By Jonathan D. Epstein
The British are coming! The British are coming!
Less than a year after being officially formed, the new International Region of FJMC International is bringing a full contingent to the Joel S. Geffen Leadership Development Institute in January – including three new members from the United Kingdom and one with ties to the JCC Budapest in Hungary.
This in-person connectivity with men outside of North America is the prelude to a first-ever FJMC regional retreat being scheduled in London, as well as international representation at FJMC’s Biennial Convention in 2027.
Regional President Jerry Brodsky, Vice President Jonathan Epstein, Secretary Bob Watts and Treasurer Michael Berman will be joined in Baltimore by Rabbi Oliver Spike Joseph, Nick Kalmus and Dan Rickman from England, as well as Dan Alpert, a former Joint Distribution Committee Entwine Global Jewish Services Corp. fellow in Budapest and founding executive director of the Friends of JCC Budapest.
Rabbi Oliver Spike Joseph
Based in London, Joseph is a freelance rabbi, spiritual counselor and prison chaplain in the UK, and the recently named Jewish chaplain for Canary Wharf – which includes the 150 corporations, 360 retail stores, their employees, the 3,500 residents, the developer and the construction workers that comprise the Canary Wharf financial district in London.
Trained at the Ziegler School for Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles after studying at both the Conservative Yeshiva and Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University, he is the founding rabbi of The Havurah in London, and also consults for national charities and businesses on how to work with the Jewish community.
Joseph said he is “delighted to meet a whole new community across the ocean and talk about how to support men in this fraught times.”
“In times of darkness, we also have room for great hope and light,” he said.
Nicolas Kalmus
Kalmus is an experienced retreat coordinator, who will use his expertise to help FJMC to organize the international event that FJMC hopes will attract men from not only the UK but also the rest of Europe. A business entrepreneur who has founded several e-commerce companies, including an Amazon business selling wood veneers, he is also a founding member of Our Kids First, a charity that began as a support group for Jewish men going through divorce.
“I’m honored to be invited as part of the Emerging Leaders cohort to the forthcoming LDI in Baltimore,” he said. “As a longstanding participant and facilitator of UK based men’s groups I am keen to discover how groups operate on the other side of the pond. I am particularly excited to understand more about the space in which groups are hosted.”
And Rickman, who has worked in Jewish communal leadership for over 20 years, is an experienced facilitator and founder of Get Men Talking, a Jewish men’s discussion initiative to create safe spaces for men to open up with difficult conversations – similar to FJMC’s Hearing Men’s Voices. He has supported over 50 men through five cohorts so far, and is also studying the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on his own journey in mental health and men’s wellbeing.
He is also development director for the London School of Jewish Studies and former CEO of ORT UK from 2019 through June 2025. Previously, he was head of fundraising for Magen David Adom UK, and ran the Mitzvah Day charity.
“I am so excited to attend the Leadership Development Institute and to be part of a space that brings together thoughtful, values-driven Jewish leaders,” Rickman said.
“As the founder of Get Men Talking, I am looking forward to sharing our experience of building peer-led spaces for honest conversation and mental wellbeing, and, just as importantly, to listening, learning, and exchanging ideas with leaders facing similar communal challenges. I am especially excited by the opportunity to take these insights back into my own leadership practice and the communities I serve.”
Finally, Alpert spent two years working in Budapest with the JCC, in a community with more than 100,000 Jews. He also engaged with the B’nai Brith Youth Organization chapter and the local office of the World Jewish Congress, and represented the JDC in Moldova and Poland. Professionally, he is now chief of staff to a delegate in the Maryland General Assembly.
If you know Jewish men or communities outside of North America that would be interested in engaging with FJMC International, please send them our region’s brochure.
To learn more about LDI, see related story.
Jonathan D. Epstein is editor of Ha’Dvar, vice president of the International Region of FJMC and co-coordinator of the Abayudaya Initiative.
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