Queer Shabbaton New York 2011
Queer Shabbaton New York 2011
October 28-30
JCC in Manhattan in New York City.
The Nehirim Queer Shabbaton, now in its fifth year, is a weekend of queer Jewish culture, creativity, and politics. This year, the Queer Shabbaton features high-profile political sessions, an awesome Saturday night party, and lots of nice (and not-so-nice) Jewish boys, girls, and the rest of us. Highlights this year include:
The “Nehiween” Costume Ball, Saturday night featuring SCHMEKEL (100% Transgender, 100% Jewish buffet of punk, klezmer, jazz, rock and polka). Bring a costume!
Kate Bornstein, one of the true pioneers of the queer universe (really), will be giving a talk on Saturday morning.
A Marriage Panel Saturday afternoon, featuring representatives from the Human Rights Campaign, Empire State Pride Agenda, and Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. What is the relationship of same-sex marriage to other LGBT equality issues? What’s next in other states? How was the NY marriage battle won?
An all-star panel on Religion and Gay Rights featuring Nehirim’s founder, Jay Michaelson, in conversation with Ross Murray of GLAAD and Marc Solomon of Freedom to Marry.
Plus Nehirim favorites like Shoshana Jedwab and Jill Hammer and retreat directors Dr. Zvi Bellin and Marlene Rachelle.
By the way, all photos on this page are from last year’s Shabbaton.
Pricing
After October 15: $225
Prices include all meals and program costs for the shabbaton. Housing is on your own.
Housing & Location
The Queer Shabbaton will be held at the JCC in Manhattan, at 334 Amsterdam Ave. (at 76th St.). Need a ride? Need a place to stay? Want to offer a ride or a place to stay? Check out our Ride & Housing Boards by clicking here.
Financial aid for the Queer Shabbaton has been used up. Thank you to all who applied!
This Year’s Schedule
Friday, Oct. 28
430 Registration opens
530 Directors’ Welcome and Candle Lighting
545 Welcoming Shabbat with Jill and Shoshana
730 Shabbat Dinner
900 Small Groups
1000 Friday Evening Workshops
1100 Friday Night Tisch, 12 Step Meeting
Saturday, Oct 29
900 Breakfast and Women’s Table
1015 Kate Bornstein, The Tao of Mitzvah, Sabbath & Bodhisattva
Shacharit at area shuls
1145 Shabbat Lunch
100 Afternoon session 1
Fact and Fiction: Storytelling for GLBT Jews (Wayne Hoffman)
The Music of Kabbalah (Neil Manel Frau-Cortes)
Relational Community Organizing for LGBTQ Inclusion (Joanna Ware)
215 Afternoon session 2
What Comes After Marriage? (Gabriel Blau, Sharon Groves, Jay Michaelson)
Jewish Dreamwork 101 (Rabbi Jill Hammer)
345 Afternoon session 3
When Men Menstruated: Midrashic Histories of Gender (Raphael Magarik)
TBA (Nathan Schaefer)
500 Small groups
545 Dinner
730 Havdalah on the Roof (Chani Getter & Shoshana Jedwab)
830 Nehiween Costume Party featuring Schmekel
Sunday, Oct 30
830 Coffee
915 Sunday morning session
Freedom & Responsibility (Zvi Bellin)
Ritual workshop (Rafael Magarik)
1030 Sunday brunch session: Religion’s Role in the LGBT Rights Movement (Jay Michaelson, Ross Murray, and Marc Solomon)
1200 Closing program
Program Directors
Dr. Zvi Bellin, Retreat Co-Director is the Engagement Associate for Nehirim and is responsible for pastoral counseling, community relations, and programming at Nehirim retreats. He leads workshops and directs retreats that integrate body-heart-mind-soul in a variety of spiritual and religious contexts. Zvi earned a PhD in Pastoral Counseling and an M.A. in Counseling and Guidance. He is a Registered Yoga Teacher with the Yoga Alliance. He has worked as a therapist in a number of mental health settings, and has interned as a Psychiatric Chaplain. In addition to his work with Nehirim, Zvi is the Director of Jewish Education for Moishe House.
Marlene Rachelle is our New York City Progam Director at Nehirim and the Co-Director of Queer Shabbaton New York. Marlene received an MA in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary with a concentration in informal and communal education. She went back to school after leaving her position as Senior Producer at MTV Networks where she had worked for over ten years. She was an Education Intern at the JCC in Manhattan’s Family Life and Community Programs department where she designed programs for the LGBTQ community. She is the former Communications Manager at Nehirim. Marlene lives in Manhattan with her wife Laurel and their son Eli.
Featured Presenter
Kate Bornstein is a fierce advocate for youth and “gender outlaws.” She is a Jewish transgender author, playwright, performance artist and gender theorist. Born Albert Bornstein, Kate was raised in a Conservative Jewish community in New Jersey. She is best known for her groundbreaking books Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us, My Gender Workbook and Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws.Her many plays and performance pieces explore queer identity and the rigid binary system of gender and sexuality that reinforce homophobia and transphobia.
LGBT Activism Panelists
Kate McDonough is the Lead Organizer for the Empire State Pride Agenda. Based in New York City, Kate helps coordinate statewide campaigns to win equality and justice for LGBT New Yorkers and our families. Recently, Kate ran the Pride Agenda’s organizational wide marriage campaign. In addition, Kate oversees the Pride Agenda’s Pride in the Pulpit program, which empowers religious leaders throughout the state to voice support for LGBT equality as well as providing necessary tools for faith based organizations to become more accepting and open to the LGBT community.
