Nehirim Southeast
November 19-21, 2010
Camp Twin Lakes, Atlanta

The first annual Nehirim Southeast Retreat is a weekend of spirituality, culture, relaxation and fun for GLBT Jews, partners, and allies.   

Join us for…

…a diverse community of 100 LGBT Jews, partners, & families ranging in age from 18-75; orthodox to atheist; gay men, lesbians, genderqueers, bisexuals, transgender folk, straight allies; singles, familes, couples (including many non-Jewish partners).   Whoever you are, there are people like you at Nehirim!

-…spirituality from traditional shabbat davening to meditation, yoga, and dance; Hasidic melodies and alternative ritual; secular Torah study and honoring the Divine Feminine.  No Hebrew knowledge required.

  …a wide range of programs and workshops — some are spiritual, some are just good fun; you can stretch your mind or stretch your body; and of course there’s plenty of free time to relax and connect.

…teachers from a broad range of religious & secular backgrounds (see below for list).  Rabbis, drag queens, professors, queer activists — our faculty includes the most innovative and interesting queer Jewish teachers in the world.

This page will be updated in August with further information and registration for the retreat.

Pricing:

Camp bunks (quads): $175
Triple (shared bath): $275
Double (shared bath): $325
Double (private bath): $375
Single (private bath): $475
Kosher food supplement: $75

(Default food will be vegetarian)

Retreat Co-Directors

Jay Michaelson

Jay Michaelson is the founder and executive director 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 on the subject has appeared on NPR, and in Tikkun, the Jerusalem Post, the Duke Law Review, the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, and anthologies including Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer (2004), Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice(2007) and Jews and Sex (2008). Jay is a columnist for the Forward newspaper, Tikkun, and Reality Sandwich magazine, and a featured contributor to the Huffington Post. He is the author of God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2006), Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007), and Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009).

Rabbi Joshua Lesser

Rabbi Joshua Lesser leads Atlanta’s growing Congregation Bet Haverim as a place dedicated to celebrating all aspects of Jewish life and creating a spiritual home that is accessible to those who have not connected in other settings. As a former Teach For America corps member, Rabbi Lesser is committed to creating innovative programs and events to further their Jewish education in fun and exciting ways. At Bet Haverim, he has worked with a wide variety of groups and coalitions to build a better community for Atlanta, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta’s Task Force on Healing and Spirituality. In partnership with the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta and Jewish Family & Career Services, he founded The Rainbow Center, a place of support and information for GLBTQ people, as well as their families.

Teachers and Presenters

Rabbi Aaron Katz

My name is Aaron Katz,. After 30 years in the Rabbinate, my partner and I decided to move from California to Florida. I was born in Argentina and moved to Israel in 1974 where I received my rabbinical diploma”Smicha”by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. In 1979 I was appointed the Orthodox Rabbi of Stockholm and Sweden where I lived for the next 14 years. From there I was working in Israel, Germany, Spain and California. While in Los Angeles, I was teaching at the Rabbinical School, was a scholar in residence in different communities,worked as the researcher and historian for the “Rashi’s Daughters” trilogy and was leading two communities. Through my travels I began to understand that Judaism is not just a question of color, political affiliation or a group association. Judaism is a question of identity. We need to bring to our members a feeling of belonging, a connection to our past and a eye toward the future.

Move unites largest provider of national programming for LGBT Jewish community
with vibrant student organization

(New York), (NY), (June 1, 2010) — Two of the largest organizations serving the lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Jewish community have today merged into one. Nehirim, which runs retreats and other programs for GLBT Jews, and NUJLS, the National Union of Jewish LGBTIQQ Students, will combine operations effective June 1. Nehirim is the largest national provider of community programming for GLBT Jews, and NUJLS was one of the first national GLBT Jewish organizations, founded in 1997.

“This is a natural combination of two strong organizations,” said Jay Michaelson, the executive director of Nehirim who was recently recognized on the ‘Forward 50’ list of the fifty most influential Jewish leaders in America. “NUJLS is the leader in programming for GLBT Jewish students, and Nehirim is the leader in programming for GLBT Jews in general.”

As a result of the merger, Sasha T. Goldberg, Nehirim’s Assistant Director since 2007 and the current Board President of NUJLS, will become Nehirim’s Associate Director and Director of Student Programming. A new “Student Programming Advisory Board” will be created, with representatives from NUJLS’s former board of directors and student activists. Nehirim will run the popular NUJLS student conference, together with student leaders.

Said Goldberg, “Building on the strength and history of NUJLS and the incredible NUJLS students, I am greatly looking forward to growing the student programming at Nehirim to provide a national, cohesive, and vibrant hub of Jewish life for each Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Jewish student.”

For the first year of the merger, the NUJLS name will be retained, but as “NUJLS, a project of Nehirim.” The organizations will combine their programmatic, leadership, administrative, and financial operations.

David Levy, a NUJLS board member, said “This merger enables NUJLS to better fulfill its mission, and to develop the next generation of Jewish LGBT student leaders. We are excited to be part of Nehirim!”

Founded in 2003, Nehirim is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and is supported by the Charles & Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston, and the Jewish Community Foundation of San Francisco, as well as individual supporters.

For questions or excerpt and interview requests, please contact:
Marlene Rachelle, Communications Manager: marlene@nehirim.org

This video discusses Nehirim’s mission and features interviews with several Nehirim participants describing the impact our work has had on their lives

Our Supporters

Nehirim’s institutional supporters include The Charles & Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, The Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston, The Walter & Elise Haas Fund, The Dorot Foundation, The Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, 18 Pomegranates, The Roots & Branches Foundation, and others.

The Need We Meet

“I am grateful that you are doing what you do at Nehirim – It’s good to know that although I pulled totally away from my Jewishness when coming out -I don’t have to stay away. I can incorporate Shabbat and the other traditions into my life to continue to feel enriched and connected and be able to loving share our heritage with my children. Thank you all for what you have done and what you are doing.”   – Participant at Women’s Retreat, 2009

The need Nehirim meets is acute: in an era of demographic uncertainty for the Jewish people, thousands of Jews are being actively turned away from Jewish communal life.  Our evaluation data shows that, even in metropolitan areas such as New York and San Francisco, 25% to 50% of Nehirim participants have little or no involvement with organized Jewish life, due in part to continued discrimination against GLBT people, and in part to GLBT people’s own perceived need to choose between religion and sexuality, between God and gay.  Nehirim is the primary “point of entry” for thousands of GLBT Jews, and offers the only engagement program in the country for this population.

