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20010-2011 Rabbinic Fellows
Charles Arian
Rabbi Charles Arian has served as a Hillel director, a university administrator, and a think-tank scholar specializing in Christian - Jewish relations. He is currently the rabbi of Beth Jacob Synagogue in Norwich, Ct., and also chairs that city's Ethics Commission. He is an amateur winemaker and a self-described "bourbon geek." He spent a year as Scholar in Residence at a Trappist monastery in Northern California.
Larry Bach
Rabbi Larry Bach serves as the Rabbi of Temple Mount Sinai in El Paso, Texas. In addition to facilitating the pastoral and liturgical life of his community, he pursues social justice through Border Interfaith, a congregation-based community organization which he helped to found, and explores spirituality through Chasidic text, meditation, and embodied practice as an alumnus of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality's Rabbinical Leadership Program. He has found that outwardly-directed social justice work and the inwardly-directed spiritual practice complement and support each other, and he is interested in exploring the intersection of the two. Larry is married to Alanna, and is the father of Helaine, Simona, and Esther.
Justus Baird
Rabbi Justus Baird has served as the Director of the Center for Multifaith Education at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City since 2007. He oversees the seminary's multifaith programming which strives to prepare religious leaders for a religiously diverse world. Rabbi Baird has taught, preached in, and consulted with seminaries, churches, synagogues, mosques, and interfaith organizations around the United States. He oversees Auburn's international multifaith teen leadership program, Face to Face/Faith to Faith and serves as a faculty member for the Multifaith Doctor of Ministry Program at Auburn and the New York Theological Seminary. Rabbi Baird was ordained at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and holds a certificate in Strategic Human Resource Management from Harvard Business School. Before becoming a rabbi he co-founded Questia.com and more recently founded an early stage alternative family-based Jewish education program called Yerusha.
Laura Baum
Rabbi Laura Baum is founding rabbi of OurJewishCommunity.org, an online congregation that reaches tens of thousands of Jews around the world. She is also a rabbi at
Congregation Beth Adam, an independent congregation in Cincinnati, Ohio. Using tools such as social media and other technology, Rabbi Baum seeks to bring a contemporary Jewish voice to people wherever they are. Ordained by Hebrew Union College in 2008, Rabbi Baum is now also an adjunct instructor teaching Human Relations to rabbinic students there.
2 | P a g e Steven Bayer
Rabbi Steven Bayar graduated from the University of Virginia with a BA and MA in Religious Studies and was ordained by RRC in 1981. He has served congregations in Greenbelt, Md., and Chestnut Ridge, N.Y. before coming to Bnai Israel Cong., Millburn, N.J. in 1989. He is the Co Author of, Teens & Trust (Torah Aura), To Save the World (Ktav), Rachel & Mischa (Kar-Ben). The author, of Ziv/Giraffe Curriculum (Righteous Persons Foundation), and is the Co Founder of Ikkar Publishing and has written over 50 curricula being used in over 1,000 schools, camps and informal settings worldwide. Rabbi Bayar also co-authored And You Shall Teach Them: Transmitting Jewish Values from Generation to Generation, due out August 2010.
Rebecca Ben-Gideon
Rabbi Rebecca Ben-Gideon heads the Madison Jewish Community Day School in Madison
Wisconsin. She is also Director of Adult Learning at Beth Israel Center and a part-time rabbi for the Hillel at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A graduate of Harvard and JTS, Rabbi Ben-Gideon has taught students across the country and has served on the faculties of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School and George Mason University.Together with her husband, Rabbi Joshua Ben-Gideon, she is in the process of coaching their three children to say “Go, Badgers!” with proper Wisconsin pronunciation and spirit.
Eve Ben-Ora
Rabbi Eve Ben-Ora is the Jewish Educator at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. Previously, she served as the Director of Jewish Education at the Houston Jewish Community Center. During that time, she was the Director of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School as well as one of the teachers. In 1999 she was named FMAMS Distinguished Director. Rabbi Ben-Ora has served as Associate Rabbi and Director of Education and Programs at Congregation Emanuel in Denver, Colorado. She has been the President of the Jewish Educators Council and The Rocky Mountain Rabbinical Council in Denver. Rabbi Ben-Ora was ordained at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. She has a Master of Arts in Hebrew Letters and a Master of Arts in Jewish Communal Service. She currently lives in San Francisco with her husband, Rabbi Avi Schulman, and they have three children.
Ben Berger
Rabbi Benjamin (Ben) Berger is a graduate of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, a modern and open orthodox rabbinic training program in New York City. While in rabbinical seminary, Ben worked closely with Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, as director of the Limdu Heitev Religious Leadership Initiative, and spearheaded an archival project of Rabbi Greenberg's recorded lectures. As Senior Jewish Educator at Ohio State University Hillel, Ben is charged with broadening the reach of Hillel through content based engagement with students. Ben teaches on a variety of subjects and venues on campus and spends much of his efforts cultivating one on one and small group relationships enriching Jewish students' lives with Jewish text and conversation. Ben is married to Rachel Weiss-Berger, and together they have three daughters, Tovah, Avital and Eliana.
