White House Author

Jarrod Neal Bernstein is former Director of Jewish Outreach. Bernstein was appointed Director of Jewish Outreach in October of 2011 and served until January 2013. From April of 2009 to September of 2011 Jarrod served first as the Local Affairs and then as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs for United States Department of Homeland Security. At DHS he worked to coordinate the Departments' outreach to Mayors and Governors across the country as well as working to ensure that priorities of state and local governments were reflected in the operations and policies of the Department. During his tenure at DHS Bernstein worked extensively on the response to the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, the earthquake in Haiti, as well as the dissemination of intelligence information to state and local governments during periods of increased threat. Prior to his service at DHS, he served as Deputy Commissioner of Community Affairs in the office of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. There he was responsible for community crisis management and outreach around mayoral programs. These outreach efforts involved working with diverse communities across the Five Boroughs of New York City to ensure community engagement in the policy process. From 2002 to 2007 he was the chief spokesman with the New York City Office of Emergency Management where he managed the citywide public information efforts around dozens of large scale emergencies. He was also responsible for writing New York's Emergency Public Information Plan, still in use today. Bernstein holds a BA in Political Science from Johns Hopkins and a JD from Fordham University School of Law.