Nehirim also serves a deep and moving personal need.  Imagine being sent to “reparative therapy,” excommunicated from one’s family, or forced to give up custody of one’s own children because of your sexual orientation – our participants have experienced all of this and more.  Imagine being told, for decades, that God hates you because of who you are and who you love.  While Nehirim’s systemic impact is measured in terms of the impact of our programs on individual affiliation and communal transformation, the personal impact of the programs on our participants is often measured in tears.

Our Vision

Our twofold vision is, first, of a day when no GLBT person will be taught to hate themselves, or that religion and sexual expression are incompatible — when no GLBT person is wounded by sanctioned or subtle exclusion – and second, of a Jewish community enriched by the differences of its members.  Just as the inclusion of women into Jewish leadership transformed the Jewish community, so too the inclusion of GLBT people into Jewish life will as well — for the better.

To realize Nehirim’s vision requires a multi-pronged approach.  Working “top-down,” policies and “safe spaces” are necessary to institutionalize non-discrimination and inclusion.  Nehirim, however, works from the grass roots, “bottom-up”: transforming mainstream Jewish institutions by transforming the people who make them up.  Our immersion weekends inspire our participants to take leadership roles at home, to be more visible in their home communities, and to transform institutions from within.  As stated above, this is how studies have shown attitudes toward homosexuality change in America: through person-to-person contact.

Impact

“A week after my first Nehirim event four years ago, I became a board member of my synagogue. I have remained active in leadership ever since. I know that the connections I make each year at Nehirim and the sense of myself I experience at the retreats help me to persevere in my synagogue work. It gives me an important point of reference.” –  Participant in Nehirim East 2009

“Nehirim welcomed me into Jewish life. I am a member of CBST [Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, New York’s GLBT synagogue] now and I wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for Nehirim.”   –  Participant in Queer Shabbaton, 2008

Within five years, Nehirim will have brought over 10,000 GLBT Jews, partners, and allies on intensive weekend retreats.   According to our post-retreat surveys, over 40% of participants report having little or no contact with Jewish institutional life.  We will have reached an additional 40,000 people at lower-impact local events such as art openings and lectures.  And our educational materials and initiatives will have reached tens of thousands more.  In this way, we will do the “retail” work that complements the “wholesale” work of policies and position papers.  Of course, these numbers are lower than the number of people who read an online magazine or visit a museum.  But the impact, while narrower, is deeper.

Nehirim’s programs have a twofold impact.  For participants, Nehirim provides a powerful immersion experience that allows participants to integrate their religious and sexual identities and to build community with other GLBT Jews locally and around the country.  These experiences, as our ongoing longitudinal study is showing, have powerful lasting impacts in terms of communal affiliation, Jewish identity, and the personal, spiritual health of participants themselves.  They are life-changing experiences.

Second, Nehirim retreats have a wider impact on participants’ home communities.  Our data shows that participants return home energized and inspired to take leadership roles in their home communities.  Anecdotally, our participants report going on to yeshiva in Israel (the first transgender Pardes student went, he said, as a result of his experience at Nehirim), starting GLBT groups at their synagogues, and taking leadership positions in their congregations.  In this way, Nehirim has a ripple effect on those communities.  Every study that has been done on American attitudes toward gay people has shown that attitudes depend less on policies or laws than on personally knowing “out” gay people.  Our participants return home energized and inspired by our retreats, and become more involved as “out” members of their communities.  They thus become change agents, transforming not only their own lives but the communities in which they reside.

Nehirim’s theory of change is that by inspiring and welcoming GLBT Jews in our immersive weekend programs, we cause those Jews to take on leadership roles in their home communities, transforming the institutions and cultures of which they are a part. These efforts  complement the advocacy and research projects of our sister GLBT Jewish organizations, and transform mainstream Jewish communities from within.

We have seen the success of this model both quantitatively and qualitatively: our participants have gone on to become rabbinical students, community leaders, and more active members of the Jewish world, and have directly attributed these decisions to Nehirim. Our  data also shows that over 25% of Nehirim participants have little or no involvement with synagogue or Jewish communal life, and have felt actively excluded from it. Anecdotally, many of these participants tell us that Nehirim is the first time they have felt welcome in a Jewish context, and that Nehirim has inspired them to pursue Jewish affiliation at home.

Organizational Snapshot

Nehirim was founded in 2005 as a fiscal project of the Jewish Funds for Justice.  It became an independent 501(c)(3) organization in May, 2009.  Nehirim has brought thousands of LGBT Jews, partners, and allies to intensive weekend retreats, and has impacted tens of thousands more through its local programs, and through its participants’ leadership in their home communities.  Nehirim is the leading provider of programming for the LGBT Jewish community, and is one of three national organizations leading the fight for a more inclusive Jewish community, and a more active role for progressive Jews on the national stage.  We have hosted vigils, rallies, and teach-ins; we have spoken to state legislatures and marched in parades; and we have taken leadership roles within the Jewish world.

About our executive director

Jay Michaelson is the founder and executive director 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.  He has worked on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign and Empire State Pride Agenda, and was a leading activist in the successful efforts to change the Conservative movement’s position on homosexuality.   His work on the subject has appeared on NPR, and in Tikkun, Blithe House Quarterly, the Jerusalem Post, the Duke Law Review, the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, and anthologies including Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer (2004), Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice (2007) and Jews and Sex (2008). He also wrote the Coming Out ritual for the Human Rights Campaign.  In 2009, he was recognized on the Forward 50 list of the fifty most influential Jewish leaders in America.

In addition to his work with Nehirim, Jay is a writer and scholar whose work focuses on the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, Judaism, and law. Jay is a columnist for the Forward newspaper, the Huffington Post, Tikkun, Zeek, and Reality Sandwich magazines. He is the author of Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009),  God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2006) and Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007).

Jay holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a B.A. from Columbia, and an MA from Hebrew University.  He was a founder of Wasabi Systems, later a multimillion-dollar, venture-funded software company.  Before starting Nehirim, Jay founded Zeek Media Inc., the publisher of Zeek magazine and a leading institution of the “new Jewish culture.”  In addition to his teaching and writing, Jay brings his business and legal background to the operations of Nehirim.

Contact us

To learn more about Nehirim and how you can support our work, please contact us.

About the Program

It’s the gayest Jewish summer camp ever! Nehirim’s newest program is five days of swimming, hiking, volleyball, river tubing, campfires, hot tubbing, cookouts, delicious food, inspiring workshops, and that special Nehirim ruach (spirit) of community and spirituality. Imagine the best of Jewish summer camp… but everyone’s gay!

