Elizabeth Mandel

Elizabeth Mandel

Elizabeth Mandel is the founder and Executive Director of jGirls Magazine. She is an accomplished documentary filmmaker, writer, editor, and community activist. Elizabeth has built a successful record of using media to raise awareness and create change around social justice, gender, and Jewish community issues. Her award-winning films include “Pushing the Elephant” (director, 2010) and “Arctic Son” (producer, 2006). Her films have broadcast on PBS and screened at numerous festivals, on Capitol Hill, at the World Bank, and in schools and refugee camps throughout the world. Elizabeth has received film fellowships from the Jerome Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Elizabeth worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Mumbai, India, and for the United Nations and the Asia Foundation, as well as in Japan, Cambodia, and Nepal on a variety of women’s security and empowerment projects. She is a contributor to “Lilith Magazine,” and has served as an editor at USAID and for the Group on Equal Rights for Women at the United Nations. She is a founding member of The Harlem Minyan and served on the Advisory Council of the JCC Harlem. Elizabeth holds a Master’s Degree from Columbia University in International Affairs, with a focus on Women’s Economic and Political Development. She graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University with a B.A. in Religion and East Asian Languages and Cultures. She lives in New York with her husband and three daughters.