Leslie Gilbert-Lurie

president, Board of Education, Los Angeles

A former writer and executive at NBC, Leslie Gilbert-Lurie is the President of the Los Angeles County Board of Education and has been appointed to help devise a new Cultural Master Plan for the city. A founding member and past president of the non-profit Alliance for Children's Rights, she has worked at a major Los Angeles law firm, served as a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals law clerk, and has been a member of the boards of directors for the Los Angeles Music Center and the New Roads Foundation, among other organizations. She has been a recipient of the American Jewish Congress's Tzedek Award for Outstanding Commitment to Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, and Justice. She lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and two children. *Bending Toward The Sun* is a family memoir that explores a hidden emotional legacy - forged in the terror of the Holocaust - that has shaped three generations of lives.