Camp Nehirim for Nice Jewish Boys is coming up July 21-25, 2010, at the EastonMountain retreat center in upstate New York. Easton has a swimming pool, miles of hiking trails, sauna, hot tub, a gorgeous lakeside setting, and hotel-style accommodations. (Sure, it’s summer camp, but we’re not going to stay in bunks!) Camp Nehirim is a little “lighter” than the average Nehirim retreat — we’ll still be building warm & supportive community with one another, but we’ll have fewer workshops and more time outside, a little less organized spiritual practice and a little more sports, swimming, and free time. A tentative schedule is below.

Registration and Pricing

Registration is now online: CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW

Registration fees, including all room & board, are as follows:

Schedule

Faculty

Jay Michaelson

Jay Michaelson is the founder and executive director 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 on the subject has appeared on NPR, and in Tikkun, the Jerusalem Post, the Duke Law Review, the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, and anthologies including Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer (2004), Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice(2007) and Jews and Sex (2008). Jay is a columnist for the Forward newspaper, Tikkun, and Reality Sandwich magazine, and a featured contributor to the Huffington Post. He is the author of God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2006), Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007), and Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009).

David Dunn Bauer

David Dunn Bauer served as rabbi of the Jewish Community of Amherst from 2003-2010 after a 15-year career as a stage manager and stage director of theater and opera in the U.S., Europe, and Israel. Prior to his ordination, Rabbi Bauer served for two years as the spiritual leader of Congregation Ahavath Shalom, a Reconstructionist congregation in Great Barrington, MA. As a student in Israel in 1999, led regular Torah study at the Jerusalem Open House. He was a 2000-2001 Cooperberg-Rittmaster intern at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in NYC. Rabbi Bauer received training in pastoral counseling as a rabbinical intern at the Philadelphia Geriatric Center in 1998 and 1999. With life coach Michael J. Cohen, he created and led “Celebrating the Body Judaic: a Body Electric Shabbaton for Gay and Bisexual Jewish Men” in 2006 and 2007. Rabbi Bauer teaches on subjects ranging from opera and Jewish theatre to sexuality and images of the body in Jewish liturgy and sacred text.

Jonathan Comisar began his music career in his native Rochester, New York, where he studied piano in the preparatory department of the Eastman School of Music. At the age of 17, he won first prize in the Eastman Young Artists Award and performed as piano soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Cantor Comisar continued to study piano and music theory at Oberlin and after graduation, studied composition with Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Del Tredici. A graduate of the Hebrew Union College School of Sacred Music in 2000, Cantor Comisar has served the Community Synagogue of Rye, New York for the past five years. Jonathan Comisar has been recently chosen to participate as a composer in the prestigious Lehman Engel BMI Musical Theatre Workshop.

Jonathan Vatner is a writing teacher, as well as a freelance writer and editor specializing in travel, interior design, food, books, music, and psychology. He is completing his MFA in Writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Jonathan was senior associate editor at O at Home, Oprah’s interior-design magazine, and for five years before that, a reporter and feature-writer at Meetings & Conventions magazine. He has written for The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, Hemispheres, and The Advocate.

Mike Dreyden made his Nehirim teaching debut at the Men’s Retreat this year. From gogo boy to model to adult film star, Mike has become a star in the gay adult entertainment industry and continues on a trajectory toward superstardom. He has appeared and can be seen dancing at events such as Saint at Large parties including the Black Party as well as local NYC bars including The Eagle, The Cock and others. Mike won the coveted 2008 GLAMMY award for go-go boy of the year.

Zachary Wager Scholl is a queer artist, dancer, performer, and
community organizer. He is currently pursuing a degree in theater and performance from LaGuardia Community College, where he will graduate this fall. Most recent theatrics have been: The Artist is Absent; JFREJ/Workmen’s Circle Purimshpil; Between Two Worlds: Who Loved You Before You Were Mine; Boys in the Band; Angels in America; and a slew of others. Zachary also performs with Rude Mechanical Orchestra’s Tactical Spectacle dance/extravaganza crew, and is an active member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

Special Information

Because this is a new program at a new facility, there are some new details that differ from past programs.

• The Easton Mountain kitchen is not kosher. At present, our plan is to provide vegetarian food most of the time, and a strictly kosher meat barbecue for two meals, with hechsher-kosher catered options available for all who request them in advance. However, if enough people request kosher food on their registration forms, we will kasher Easton’s kitchen (Orthodox mashgiach) and serve kosher food on new dishes. We will make this decision on July 1, so please register early if you’d like this option!
• Our current plan is to offer our usual parallel services, traditional and renewal, at all times. Please see our halachic information page for more detail about Nehirim’s halachic practice.
• Easton Mountain does not have an eruv, but if there is sufficient interest, we’ll have an eruv-building party on Friday morning.
• Massage and other healing services will be available for an additional fee.
• Easton Mountain’s swimming pool, hot tub, sauna, and outdoor showers are clothing-optional.
• We will be sharing space with Easton’s residential community, consisting of 15-20 residents and summer volunteers, all of whom are men who love other men. This is why our program is open to men only this year; next year, if there is sufficient demand, we will have either a co-ed camp or a women’s camp in addition.

Transportation. Easton is accessible by Amtrak train to Albany. Easton staff will arrange pickups at the train station Wednesday at 2:15pm (Depart New York Penn Station at 11:45am) and Friday at 3:15pm (Depart New York Penn Station at 12:45pm). Expensive taxis are available at other times. We will drop you off at the train station Sunday at 2:00pm (arrive NYC at 4:35pm). The cost of the train fare goes up with time — as of July 9, it is $37 each way. In our experience, there are always enough rides back to New York City, so we suggest buying one-way tickets only — but that’s up to you!

To offer or request rides to/from your area, please visit our rideboard at www.nehirim.org/board. Many people are coming from New York City — if you have space in your car, please do put your name on the ride board. It’s a mitzvah!

Questions? Ask us.