3 | P a g e Michael Bernstein
Rabbi Michael Bernstein serves as the rabbi of Congregation Gesher L’Torah in Alpharetta, Georgia. He spent this past year on Sabbatical in Israel as a Melton Senior Educator. Previously, he served as the rabbi of Beth Am Israel in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania and Congregation B’nai Jacob in Longmeadow Massachusetts. Michael was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and attended Wesleyan University as an undergraduate. He is married to Tracie and they have three children, Ayelet, Yaron, and Liana. Michael views Judaism not as a set of answers to every question, but as a lens to find deep significance in our lives and inspire acts that help repair a broken world.
Rena Blumenthal
Rabbi Rena Blumenthal is the Assistant Director of the Office of Religious & Spiritual Life and Rose & Irving Rachlin Adviser to Jewish Students at Vassar College. She is a 2003 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College who previously worked as a psychologist for fifteen years in New York City and Jerusalem.
Alfredo Borodowski
Rabbi Alfredo Borodowski is the executive director of the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning in NY. Previously he served as executive director of the Shalom Hartman Institute in NA. Raised in Argentina he earned a law degree at the University of Buenos Aires Law School (1986) and was ordained as a rabbi at the Seminario Rabinico Lantinoamericano (1991).He earned a doctorate in Jewish Philosophy from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (1997) were he taught for over a decade. He is the founding rabbi of congregation Sulam Yaakov in Larchmont, NY. He published Isaac Abravanel on Miracles, Creation,
Prophecy, and Evil (2003) and is the coauthor of the forthcoming Nafsheinu, the first Mayer Briggs
Manual for Rabbis and Congregations.
Anne Brener
Rabbi Anne Brener, LCSW is a psychotherapist, spiritual Director, and lecturer, who assists institutions in creating caring communities. The author of Mourning & Mitzvah: Walking the
Mourner's Path (Jewish Lights, 1993 & 2001), she has contributed chapters to many
publications on Jewish spirituality and healing, and is a frequent columnist for the Los Angles Jewish Journal. Her work has been translated into Portuguese, Spanish, and several African dialects. Ordained as a Reform Rabbi in 2008 from HUC/LA, Anne is a faculty member of both the Academy for Jewish Religion, LA and Yedidya’s Morei Derekh- Jewish Spiritual Direction Program. She serves on HUC’s Kalsman Institute of Judaism & Medicine’s advisory board. A New Orleans native, she worked for the Ecology Center of Louisiana for several years in the early years of the environmental movement and spent three months doing relief work in the Gulf South following Katrina. She lives in Los Angeles.
4 | P a g e Shefa Gold
Rabbi Shefa Gold is a leader in Aleph: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal and received her ordination both from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. She is the director of C-DEEP , The Center for Devotional, Energy and Ecstatic Practice in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. Shefa composes and performs spiritual music, has produced ten albums, and her liturgies have been published in several new prayerbooks. She teaches workshops and retreats on the theory and art of Chanting, Devotional Healing, Spiritual Community Building, Meditation, and trains Chant Leaders in Kol Zimra, a two year program for rabbis, cantors and lay leaders. She is also on the faculty of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Shefa combines her grounding in Judaism with a background in Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Native American spiritual traditions to make her uniquely qualified as a spiritual bridge celebrating the shared path of devotion. She is the author of Torah Journeys: The Inner Path to the Promised Land, and In the
Fever of Love: An Illumination of the Song of Songs published by Ben Yehuda Press.
Ben Greenberg
Rabbi Ben Greenberg is the Orthodox rabbi of Harvard Hillel, Co-Director of the Seif Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Harvard and the Orthodox Jewish Chaplain of Harvard University. Ben has written popular and scholarly articles for First Things, Conversations and Milin Havivin and for his blog A Yiddishe Thought. In 2009 he published a compilation
of thoughts on the Torah readings, all 140 characters or fewer entitled Twitter Torah. He received his rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School and while at YCT he taught in communities all over North America and led a relief mission to Southern California during the wildfires of 2007. He lives with his wife Sharon in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Sherre Hirsch
Rabbi Sherre Hirsch was headed to medical school when, driven by a desire to deepen her understanding of her faith, she began studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary. After a detour through Asia, where she studied eastern philosophy, Rabbi Hirsch was ordained in 1998. She spent the next 8 years as the first woman rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Since leaving Sinai in 2006 she has been sharing her unique blend of the spiritual and the everyday with a larger audience, appearing on several TV shows including “The Today Show”, “ABC News”, and “Inside Edition.” Rabbi Hirsch also serves as the spiritual life consultant and teacher for the Canyon Ranch Spas in Arizona and Massachusetts. Her first book, We
Plan, God Laughs: What To Do When Life Hits You Over The Head (Doubleday), was published in April
2008. The book reflects a theme in Hirsch’s own life and she expertly guides readers through a spiritual and introspective journey toward reaching their divine potential. Her second book is set to be published in the spring of 2011. Rabbi Hirsch spends her free time practicing yoga, shopping for shoes, and dancing in the living room with her husband Jeff and four young children: sons Emet and Levi and daughters Eden and Alia
James Kahn
Rabbi James Kahn is Senior Jewish Educator at University of Maryland’s Hillel. Rabbi James is a wandering Jew, arriving at Maryland via Boston, Jerusalem, Manhattan, Miami, Chicago and Adelaide (South Australia). A newly minted rabbi, James studied at Boston’s Hebrew College, a pluralistic rabbinical school. He is a lover of early Chasidism,
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and of all things chocolate (a great combo!). He is blessed to travel through life with his wife Paula, son Julian and dog Noa.
