Dr. Caryn Aviv

University of Colorado, Boulder

Caryn Aviv, Ph.D. is the Posen Lecturer in Secular Jewish Culture in the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she directs the Certificate Program in Jewish Communal Service and teaches courses about contemporary Jewish communities. Caryn is the co-author of American Queer: Now and Then (Paradigm Publishers 2006), New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora (New York University Press 2005), and Queer Jews (Routledge 2002). Caryn is currently working on a book project that examines the role of American Jews in Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation movements, media, and philanthropy. She also writes an occasional blog about queer Jewish life for Ha’aretz.

Rabbi Nehama Benmosche, Treasurer

Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

Nehama Benmosche is the rabbi at Congregation Am Haskalah in Allentown, PA, the Lehigh Valley’s Jewish Reconstructionist congregation. She is a recent graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and is a doctoral student in education at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Her doctoral work focuses on dimensions of difference, pluralism and diversity in a Jewish summer camp. She has worked for many years in the Jewish communities of New York, Atlanta, and Philadelphia. Her background ranges from primary school education in day schools, to adult education courses in Hebrew and Judaism.While at RRC, she served as a rabbinic intern at West End Synagogue in NYC and as a cantorial soloist at Congregation Beth Israel of Woodbury, NJ and the Reform Temple of Suffern, NY. She received the Tikkun Olam award at RRC for her work in organizing and maintaining the davening community at the college and served on RRC’s Keshet Committee on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Rabbi Jill Hammer, Board Chair

Academy for Jewish Religion

Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion. She is also the director of Tel Shemesh, a website and community celebrating earth-based Jewish traditions, and the co-founder of Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, a training program in women’s spiritual leadership. Rabbi Jill Hammer was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001. She also holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Connecticut. She is the author of The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons (Jewish Publication Society, 2006) and Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women (Jewish Publication Society, 2001).

Professor Joy Ladin

Yeshiva University

Professor Joy Ladin is the David and Ruth Gottesman Professor of English at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University – and Yeshiva University’s (and the Orthodox Jewish world’s) first openly transgendered employee. A widely published poet and essayist, she is the author of three books of poetry from Sheep Meadow Press, Transmigration (2009), The Book of Anna (2006) and Alternatives to History (2003), as well as a collection of original psalms.  Since 2007, she has spoken and written widely about transsexuality, including writing a yet-unpublished collection of autobiographical essays, Inside Out: Confessions of a Woman Caught in the Act of Becoming.

Amichai Lau-Lavie

Founding Director, Storahtelling

Amichai Lau-Lavie is the founder of Storahtelling. An Israeli-born teacher of Judaic Literature and performance artist, he is described as “one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world” by the NY Jewish Week. Amichai has studied at the Shalom Hartman Institute and the Elul Center in Jerusalem and he has directed the summer programs at Melitz: the Jewish Zionist Centers in Jerusalem. He is a longtime Nehirim faculty member and retreat director.

Jay Michaelson, Secretary

Founding Director, Nehirim

Jay Michaelson is the founder of Nehirim. For the last ten years, Jay has been a leading advocate for the inclusion of sexual minorities in religious communities, and writes and teaches frequently on issues of sexuality and religion. His work has been featured on NPR, CNN, and the New York Times, and his writing on LGBT issues has been published in Tikkun, the Jerusalem Post, the Duke Law Review, the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, and in anthologies including Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer (2004), Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice (2007) and Torah Queeries (2009). Jay is a columnist for the Forward, Tikkun, and Reality Sandwich magazine, and is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. In 2009, he was included on the “Forward 50″ list of “the men and women leading the American Jewish community into the 21st century.”  He is the author of God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2006), Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe, 2007), and Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009).  His next book is God Versus Gay?  The Religious Case for Equality (Beacon, 2010).

Andrew E. Nagel

Andrew Nagel is a partner in the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP in New York. He has a broad-based corporate and transactional practice focused on public and private mergers and acquisitions and activist shareholder matters. Andrew has represented investment banks, hedge funds, and private equity firms, as well as technology, broadcasting and manufacturing companies. He received an A.B. from Harvard College (cum laude) and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (Order of the Coif), where he was an articles editor for the California Law Review. Andrew lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where he has been active in the LGBT Jewish community for 18 years. He is also a member of the Legal Council of the Williams Institute, a national think tank housed at UCLA that advances sexual orientation law and public policy through rigorous, independent research and scholarship, and disseminates it to judges, legislators, policymakers, media and the public.