The Nehirim Queer Shabbaton DC is an “urban retreat” of community, culture, and spirituality for GLBT Jews, partners, & allies.   It is a weekend filled with workshops, lectures and discussion groups on queer and Jewish issues. Intellectually stimulating and spiritually inspiring, the Queer Shabbaton has been held for three years in New York and Amsterdam — now it comes to Washington D.C. for the first time, presented in partnership with GLOE, the Gay & Lesbian Outreach & Engagement program at the Washington DCJCC.  Click here to Register Now

Our presenters include HRC Faith & Religion activist Sharon Groves, Israeli literature professor Yaron Peleg, co-founder of the Hebrew Priestess Institute Holly Taya Shere, leading Israeli GLBT activist and law professor Aeyal Gross, and Nehirim executive director, Jay Michaelson, recently named to the “Forward 50″ list of the fifty most influential Jews in the U.S.  Workshop topics range from the intersection of GLBT identity and Israel/Palestine politics to writing as a Jewish spiritual practice, gender in the work of Philip Roth to practical advice on legally protecting relationships outside of marriage.  We also include a wide menu of spiritual options, from Torah study to yoga, meditation to Shabbat services, to make the weekend a transformative and enjoyable one.

Nehirim’s programs generally attract 100-150 GLBT Jews (straight allies and non-Jewish partners welcome) from across the religious-ideological spectrum, ranging in age from 18-70 (usually, most are in their 20s-40s), and with a wide variety of gender and sexual orientation identities.  Transgender nice Jewish boys, avowed atheists, couples and singles, men, women, and the rest of us — there are people like you at Nehirim.

When: 5pm on Friday, February 5 through 1pm on Sunday, February 7
Where: DC JCC,16th & Q Streets, Washington, DC
How much: Sliding scale from $80-140. Financial aid available — no one from DC area turned away for lack of funds.

Click here to Register Now

To offer or request transportation or housing, and to connect with other parents over childcare needs, visit our Ride, Housing, and Parent Board.

Please click a link to learn more:
Tachlis (Logistics): Cost, Transportation, Housing, etc.
Financial Aid
Sample Schedule
Halachic information
Presenters and Educators
Our Partners and Sponsors

Tachlis (Logistics): Cost, Housing, Transportation, etc.

Pricing (includes 5 kosher meals)

Discount Rate: $100

Base Rate: $140
Supporter Rate: $180

Prices include all shabbat meals plus Sunday brunch, as well as all program costs for the shabbaton.

Housing & Location

The Queer Shabbaton will be held at the DC JCC at 1529 16th Street NW (at Q), Washington DC, 20036.

We will not be providing housing or transportation to the retreat. Need a place to stay? Check out our Ride, Housing, and Parent Boards by clicking here.

Coming from NYC? Megabus is having a promotion for a free bus ride — use the code GETAWAY and the Fri, Feb 5 11am bus shows up as FREE (with just a $.50 reservation fee) the return trip costs a bit more — but you get there free!

Financial Assistance

Although the price of the Shabbaton is already heavily subsidized, we are pleased to have scholarship money available thanks to the generosity of our supporters and partners at GLOE. Financial aid is available through a simple application process which takes five minutes to complete. If you would like to apply for a scholarship, please apply here.

Tentative Queer Shabbaton DC Schedule

Friday, February 5, 2010
4:00 Registration
5:15 Welcome and Candle Lighting
5:30 Opening Program
6:30 Friday Night Shabbat Services w/Jay Michaelson and Rabbi Tobi Manewith
8:00 Shabbat Dinner
9:30 Mishpacha Groups
10:30 Evening Program: Tisch (song, drink, celebration), Women’s Coffee Hour, 12-Step Meeting
11:30 Laila Tov! (Good Night!)

Saturday, February 6
9:30-11:15 Traditional Shabbat Morning Services w/DC Minyan
Renewal Shabbat Services w/Holly Taya Shere & Zvi Bellin
Discussion Group at 10:30 w/ Sasha T. Goldberg
12:00 Lunch
1:30-2:30 Afternoon Session 1
•Homoeroticism in Modern Hebrew Literature (Yaron Peleg)
• Creative Jewish RitualCraft (Holly Taya Shere)

•Marriage or Bust? Legal Alternatives and Practical Realities for Sam-Sex Couples (Erica Gloger)
2:45-3:45 Afternoon Session 2
• Yiddishe Mama to The Nanny: Acculturation, Resistance and Stereotypes of the Jewish Woman (Sasha T. Goldberg)
• Yiddish Shamans in the City (Zvi Bellin)
• Yitro and Time Management (Rabbi Toby Manewith)
4:00-5:00 Afternoon Session 3
• Why Gay Rights is a Religious Issue (Jay Michaelson)
• Kabbalistic Insights to the Shema (Rafael Goldstein)
• The Need to Give Back (Alex Greenbaum)
5:15-5:45 Afternoon Spiritual Practice
Snacks will be available for an early Seudah Shlishit (3rd meal)
• Yoga (Zvi Bellin)
• Mincha (Self-facilitated)
6:00 Mishpacha groups
7:15 Dinner
8:30 Maariv, Havdalah & Dancing

9:30 Evening Program: Ghost Tour of Georgetown, Bibliodrama, Movie Night at Alex’s

Sunday, March 9
9:00 Sunday Morning Session
• Yoga (Zvi Bellin)
• Writing as a Spiritual Practice (Eryca Kasse)
10:00 Brunch is served
10:30-11:30 Keynote brunch talk by Sharon Groves of the Human Rights Campaign
11:30-12:30 Community Building & Power Networking session
12:30 Closing program

Retreat Co-Directors

Alex Greenbaum

Born and bred in the modern Orthodox Jewish community in London, Alex Greenbaum is vice chair of Washington DC JCC’s LGBT program, GLOE. In the last couple of years, he has become increasingly involved in Jewish community organizing. In October, he arranged a large queer Simchat Torah in DC to coincide with the National Equality March. He also volunteers with adults with disabilities and with the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. A macroeconomist in his professional life, Alex works with developing-country governments and private sector groups to establish effective economic policy. Alex has a Master’s degree in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Manchester.

Jay Michaelson

Jay Michaelson is the founder and executive director 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 on the subject has appeared on NPR, and in Tikkun, the Jerusalem Post, the Duke Law Review, the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, and anthologies including Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer (2004), Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice(2007) and Jews and Sex (2008). Jay is a columnist for the Forward newspaper and Reality Sandwich magazine, a featured contributor to the Huffington Post. He is the author of God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2006) and Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007). His next book is Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009).

Teachers and Presenters

Sharon Groves, Keynote Speaker

Sharon Groves is the Deputy Director of the Religion and Faith Program at the Human Rights Campaign and has overseen the creation of numerous new resources, including a weekly preaching resource, a guide to living openly in your place of worship, a curriculum that follows the movie For the Bible Tells Me So and another that helps congregations wrestle with issues of gender identity within their faith communities. She has published a number of articles on such topics and religion and marriage equality, the importance of religious advocacy within the LGBT movement and the struggle for equality within world religions.

