YFE Acting Director

Flora Kupferman grew up at Emanu-El  and started teaching Sunday School here in 1987.  Over the years, she added time in our Hebrew program and became a full-time staff member in 2010. She has also worked at the Bureau of Jewish Education, now Jewish LearningWorks, where she founded and ran the camp weekend for children with special needs and their families.  She holds a degree in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley and teaching credentials from San Francisco State.  Flora is very proud of her daughters, Elana and Shoshie, and also enjoys cooking, baking, spending time with her dogs, and rooting for the Giants.

Teen Program Manager

Ariana is a San Francisco native and grew up at Congregation Emanu-El (bat mitzvah in 1991, Confirmation in 1993). She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a Master’s in Education with a focus in Jewish Studies, both from San Francisco State University. Ariana received a certificate in Jewish Service Learning from the Jewish LearningWorks and San Francisco State University in 2007.  In 2011, Ariana co-wrote a Jewish Service Learning Manual for Early Childhood Education, which won the Union for Reform Judaism’s Epstein Communicate Award. She is also the recipient of 2012 Helen Diller Award For Excellence in Jewish Education for Congregational Schools. Ariana ran the Community of Practice for Teen Educators for two years and is currently in her seventh year as a Tauber Holocaust Educator Fellow. In her free time, Ariana loves going to the beach with her husband and three children.