Rachel Kobrin
Rabbi Kobrin was ordained in May, 2009 by the Zeigler School of Rabbinical Studies at American Jewish University. She is currently the Assistant Rabbi at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin Texas. She has shared her passion for Jewish life with children, teens, and adults at synagogues, Hillels and schools throughout the country. She was co-founder and co-coordinator of Minyan Malei Shirah, a soulful and song-filled independent Friday night minyan in Los Angeles. Rabbi Kobrin is a contributing author in the book God:
Jewish Choices for Struggling with the Ultimate (2008). Rabbi Kobrin and her husband, Rabbi Rick Brody,
have two children, Noa (age 5) and Adin (age1)
Sari Laufer
Rabbi Sari Laufer is the Associate Rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York City. A born and bred New Yorker, Rabbi Laufer graduated cum laude from Northwestern University, and served as an Eisdendrath Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism before starting rabbinical school. Rabbi Laufer was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles in May 2006. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, Rabbi Laufer was also named the first Sara and Simha Lainer Beit Midrash Scholar at HUC in Los Angeles. Her work in the Beit Midrash, as well as on her capstone project— a look at gender roles and family dynamics in the Babylonian Talmud— led to several academic prizes in Talmud and rabbinic literature, as well as HUC-LA’s Outstanding Female Student Award. At Congregation Rodeph Sholom, Rabbi Laufer is a teacher of those young and young-at-heart, bringing her passion for social justice, rabbinic texts, and Judaism’s wisdom and relevance in the 21st century into the lives of those with whom she is privileged to learn and to share. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, Ben Cutter.
Tsafi Lev
Rabbi Tsafi Lev, ordained at JTS in 1998, enjoys writing (fictional short story) and open water swimming. He is married to his camp sweetheart, Cheryl. They are blessed with four boys. Tsafi is the Director of Jewish Studies at the New Community Jewish High School in West Hills, CA, and a Lecturer for the Fingerhut School of Education Master of Arts in Education program at the American Jewish University.
Juan Mejía
Rabbi Juan Mejía was born in Bogotá, Colombia. After discovering the Jewish roots of his family, he embarked on a spiritual journey that lead him back to the religion and the people of his ancestors. He holds an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from the National University of Colombia and a summa cum laude Master´s Degree in Jewish Civilization from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received rabbinic ordination from the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in NY. He plans to devote his life to the Torah education of both Jews and descendants of anusim wherever they may be. He lives with his wife and daughter in Oklahoma City, OK. He was recently appointed as the coordinator for the American Southwest for the Jewish non-profit organization Bechol Lashon.
6 | P a g e Leana Moritt
Rabbi Leana Moritt is the founder of Thresholds: For the Jewishly Curious, a pioneering and inclusive Jewish engagement organization providing education, consultation, and support and counseling to interfaith families and those entering Jewish life. (www.JewishThresholds.org). She created Thresholds after nearly ten years at New York’s 92nd Street Y as Director of Jewish Outreach and Jewish Life educator and leader. Rabbi Moritt also serves as the rabbi of the Roosevelt Island Jewish Congregation in New York City. A creative liturgy award winner and experienced chaplain, she holds dual rabbinic ordination from Academy for Jewish Religion in NY and Aleph: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal. Prior to her career as a rabbi, she spent 10 years in the music business as Director of Production for Arista records and loves to talk about how her Milli Vanilli platinum record hanging on her wall led her to the rabbinate.
Gil Steinlauf
Rabbi Gil Steinlauf is the senior rabbi of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington DC. Prior to coming to Washington, Rabbi Steinlauf served as the rabbi of Temple Israel and Jewish Community Center in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and as the assistant rabbi at Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus Ohio. He is a graduate of Princeton University and was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1998. He writes, blogs, and teaches frequently on the subject of finding Jewish spirituality in the postmodern world. He completed the STAR: Good to Great program, served on a rabbinic cohort of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, is on the Washington chapter board of the American Jewish Committee, and currently serves on the Chancellor’s Rabbinic Cabinet at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is married to Rabbi Batya Steinlauf, and has three children: Elana 14, Noah 11, and Meirav, 10.