Sharon previously served as managing editor for Feminist Studies, an interdisciplinary scholarly journal housed at the University of Maryland, where she also taught courses in English literature, literature and social change, and women’s studies. She is a lay leader at All Souls Church, Unitarian, where she has chaired the Committee on Ministry and worked extensively on issues of racial justice, community voting rights and neighborhood outreach. Sharon received her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Maryland in 2000 and since then has engaged in extensive course work in theology and sexuality from Wesley Theological Seminary and the Chicago Theological Seminary.

Yaron Peleg

Yaron Peleg is Associate Professor of Hebrew at George Washington University and the director of the GW Hebrew Program. He received his PhD in Hebrew literature from Brandeis University in 2000. Before coming to GW, Dr. Peleg taught Hebrew literature and Israeli cinema courses at Brandeis University and at Princeton University. Peleg’s publications include, Derech Gever: Homoeroticism in Hebrew Literature 1887-200, Orientalism and the Hebrew Imagination, and most recently, Israeli Culture Between the Two Intifadas: A Brief Romance. Professor Peleg is also co-author of the Hebrew textbook, Brandeis Modern Hebrew.

Rabbi Toby Manewith

Rabbi Toby Manewith grew up in Chicago and considers herself a city person at heart. She studied at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem and Cincinnati, earning a Master of Arts in Hebrew Letters and rabbinic ordination. After ordination, Manewith began a ten year career with Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, working as a campus director at Syracuse and American Universities, and as an educator at the George Washington University and Hillel’s International Center. As part of this work, Manewith led nearly twenty service and study tours overseas, to locations such as Germany, Prague, Ukraine and Israel. For the past number of years, Rabbi Manewith has worked as an independent Jewish educational consultant, writing curricula and teaching for many organizations including: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, the Professional Leaders’ Project, Smithsonian Resident Associates, Moving Traditions, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the DCJCC. Before coming to Bet Mishpachah, Rabbi Manewith was the associate rabbi at Temple Micah, a Reform Jewish congregation located in the District of Columbia.

Holly Taya Shere

Holly Taya Shere is a folklorist, ritual artist and educator on women’s spirituality and Renewal Judaism. She co-founded and co-directs Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, an organization and training program devoted to reclaiming and innovating models of embodied Jewish spiritual leadership, creativity and community from an earth-honoring, feminist perspective. Holly serves as Spiritual Leader at Olney Kehila Jewish Congregation, Education Director of Yavneh on the Hill and teaches Judaism and facilitates life-cycle ritual in many Washington, DC area Jewish communities. Holly also sits on the planning committee of the Sacred Circles Interfaith Women’s Spirituality Conference of the National Cathedral and the Women’s Faith and Development Alliance. Holly has also served as an executive officer on the board of directors of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, and remains a primary leader of their next generation programming.

Sasha T. Goldberg

Sasha T. Goldberg is the Assistant Director of Nehirim. Prior to joining Nehirim in 2007, she taught grades K-12 in Religious Schools, led Jewish teen retreats, and worked with a wide variety of Jewish organizations in the Bay Area. Sasha holds a Master’s Degree in Judaism from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for NUJLS, The National Union of Jewish LGBTQQI Students. In addition to her work at Nehirim, Sasha has a long history of queer advocacy and social justice work, and, accordingly, has organized conferences, film festivals, fundraisers, workshops, and events, as well as having spoken extensively on sexuality, gender, and identity. A self-proclaimed masculinity enthusiast, Sasha particularly enjoys facilitating discussions and workshops about the intersections of masculinity and various elements of cultural, social, sexual, and religious identities.

Zvi Bellin

Zvi Bellin is the Engagement Associate for Nehirim and is responsible for student outreach, internal 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. Zvi’s most recent interests include exploring the raw experience of meaning in life, and the integration of personal spirituality into a practice of holistic well-being. He is a co-founder of the Silver Spring Moishe House, a Jewish community house sponsored by the Schusterman Foundation.

Eryca Kasse

Eryca Kasse is a 35 year old, Jewish lesbian, spoken word performance poet, writer and student. She is currently working on her Masters in Social Work at Howard University with a concentration in Direct Service and Mental Health. Eryca has been a volunteer with Mothertongue – DC Women’s Spoken Word – facilitating women’s writing workshops. Her social work background includes working with women returning home from prison and jail, LGBT youth, and people struggling with homelessness and mental illness. Her dream job when she graduates would be facilitating therapeutic writing groups with incarcerated women. Eryca lives in Washington, DC with her two cats, Nina and Olive.

Erica Gloger

Erica F. Gloger is a lawyer in private practice in Bethesda, Maryland with a practice focused on traditional and non-traditional estate planning, tax, nonprofit organizations, and probate.  She holds a B.A. in law and society from American University, School of Public Affairs (1999, cum laude) and J.D. from the Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University (2003).  Ms. Gloger contributes her time pro bono at several not-for profit organizations, including the Whitman Walker Clinic.  She is a member of the DCJCC GLOE steering committee.

Rabbi Rafael Goldstein

Rabbi H. Rafael Goldstein (dynamicsofhope.com) currently serves as the Director of Pastoral Care at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. Ordained by the Academy for Jewish Religion in 1994, Rafael is a Board Certified Chaplain and Integrative Life Coach.  He served as the Director of Los Angeles Jewish AIDS Services, and a founder of the Jewish Healing Center of San Diego. Rafael is an author, with four books now in print, and a monthly column in both a Jewish newspaper (Phoenix Jewish News) and an LGBTQ newspaper, The Echo. As an Integrative Life Coach, he works with people living with serious illness, recovering from significant loss, and struggling with LGBTQ issues.

“Thank you” to our Partners:

Bet Mishpachah, Washington DC Area Egalitarian Synagogue

The day before Valentine’s Day, experience a “higher love” at this evening of amazing, passionate, spiritual love poetry written by queer mystics from across the ages. You’ll hear ancient and contemporary voices, set to music and rhythms and staged in a way that is anything but a “reading.” Hear Judah haLevy the way you’ve never heard him before, be moved by Hafiz and James Broughton, and hear contemporary poets (including Nehirim’s own Jay Michaelson) read, chant, shout, and sing their queer love poems for God.

Admit it, it’s a lot cooler (and hotter) than seeing a movie.

There’ll also be a short open-mic period, if you have some of your own verse to share, and plenty of time to relax and meet the nice gay boy or girl of your dreams.

