Having decided that it was time to learn the language of her people, Elana enrolled in a Hebrew class at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. It is here that she met Laura, a kin to her passion for adventure, the grass roots and exploration of the world, as well as a match to her commitment to teaching the world to others. Sharing a love of Jewish history and of film, she did not expect that one day these mutual passions and values would take the two to the missile-hit town of Sderot to initiate the making of this documentary.

Elana teaches World Civilizations to high school students in Santa Monica. She has traveled to Israel and Northern Italy as an oral historian for the Jewish Partisans Educational Foundation and founded Farfalla Travels, a business which is dedicated to leading small groups of students of all ages deep into the fabric of Italy through its history, food, art, wine and personal contact with its people. Her specific passion is Jewish Italy which inspired a trip to the closed and forgotten gemlike synagogues of the Piedmont region. She has also spent a considerable amount of time organizing community health projects in rural Latin America.

Elana has a BA from Brown University and a Masters degree from Middlebury College in Florence both in Italian Studies with focus on Jewish Italian history and cinema.