Joshua Jacobs
President, Governance Committee Chair, and Director
Sarah Shekhter
Social Committee Chair
and Director
Sharona Silver
Vice President, Advocacy Committee Chair, and Director
Leor Mekahel
Communications Committee
Chair and Director
Erica Bloom
Secretary
and Director
Robert Davydov
Student Outreach Committee Chair and Director
Scott Schindler
Treasurer, Finance Committee Chair, and Director
Josh Wortman
Director
Joshua Jacobs
President, Governance Committee Chair, and Director
Josh Jacobs is a commercial real estate attorney whose practice centers on the leasing, acquisition, and sale of industrial, office, and mixed-use properties. He regularly represents landlords, tenants, developers, and investors in negotiating complex real estate transactions, often involving high-value or highly specialized assets. In addition to his real estate work, Josh advises closely held businesses and start-ups on entity formation, joint ventures, equity financing, and strategic structuring, particularly where real estate and corporate needs intersect.
Active in the San Diego Jewish community, Josh is a proud member of Chabad of Rancho Bernardo. In late 2023, he founded the San Diego Jewish Bar Association and currently serves as its first President.
Sharona Silver
Vice President, Advocacy Committee Chair, and Director
Sharona Silver is the founding Vice President of the San Diego Jewish Bar Association and Chair of the Advocacy Committee, where she works with local higher education campuses and organizations to target antisemitism and help promote Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy. She is an aggressive litigator and trial attorney and nicknamed “Apex Predator” amongst her colleagues, known for her winning verdicts as a result of her strategic trial advocacy. She has similarly efficiently advocated for Judaism and Israel at her Alma maters UCSD and USD Law, where she held advocacy and leadership positions since she was 18, including but not limited to Stand With Us campus representative, and President of the Jewish Law Students Association.
She looks forward to continuing to serve the greater San Diego community and promote the growth of the SDJBA and its resources.
Erica Bloom
Secretary and Director
Erica is a practicing family law attorney in Carlsbad, California. She grew up in the Oceanside/Vista area of North San Diego County. After attending University in Arizona, she promptly moved back to San Diego to attend law school. In 2016, Erica started her own family law firm, where she now represents victims of domestic violence, and those going through contentious child custody battles. Erica also serves as Court Appointed Minor’s Counsel and Guardian Ad Litem, representing children in family court and giving them a voice when no other adult can. She strives to seek the best interests of her child clients, the foundation of most families.
Outside of work, Erica dedicates most of her free time to her community. Erica is a founding member of San Diego Jewish Bar Association, where she sits on the Board of the Directors and serves as the Secretary. Erica is the mock trial coach for Vista High School and has been instrumental in resurrecting the school’s program. She also sits on the North County Bar Association’s Board of Directors, where she acts as the pro-bono committee co-chair, continuing education chair, and family law section co-chair.
Erica also is a volunteer attorney for One Safe Place, where she not only helps victims of domestic violence but also hosts workshops for both men and women about the legal system. When not working or volunteering in the legal field, Erica volunteers at Nursing Homes/Assisted Living Facilities, as she has been doing since she was a child.
Scott Schindler
Treasurer, Finance Committee Chair, and Director
Scott Schindler is a co-founder and Treasurer of the San Diego Jewish Bar Association. He is a Managing Director with JLL’s San Diego Tenant Representation Team, and runs the San Diego Law Firm Practice Group. He has spent almost a decade representing occupiers of commercial real estate in a brokerage capacity, as well as 5 years as a private practice real estate attorney.
Scott is also the CFO of the San Diego County Bar Foundation, a member of the Jewish Federation’s National Young Leadership Cabinet, former board member of Jewish Family Service, and active supporter of Stand With Us and AIPAC.
Sarah Shekhter
Social Committee Chair and Director
Sarah Shekhter is a shareholder at the law firm of Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek (SCMV), where she has worked as trial attorney in the Litigation Department since 2019. She is a Certified Specialist in Criminal Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. Her practice focuses on white collar criminal defense as well as complex business litigation. Prior to joining SCMV, she served the community as a public defender for seven years and represented the indigent charged with crimes. Besides her role on the board of the Jewish Bar Association, she also serves on the Board of Directors for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, and Kindness Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to alleviating poverty in San Diego’s Jewish community.
Leor Mekahel
Communications Committee Chair and Director
Leor Mekahel serves on the Board of Directors of the San Diego Jewish Bar Association and is the Chair of the Communications Committee. She is an environmental attorney at Brown & Winters Law Firm, where she specializes in environmental and environmental insurance law. Leor represents public entities, including ports, cities, counties, and school districts across California.
Leor earned her J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law in 2021 and her B.A. from the University of California, San Diego. As an undergraduate, she studied abroad in Israel at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, where she also competed as a Model United Nations delegate.
In her free time, Leor enjoys spending time at the beach, swimming, reading, writing, and hiking with her dog, Ocean.
Robert Davydov
Student Outreach Committee Chair and Director
Robert Davydov serves on the Board of Directors of San Diego Jewish Bar Association and is the Chair of the Student Outreach Committee. He is a corporate associate at Duane Morris LLP with experience in mergers and acquisitions transactions, corporate governance, and general corporate matters. Robert is a 2022 graduate of LMU Loyola Law School, where he concentrated in Corporate Law and Tax Law, and a 2019 graduate of UCLA, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Economics and minor in Accounting. He is a proud Bukharian Jew and has an ardent passion for mentorship.
Josh Wortman
Director
Josh Wortman works with litigation teams and government prosecutors to manage data driven forensics investigations, and to serve as an expert witness on questions related to fraud and the interpretation of complex data. He earned degrees in Mathematics and Psychology at UC San Diego, and a Masters in Information Systems Engineering at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He is currently a Senior Director at Ankura.
Josh is active at Congregation Beth El where he reads Torah from time to time. He is an educator for the Butterfly Project, providing Holocaust education to children. He lived in Israel for 3 years and speaks Hebrew “beseder.”