“Business, medicine, law — these are all noble pursuits, and necessary for sustaining life. But poetry! Poetry is life.”
– Mr. Keating, Dead Poets Society

Cost: $8 members/$10 nonmembers. Pay at the door, or reserve a spot in advance through the JCC in Manhattan website.

Nehirim’s QUEER SHABBATON NEW YORK will be taking place October 29-31, 2010, in New York City.  Here’s last year’s program to give you a sense of what the Shabbaton is about.  This page will be updated in August with information and registration for the 2010 Shabbaton.

Join us for an urban retreat of culture, creativity, and community for GLBT Jews, partners, and allies. This is a Shabbaton like you’ve never experienced before, featuring:

• Pluralistic, alternative community of queer Jews of all ages, religious stripes, and political affiliations

• Workshops and presentations on gender and Judaism, sexuality, politics, spirituality, and more

• Programs and pricing that ensure that everyone is included, with full scholarships for students

• A wide range of spiritual options, from yoga and meditation to traditional davening (prayer) and text study

• Lots of good food and free time to enjoy Halloween weekend in NYC!

Last year, 120 queer Jews (plus partners and allies) joined us for the Queer Shabbaton New York, and we had to turn many people away. Don’t be left out!

Please click a link to learn more:

- Register Now!

- Tachlis (Logistics): Cost, Transportation, Housing, etc.

- Financial Aid

- Schedule

- Halachic information

- Presenters and Educators

- Sponsors

Tachlis (Logistics): Cost, Housing, Transportation, etc.a

Pricing

We are committed to enabling everyone to attend the Shabbaton, and look forward to a wide range of sexual, gender, economic, religious, and ethnic diversity.  Thus, we offer sliding scale rates.  If your wallet will allow, please consider registering at the regular or the supporter rate. Your generosity supports our current and future programming. Prices this year are:

Early Bird: $125

Discount Price: $155

Regular Price: $185

Supporter Price: $215

Prices include all shabbat meals plus Sunday brunch, as well as all program costs for the shabbaton.

Housing & Location

The Queer Shabbaton will be held at the JCC in Manhattan, at 334 Amsterdam Ave. (at 76th St.).

We will not be providing housing or transportation to the retreat. Need a ride? Need a place to stay? Want to offer a ride or a place to stay? Are you a parent who will be bringing children, who would like to share childcare with other parents? Check out our Ride, Housing, and Parent Boards by clicking here.

Financial Assistance

We are pleased to have scholarship money available thanks to the generosity of our supporters. We are thrilled to be able to help you attend. Financial aid is available through a simple application process. If you would like to apply for a scholarship, please apply here (before you register online).

Schedule

Friday, October 30th

2:00-4:00 Registration

4:00-5:00 Director’s Welcome and Opening Program

5:15-6:30 Friday night services (Actual candle-lighting time is 5:40pm)

*Please note that candle-lighting will take place immediately following the opening program.

6:45-8:15 Dinner and Singing

8:30-9:30 Mishpacha Group

9:45-11:00 Evening Program: Pumpkin Carving with Nehirim

• Tisch (song, drink, celebration)

• Women’s Coffee Hour

• 12-Step Meeting

11:00 Laila Tov! (Good Night!)

Saturday, October 31st

9:30-11:15

• Shabbat Morning Services

• Intimate Discussion Group, facilitated by Margot Meitner, M.S.W.

11:30-12:50 Lunch

1:00-2:00 Afternoon Session 1

•GLBT Jewish Leader Network

• Envisioning Queer Jewish Families–S. Bear Bergman and j wallace

• Jewish and Pagan Mysticism–Oli Stephano

• The Intersection of Israel and LGBT Identities–Dr. Caryn Aviv

2:10-3:30 Special Event

• Torah Queeries: Reading the Bible Through a Bent Lens–Gregg Drinkwater, Rabbi Jason Klein, Marla Brettschneider, Rabbi Jill Hammer

2:30-3:30 Afternoon Session 2

• Report from the Trenches–Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum

• Menschlekeit Bulldaggers and Balabusta Faggots: The Relevance of Traditional Jewish Gender Roles in our Queer Sexualities–Sasha T. Goldberg

• Yiddish Shamans in the City–Zvi Bellin

3:45-4:45 Afternoon Session 3

Snacks will be available for an early Seudah Shlishit (3rd meal)

• Living Positive: HIV and Faith–Marco Noam

• God Does Not Exist–God is Existence Itself–Jay Michaelson

• The Queer Political Divide: Why are we Fighting Ourselves?–Adrian Shanker

• Mincha at local area shuls

• Create Your Own Workshop

5:15-6:00 Mishpacha groups

6:10-7:20 Dinner

7:30-8:15 Maariv & Havdalah

8:30-10:30 Evening Program

• Premiere reading of The Material World, A Play by Dan Fishback

• Halloween Parade in the Village

11pm Laila Tov! (Good Night!)

Sunday, November 1st—Please note that Daylight Savings Time Ends

9:00-9:45 Sunday Morning Sessions

• Twice Blessed: A Visual Journey Through Queer Jewish History–Gregg Drinkwater

• Yoga–Zvi Bellin

• Hands-On Torah: Crafts for Parashat Lech Lecha–Ri J. Turner

• Manifesting Your Soul’s Desire–Chani Getter

10:00 am-11:00am Brunch

11:00-12:00 Keynote by Bob Morris, author of Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with My Dad

12:00-1:00 Closing program

Retreat Director

Sasha T. Goldberg, Assistant Director of Nehirim, Retreat Director

Sasha T. Goldberg is the Assistant Director of Nehirim. Prior to joining Nehirim in 2007, she taught grades K-12 in Religious Schools, led Jewish teen retreats, and worked with a wide variety of Jewish organizations in the Bay Area. Sasha holds a Master’s Degree in Judaism from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for NUJLS, The National Union of Jewish LGBTQQI Students. In addition to her work at Nehirim, Sasha has a long history of queer advocacy and social justice work, and, accordingly, has organized conferences, film festivals, fundraisers, workshops, and events, as well as having spoken extensively on sexuality, gender, and identity. A self-proclaimed masculinity enthusiast, Sasha particularly enjoys facilitating discussions and workshops about the intersections of masculinity and various elements of cultural, social, sexual, and religious identities. A city Jew in every way imaginable, Sasha is thrilled to direct the Queer Shabbaton New York.

