Russel Neiss

Equally fluent in Yiddish and Javascript, Russel Neiss is a Jewish educator, technologist and activist who builds critically acclaimed educational apps and experiences used by thousands of people each day. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, the Atlantic, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, the Jewish Telegraph Agency, and other media outlets. Russel began his career as an itinerant Jewish educator traveling across the deep south and has worked in a variety of Jewish educational settings including day schools, supplemental schools, museums and archives. In 2017 he was selected by the Forward as one of the 50 most influential Jewish Americans, and in 2020 he received the Covenant Award, one of the highest honors in the field of Jewish Education. He currently serves as a Senior Product Software Engineer at Sefaria. Russel lives in St. Louis with his wife Maharat Rori Picker Neiss and his three kids.