2024 Annual Gala

Philip Margolius Breslau-Goldman Award Honoree, 2024 Gala

Phil Margolius embodies Jewish leadership in our community. He is strategic, passionately devoted to the Jewish community, widely respected, warm, and extremely humble. 

Phil is the Chief Executive Officer of The BurnBrae Companies and is also the Senior Partner and Estate Attorney at The Margolius Firm. He has been repeatedly recognized as one of the region’s top lawyers.

Phil is well known for his philanthropy, having served as president of numerous local charitable organizations, including Jewish Federation, the United Jewish Endowment Fund and the Bender JCC of Greater Washington. He is currently leading an initiative to make the Washington area a magnet for the next generation of Jewish professionals.

In honor of his late wife, Phil established the Phyllis G. Margolius Impossible Dream Award, which annually presents an accomplished Jewish professional with an $18,000 gift. He also provided funding for Save a Child Heart’s to establish an endowment fund in memory of his late daughter, who had been on the organization’s board. 

Erika Dickstein and Todd Rosenberg Sara and Samuel Lessans Community Leadership Award, 2024 Gala

Erika Dickstein and Todd Rosenberg are a dynamic couple that has provided years of passionate leadership to the Washington, DC Jewish community. Together, they have served as Annual Gala co-chair in 2021 and 2022.

Todd is a partner at Crowell & Moring LLP, where he focuses on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, equity and debt financings and complex commercial agreements. He is proud of his pro bono work, highlighted by the formation of the Alliance To Help Owners Maintain Equity (AT HOME), a group whose advocacy of reform to the District of Columbia’s system for selling real property tax liens led to a front-page investigative series by The Washington Post, and, in turn, the adoption of significant reforms.

In addition to being the newest member of the JCRC Executive Committee and chair of our Maryland Commission, Todd serves on the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School Board of Directors and the Friends of the IDF Washington DC Chapter Board.

Erika is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Spring Insight, a digital marketing agency that builds websites and develops targeted marketing solutions for small businesses. She is the immediate past president of the Metro Bethesda Rotary and sits on the Board of Directors of the Metro Bethesda Rotary Foundation. Erika is also Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Tree House Child Advocacy Center of Montgomery County.

Jane and Scott Brown Distinguished Service Award, 2024 Gala

Scott Brown’s professional career and volunteer leadership has been focused on strengthening the Jewish community and Israel.

Prior to becoming an Executive Coach, he served as Executive Vice President and Vice President for Talent at Hillel International, focusing on professional leadership, recruitment, and hiring for thousands of employees. He earned the Exemplar of Excellence Award, the highest honor for Hillel professional staff. Previously, he was Executive Director at the University of Maryland Hillel and Associate Executive Director of the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia.

In the community, Scott serves on the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington Board of Directors and is part of a small group of leaders working behind the scenes to revitalize Jewish engagement in Virginia. He was appointed by the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia to serve on the Virginia Israel Advisory Board, is a past president of the Pozez Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, and was the first Board President at George Mason University Hillel.

Jane Schapiro Brown is an artist, poet and author, who spent 17 years tutoring student-athletes at George Mason University. She has also been involved in numerous community leadership roles, serving on the Board of Directors of Food for Others in Fairfax and volunteering with The Women’s Center, Bread for the City and the George Mason University Emotional Support Line.  

She has authored three volumes of poetry, including Warbler, the 2020 Nautilus Book Award Silver Winner. She also wrote the nonfiction book Inside A Class Action: The Holocaust and the Swiss Banks, an examination of the class-action lawsuit filed in 1996 against Swiss Bank Corporation, Union Bank of Switzerland, and Credit Suisse on behalf of Holocaust victims.  

Together, they fund a program through Federation that provides 10 free coaching sessions to Jewish professionals; volunteered with Authentic Israel during the current war; pioneered the Shiri Rahamim Shaliach Program through the Pozez JCC in 2007; and participated in the yearlong WUJS Arad program during their first year of marriage.