Special Guests

Bob Morris

Bob Morris writes for The New York Times. He has been a commentator on “All Things Considered” and a contributor to The New Yorker, Elle, Vogue, Travel and Leisure and other publications. He is the featured commentator in You and Your Aging Parent, recently published by Oxford University Press, and he collaborated with Diahann Carroll on her memoir about aging, The Legs Are The Last To Go. His book Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating With My Dadis an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book and Lambda Literary finalist. Click here to buyAssisted Loving now. Morris grew up on Long Island, attended Brown University, and lives in Manhattan.

Dan Fishback

Dan Fishback has been writing and performing in NYC since 2003. He is a recipient of the 2007-2009 Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists. The resulting play, You Will Experience Silence, debuted in April 2009 at Dixon Place, where Fishback was an Artist-in-Residence. The following summer, he began a fellowship at the MacDowell Artists Colony to develop two new plays, The Material World and The Mattachine Project. Fishback’s band, Cheese On Bread, has toured Europe and North America, and released its sophomore album, “The Search for Colonel Mustard,” in 2007, in the United States and Japan. As a solo artist, he will drop his new full length studio album, “Mammal,” in 2010. Fishback fronts grunge band The Faggots, and has shared stages with Ani Difranco and Kimya Dawson as part of the punk dance troupe Underthrust. He regularly visits colleges all over the country to speak on queer and Jewish issues.

Teachers and Presenters

Sharon Kleinbaum

Rabbi Kleinbaum has been the spiritual leader of CBST, the world’s largest synagogue serving people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, since 1992, and is ranked among the top 50 rabbis in America. The subject of a profile in The New York Times, Rabbi Kleinbaum has worked, organized, protested, lectured and published widely and received numerous awards for her leadership. As a human rights advocate -for people of color, women, gays and lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, immigrants and Palestinians -she has been jailed, arrested, vilified, and lauded, all with equal aplomb. She has been a leader in the struggle against the radical right wing’s use of religion as a weapon against LGBT people everywhere. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner, Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig, where they raised two daughters, Liba and Molly.

Ayelet Cohen

Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen serves as a Rabbi of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST), the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender synagogue serving people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Prior to her ordination by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Rabbi Cohen served communities in France, England, and her native Montreal. Rabbi Cohen worked as a translator for Dr. Yossi Beilin when he served as Israel’s Minister of Justice and in his office in the Knesset. Passionately committed to progressive and feminist Judaism, she is an activist and an advocate for full inclusion and celebration of LGBT Jews in the Conservative movement and the larger Jewish world and an advocate for LGBT civil rights. Rabbi Cohen has been profiled in the New York Times and was named one of the “Heeb Hundred,” Heeb Magazine’s “hundred people you need to know about.” She was honored at the 2005 Ma’yan Seder as a leading young Jewish feminist activist.

S. Bear Bergman and J Wallace

S. Bear Bergman (www.sbearbergman.com) is an author, a theater artist, an instigator, a gender-jammer, and a good example of what happens when you overeducate a contrarian. Ze is also the author of Butch Is a Noun (Suspect Thoughts Press, 2006) and The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You (Arsenal Pulp, 2009), three award-winning solo performances, and is a frequent contributor to anthologies on all manner of topics from the sacred to the extremely profane. A longtime activist on behalf of anyone who wants to learn and be different at the same time (particularly queer/trans youth and students), Bear continues to work at the points of intersection between and among gender, sexuality, and culture, and spends a lot of time keeping people from installing traffic signals there.

j wallace and S Bear Bergman are Canadian homos looking forward to welcoming a small person in January. They’ve spent a lot of time in the last two years discussing and getting feedback (solicited and not) on their family planning. Both j and Bear, educators and activists by trade as well as by nature, are constitutionally unable to do anything with this much new information but teach about it (and since j has been part of Toronto’s Queer Parenting Network for a decade, he’s pretty much about to overflow). Find them online at sbearbergman.com and juxtaposeconsulting.com.

Jay Michaelson

Jay Michaelson is the founder and executive director 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 on the subject has appeared on NPR, and in Tikkun, the Jerusalem Post, the Duke Law Review, the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, and anthologies including Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer (2004), Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice(2007) and Jews and Sex (2008). Jay is a columnist for the Forward newspaper and Reality Sandwich magazine, a featured contributor to the Huffington Post. He is the author of God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2006) and Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007). His next book is Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009).

Dr. Caryn Aviv

Caryn Aviv is the director of research for Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity. She is also the Posen Lecturer in Secular Jewish Culture in the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, 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.

Gregg Drinkwater

Gregg Drinkwater is Executive Director of Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, an organization dedicated to helping Jewish institutions become more welcoming of LGBT Jews and their families. He is the co-editor of the book Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible (NYU Press, Oct. 2009), inspired by the online Torah commentary project launched by Jewish Mosaic in 2006, in collaboration with the World Congress of GLBT Jews. He has served as a volunteer, board member or advisor to a wide range of Jewish and LGBT organizations and is currently the president of Limmud Colorado. Drinkwater has worked in nonprofit communications, at a daily newspaper in Russia, and as the news editor for Gay.com and PlanetOut.com, the world’s most popular LGBT Web sites.

Marla Brettschneider

Marla Brettschneider is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire with a joint appointment in Political Science and Women’s Studies. She has just stepped down from her post for many years as Coordinator of Queer Studies to take on the Coordinatorship of Women’s Studies. Marla has written widely on Jewish politics, queer and other diversity matters; her most recent book The Family Flamboyant: Race Politics, Queer Families, Jewish Lives (SUNY 2006) won an IPPY (Independent Book Publishers Award) in the GLBT category.

Jill Hammer

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).

Shoshana Jedwab

Shoshana Jedwab is a prize winning Jewish educator and the Jewish Studies Coordinator at the A.J. Heschel Middle School in NYC. She is the founding facilitator of the Makom Drum Circle at the JCC in Manhattan and is a percussionist and performance artist who has trained in bibliodrama and psychodrama. Shoshana has provided empowering drum circles to singles, student, training, and bereavement groups. Shoshana has performed with: Storahtelling, Chana Rothman, Debbie Friedman, Akiva Wharton, A Song of Solomon, Hebrew Mystical Chant withthe Kirtan Rabbi, Andrew Hahn, and Tel Shemesh seasonal events.

Jennifer Gravitz

Rabbi Jennifer Gravitz hails from Rochester NY. She and her wife of 15 years have 4 kids, 4 grandkids and two dogs. When she is not talking about queer sex, she keeps busy as a college professor, lawyer and rabbi–but her best “job” of all is being Bubbee!

