Meet Jonathan Shefftz
Profile by Annie Hoyer
Jonathan Shefftz grew up in a Conservative temple in upstate NY, Binghamton’s Temple Israel. Between his parents, he enjoyed a complete Jewish upbringing. “My mother would take me to services to such an extent that decades later, the long-since retired rabbi from my bar mitzvah recognized me. He knew me as the kid whose mother took me out of school even for the so-called minor Jewish holidays. By contrast, my father was assigned to take me to synagogue only on Kol Nidre and otherwise would frequently try to sneak treif into the house.” He added proudly that his dad wrote letters to the local newspaper defending Israel’s right to live in peace with secure borders.
“I was happy to participate in my first BHC ski day, which I integrated into my Ski Quadrathlon: 1. Skinned up the Bretton Woods downhill area then skied down. 2. Met Barry Zitser at Bretton Woods nordic center for some skate skiing, chatting almost the entire time of course, especially since as a lawyer he has often retained expert witnesses, and most of my economics consulting practice is serving as an expert witness ... although unfortunately that jinxed me as an email soon arrived with feedback on a report that was due later that same day. So I left early to go back to my place in Twin Mtn for some edits! 3. Arrived a bit late at the Cannon luncheon, which also meant that I didn’t have time for the quick skin/ski lap I had originally planned there. 4. Drove to Western Mass to pick up our daughter at home in Amherst, then drove to Berkshire East to staff the ski patrol base.””
Jonathan’s father introduced him and his younger brother to skiing at Greek Peak, a ski area thus named for the many towns around it (Syracuse, Ithaca, Troy, etc.) that had names from Greek antiquity. On their drives home from skiing, his father, a history professor, used the opportunity to teach his sons about the ski area’s trail names, all from Greek mythology, history, or philosophers. Those days on the slopes with his family instilled in Jonathan a passion for skiing and a love of the outdoors.
Jonathan attended Amherst College, where he majored in economics. In grad school at Harvard, he studied economics and public policy. He met his future wife, Andrea (Newman), over email. He answered an email she’d sent out about leading a hike of Mount Lafayette for Harvard Hillel’s JAGS (Jewish Adults and Graduate Students) group. He ended up skiing that day instead, but they both were intrigued by the exchange. They continued to write each other, eventually leading to a hike together in late June 1997 so that he could ski Mt Washington’s Tuckerman Ravine.
Andrea grew up in Bedford NH, and in 2000, the couple married at Adath Yeshurun, a reform temple in Manchester. Jonathan quipped, “This affirms once again the saying that every Jewish marriage is a mixed marriage.” The two moved to Amherst MA in 2006. Their daughter Micayla was born three years later. Micayla attended a Jewish day school in Northampton MA, along with the two daughters of Andrea’s identical twin sister (another draw to Amherst). In 2023, Micayla became a bat mitzvah at Ohel Minyan there. She embraces Jonathan’s winter pastime; both father and daughter are ski patrollers.
Jonathan’s original plan had been to persist as the most avid backcountry skier and ski mountaineer based solely in Western Massachusetts, but the lure of NH’s tallest mountain was strong. In March 2024, he bought a place in Twin Mountain, only 14 minutes from his favorite trailhead on Mount Washington. “I like to think of it as my Masada, the last stand against the inevitable onslaught of less favorable winters for skiing.”
When Jonathan was researching the practical elements of having a place near Mount Washington, he investigated details such as the closest grocery store. “As a joke, I also searched for a Jewish synagogue in Google Maps, and to my surprise, BHC appeared. I knew that Bethlehem had a Haredi presence, but I’d never suspected that a mainstream Jewish community was right there, even though I’d driven by BHC hundreds of times.”
Jonathan is an avalanche safety course instructor for the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE) and a many-time presenter at the Eastern Snow and Avalanche Workshop (ESAW). He shares both distinctions with a fellow BHC member, Ben Mirkin.
When Jonathan is not skiing – whether in the backcountry or cross-country with his family – he works as an economic consultant. “After graduate school, I worked for an environmental economics and public policy consulting firm. My work largely involved reports for government agencies on the economic impact of environmental regulations and the environmental impact of economic regulations. I became an independent consultant upon our move to Amherst, and now my practice is focused on financial economic analysis in a wide variety of legal contexts. I’m retained by law firms, government agencies, or citizen groups in anticipation of possible testimony.”
Jonathan believes he and his family will always maintain their home in Amherst. He expects in a few years, when Micayla is off at college, he and Andrea will be able to spend more time in NH. Currently, his whereabouts are highly unpredictable. For example, he participated in the BHC ski day, then drove to Amherst to pick up his daughter so that they could patrol together at a local ski area in Western Mass, all while getting the final version of a memo off to a client.
He has enjoyed the BHC on-line programming, although unfortunately the midweek sessions coincide with getting his daughter out the door for 9th grade at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School. His northern NH presence is the reverse of BHC’s in-person services, but he does hope to attend more in-person services this summer.
However, he was able to attend the first four nights of BHC’s menorah lighting. After the event, he returned to his Twin Mountain home to light the menorah over the internet with Andrea and Micayla, who were vacationing in Florida. “Each day I’d text them FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) pictures of me about to ski from the summit of frigid Mount Washington, while they’d return the favor with photos of themselves on the beach. Upon our convergence back in Amherst after eight days apart, our daughter concluded that all of us had had the best week ever.”
