kabbalah. Rabbi Katz's ability to present profound concepts from all areas of Torah in a concrete ad meaningful way makes him a favorite teacher. His mission is to reveal the unity among different paths of Torah in order to allow all Jews to experience its spiritual depth, beauty, and transformative power.

Beatie Deutsch is the Israeli national champion in the marathon and half marathon. As a mother of five young children, she has learned to apply her training to the real marathon of life. Beatie took up running just four years ago and recently went pro with the goal of qualifying for Tokyo 2020 and representing Israel in the Olympics. More than anything else, her journey has empowered her to dream big and keep pushing, a message Beatie is passionate about sharing with other women.