Jay Michaelson’s new book, God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality, has been called “a salvo in the case for equality” by Publisher’s Weekly and has earned rave reviews from Michael Musto, Lambda Literary Review, Edge, and a wide variety of other publications. The founding director of Nehirim, Jay is currently Associate Editor of Religion Dispatches magazine and Contributing Editor to the Forward. He was recently included on the “Forward 50″ list of the fifty most influential Jewish leaders in America.
Ross Murray is the Director of Religion, Faith and Values at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). The Religion, Faith & Values team works with denominational groups and faith leaders to help elevate their voices in the mainstream media, and works with both mainstream and faith based media outlets to ensure that the stories of inclusive faith leaders and communities appear in the media. Prior to GLAAD, Ross was Deputy Director of Lutherans Concerned North America.
Marc Solomon is one of the nation’s most important leaders in advancing the freedom of gay and lesbian couples to marry. Solomon presently serves as national campaign director for Freedom to Marry. Marc guides the strategy to win more states, grow public support, and end the federal government’s denial of recognition to same-sex couples. Solomon co-led New Yorkers United for Marriage, the coalition that partnered with Governor Andrew Cuomo to pass the marriage equality law in New York. As executive director of MassEquality, Solomon led the campaign to defeat two constitutional amendments in Massachusetts, the first freedom to marry state in the nation. Solomon has consulted with state-wide equality organizations in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, and with organizations in Ireland and Singapore. He also served as marriage director of Equality California. An attendee of observant day school through middle school in Kansas City, Solomon was the recipient of Keshet’s first Chacham Lev award.
Gabriel Blau is the Director of Development and Communications of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, activist, teacher and author. A member of the advisory board of The LGBT Religious Archives Network and Nehirim and a long time activist and teacher in the LGBT Jewish community, Gabriel has spoken and taught around the country and in Israel, including at Machon Schechter in Jerusalem, Yale University, Columbia Univsersity and the Rothko Chapel in Houston. The founder of the God & Sexuality Conference and founding member of JQYouth, Gabriel has served on numerous committees and groups to organize for the needs of LGBTQ Jews. Gabriel studied theology at Bard College and the Conservative Yeshiva.
Pete Webb is a member of the Board of Governors of the Human Rights Campaign. He is a longtime community activist working for LGBT civil rights and equality issues, and has been involved with HRC for nearly twenty years.
Faculty
Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D. is the Chair of the Board of Directors of Nehirim. She is Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy of Jewish Religion, as well as the director and co-founder of Tel Shemesh, a website celebrating and creating Jewish earth-based traditions, and the co-founder of Kohenet, a program in earth-based and embodied Jewish spiritual leadership for women. She is the author of The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons (2006) and Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women (2001). Rabbi Hammer teaches in Manhattan and around the country on ancient and contemporary midrash, bibliodrama, ritual-making, the Divine Feminine, and the cycles of Jewish time. She received a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1996 and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001.
Wayne Hoffman is author of two novels with GLBT and Jewish themes, Sweet Like Sugar and Hard, and editor of the anthologyWhat We Brought Back: Jewish Life After Birthright. His short fiction and personal essays have appeared in such anthologies asBest Gay Stories 2010, I Like It Like That, Mama’s Boy, and Generation Q. A longtime journalist, he has served as editor of theNew York Blade and The Forward, and has written for such publications as the Washington Post, Village Voice, The Nation, andThe Advocate. He is deputy editor of Nextbook Press, which publishes the Jewish Encounters book series. He lives in New York City and the Catskills.
Shoshana Jedwab is an award-winning Jewish educator and “primal percussionist.” She drums for Kirtan Rabbi, Congregation Romemu, Chana Rothman, Storahtelling, earth-based celebrations, healing circles, retreats, shamans, and synagogues. Shoshana has taught Jewish Studies to adults, adolescents and teens for more than twenty years and serves as the Middle School Jewish Studies Coordinator at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York City.. She has trained in bibliodrama and psychodrama and is on the faculty of Kohenet, Nehirim, and Storahtelling where she co-creates ritual experience and embodied prayer, and serves as sacred drummer. Her first cd Kirtan Rabbi Live is available in the Isabella Freedman bookstore. More info: shoshanajedwab.com.
Raphael Magarik is a writer, a student of rabbinic texts, and an aspiring shochet. He has a BA from Yale in English, studied at Yeshivat Maale Gilboa (among other yeshivot), and worked at The New York Times. Currently a fellow with the Tikvah foundation: he spends his time studying talmud at Yeshivat Hadar, reading Yiddish literature, and learning shechitah (jewish ritual slaughter). He’s interested in the places where texts can meet and transform the world.
Neil Manel Frau-Cortes works as a music teacher and a cantor in central Pennsylvania. After studying at the Professional Conservatory of Palma and Taller de Musics of Barcelona, Neil earned an MA in Hebrew Linguistics (U. Barcelona), MA in Jewish Music (Gratz College), and Cantorial investiture (RRC). A published translator and music scholar, he is expected to defend his doctoral dissertation in early 2012. Neil is passionate about Sephardic music, Jewish mysticism, jam sessions, and languages. More information at www.manelfrau.info
As Keshet’s Lead Organizer and Training Coordinator, Joanna Ware employs grassroots community organizing strategies to build powerful communities of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and allied people working for justice, equality, and the full inclusion of LGBT people in the Jewish world. In Massachusetts, Joanna directs Keshet’s organizing in the Jewish community on behalf of gender justice and trans equality, and represents Keshet on the Interfaith Coalition for Trans Equality. Joanna’s academic background is in gender studies, middle east studies, and politics, and she joined Keshet in 2009 with experience in Jewish youth work and informal education, anti-violence and anti-sexism education and prevention, policy advocacy, and community organizing.