Jeanne P. Blaustein, PhD

Dr. Jeannie Blaustein has spent her professional career as a therapist, pastoral counselor, and community leader, supporting people in the work of having difficult conversations about love, loss, and conflict. Over the last 15 years, her work has gravitated toward the field of end of life, and in particular, the work of advanced care planning, perhaps the most difficult conversation we must each have with our loved ones, yet by far one of the most important.

Jeannie is deeply committed to improving End of Life care and practices in this country. She is the founding board chair of Reimagine End of LIfe, a non-profit organization that aims to transform people’s individual and collective experiences of death, dying, and living. Reimagine hosts community-driven festivals that bring creativity, connection, and essential conversation to cities around the world designed to help break down taboos around death and dying.

She has served as a volunteer at Beth Israel Hospital, Zicklin Residential Hospice in Riverdale, NY, and as a hospice visitor in people’s homes. Jeannie completed the Art of Dying Institute’s End of Life doula course (to accompany the dying), and currently sits on the Steering Committee of “What Matters: Caring Conversations About End of Life, of which she is a certified What Matters/Respecting Choices Facilitator, Instructor and Supervisor. She has completed one year of Clinical Pastoral Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and worked as a chaplain on the Geriatric and Palliative Care service at Mt. Sinai Hospital in NYC.

A strong believer in the power of art to transform thinking and attitudes, Jeannie is an Executive Producer of Defining Hope, a film by noted photographer Carolyn Jones, highlighting the critical role that nurses play in hospice care. Jeannie and her husband Peter Bokor are also Executive Producers of Wrestling Jerusalem The Film, by Aaron Davidman, a remarkable one-man show which depicts the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through empathy-driven portrayals of 17 different individual stakeholders in the situation.

Board service experience includes The Morton K. and Jane Blaustein Foundation (President) which works to advance racial, environmental and immigrant/refugee justice, the Berman Bioethics Institute of Johns Hopkins University and Congregation B’nai Jeshurun (President, then Chair), LitWorld, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

A graduate of Brown University (A.B. History) and NYU University (M.A. History), Jeannie is a licensed clinical psychologist (City University of NY) and holds a Doctor of Ministry degree in pastoral care and counseling (Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion).

Jeannie lives in NYC with her husband Peter Bokor, and happily welcomes home their two adult daughters (Sophie, Carleton College, 2018 & Livia, Yale University, 2020).