Welcome Sheila Katz —2024 Keynote Speaker

NCJW Chicago North Shore is proud to have Sheila Katz as our keynote speaker for the upcoming Awards Dinner where we will be Celebrating Women Advocates who will be honored for their work in strengthening our rights and fighting for democracy.

Sheila Katz is the CEO of National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), a 130-year-old Jewish feminist civil rights organization with over 210,000 advocates working for the full equity and safety of women, children, and families in the United States and Israel.

Through meaningful education, strategic advocacy and partnering with 50 local NCJW sections in direct service, Sheila works to empower Jewish women and allies to engage in work that impacts those at the margins of society while centering the most impacted through partnerships and coalitions.

Under Sheila’s leadership, NCJW has responded to threats to abortion access, voting rights, childcare access, equal pay, and other issues of equity through protest, advocacy and new campaigns making it clear where Jewish women and allies stand on the most important issues of the day.

You can watch Sheila speak here

Sheila spearheaded the creation of Jews for Abortion Access, engaging more than 2.5 million people taking action. She also launched Rabbis for Repro, a network of more than 2,500 rabbis across every denomination teaching about reproductive freedom and Judaism.

Prior to NCJW, Sheila was the vice president of student engagement and leadership at Hillel International, the largest Jewish on-campus community in the world. In her 12 years at Hillel, she founded programs to expand student participation in Jewish and civic life including Ask Big Questions, an award-winning national initiative to guide diverse students in meaningful conversations, and MitzVote, Hillel’s successful non-partisan civic engagement campaign. Sheila was recently named as one of the top 10 faith influencers by Religion News Service and as one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world by the Jerusalem Post. In 2022, Sheila was the commencement speaker for her alma mater Ithaca College. She currently sits on the board of governors of Tel Aviv University.