Margot Meitner

Margot Meitner is a Boston-based psychotherapist currently studying towards rabbinical ordination at Hebrew College. She holds a B.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies and History from Yale University and an M.S.W. from Smith College School for Social Work. Margot is committed to accompanying people on their journeys toward emotional and spiritual health. She believes in the power of both psychotherapy and ritual to create change and inspire healing in people’s lives and approaches her work understanding the interdependence of individual healing with communal healing and social change. Margot strives to create ritual that explicitly honors diversity and helps people see the relevance of Judaism to their lives. Despite being sufficiently California-ized after 8 years on the Left Coast, Margot remains a sassy New Yawk femme at heart, and is excited to return home for the NYC Queer Shabbaton.

Adrian Shanker

Adrian Shanker is a Pennsylvania-based Queer and Democratic Party activist, serving on the boards of directors for the Pennsylvania Diversity Network, the LGBT Caucus for the Pennsylvania Young Democrats, and NUJLS (National Union of Jewish LGBTQQI Jewish Students) board. He is also Human Relations Commissioner for the City of Allentown, PA. Adrian is currently employed in the non-profit arts community as a fundraiser, but his previous employment includes a senior staff position on a city-wide mayoral campaign and a supervisor at a public opinion research organization. He graduated Cum Laude from Muhlenberg College with degrees in political science and religion studies, and as a student, held internships with the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, Faith in Public Life, and the Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding. His activism has been featured on CBS Evening News, CQ Weekly, Gay City News, The New York Jewish Week, and Diversity Matters Radio on Voice of America.

Chani Getter

Chani Getter, Nehirim Financial Officer, is both an experienced financial professional and a leader in the fields of personal growth and spiritual development. She has reached individuals and professionals in the U.S. and Canada through a series of workshops and panel discussions. Chani has led informational and support groups in parenting, single-motherhood, domestic violence, cross-cultural integration, issues of sexuality and identity. She creates original rituals for variety of occasions, and in addition to her administrative work for Nehirim, is a core member of the Nehirim faculty, coordinating “mishpacha” groups and facilitating the Ma’agal Womens’ Circle. Click here to visit her website.

Oli Stephano

Oli Stephano lives in NYC where he works as a cook and is pursuing his MA in Philosophy at the New School for Social Research.

Zvi Bellin

Zvi Bellin, Nehirim Engagement Associate, leads workshops and directs retreats that integrate body-heart-mind-soul in a variety of spiritual and religious contexts. Zvi holds an M.A. in Counseling and Guidance from NYU, and is studying for his PhD in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola College, Maryland. Zvi is a 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) with the Yoga Alliance. He has worked as a therapist in a number of mental health settings, and has interned as a Psychiatric Chaplain. Zvi’s most recent interests include exploring the raw experience of meaning in life, and the integration of personal spirituality into a practice of holistic well-being. He is a co-founder of the Silver Spring Moishe House, a Jewish community house sponsored by the Schusterman Foundation.

Jason Klein

Rabbi Jason Klein was born in NYC and raised mostly in Montclair, NJ. He is a 1997 graduate of Columbia University, where he founded Gayava, the queer Jewish group on campus, in 1995 and convened the first leadership conference for LBGT Jewish students from around the country in 1997. A 2002 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC), he co-teaches an annual course to rabbinical students at RRC on creating inclusive Jewish communities. He currently serves as the director of Hillel at the University of Maryland, sits on the board of NUJLS, and on the faculty of Camp JRF. His particular Jewish interests include text study, liturgy, ritual, creative midrash, feminism, LBGT activism, Israeli-Palestinian peace and justice, and other issues of social justice.

Ri J. Turner

Ri J. Turner, Nehirim Operations Manager, holds a bachelor of arts in anthropology from Cornell University, and has been involved with LGBTQ organizing since zir junior year of high school. Ze has always felt deeply pulled by Jewish learning and community, and alongside zir work with Nehirim, ze is currently engaged with the Kohenet program, a Jewish women’s spiritual leadership training institute, and is on the board of NUJLS, the National Union of Jewish LGBTIQQ Students. Ri is also profoundly committed to intersectional anti-oppression work–anti-racism in particular–and believes in the potential of education, both formal and informal, to transform society.

Marco Noam

As an advocate of HIV education, Marco continues to tell his story so that he can help eradicate the disease through education.

Our Partners and Sponsors

May 15-17
Isabella Freedman Retreat Center, Falls Village, CT

Register Now!
135 registrations so far – only 10 spots left

The Nehirim spiritual retreat is a warm, fun, and diverse gathering where you can connect with your community, relax and refresh, and explore your spiritual path. Register soon — as of May 5, 2009, we are almost completely sold out..

Our retreats feature:

- A wide range of spiritual options, from traditional shabbat davening to meditation, yoga, and dance.
– Connections with GLBT Jews of all ages, religious affiliations, and walks of life.
– Workshops and seminars featuring a wide range of teachers (see below for list)
– Opportunities to open your heart, participate and lead ritual, or just be yourself, be in nature, and be with a diverse, welcoming community.
– Dancing, singing, kosher (mostly vegetarian) food, an eruv, tennis courts, hot tub, a lake, and country roads.

Click one of these links for more info:

-Tachlis/Logistics
-Financial Aid
-Tentative Schedule
-Halachic Information
-This Year’s Teachers and Presenters
-Testimonials from Nehirim Retreat Participants
-Questions

Tachlis: Costs, Registration, Transportation

Click Here to register online now!

Location and Transportation
-The retreat will be held at Isabella Freedman Retreat Center in Falls Village, CT. For directions and transportation information, please visit the Isabella Freedman website. To offer or request a ride to the retreat, visit our Ride Board.

-If you need to be picked up or dropped off at the Wassaic train station (for MetroNorth service from New York City), you must email info[at]nehirim.org and let us know by close of business on Tuesday, May 12. There will be a $15 charge per person each way (non-refundable after May 12). Pickup is available on Friday, May 15 for the 2 PM train. Dropoff is available on Sunday, May 17 for the 2:30 PM train.

-For other pickup times or locations, Lakeville Taxi, (860) 435-8000, is available. Lakeville Taxi is a reservation service. Voicemails for the purpose of reserving rides must be left before 5pm and at least 24 hours in advance. Credit card information must be provided with your reservation. Your card will be charged if you cancel a ride with less than 24 hours notice.

Financial Aid

Click here to apply.

Also, thanks to the generosity of Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston Young Adult Community Grant program, we are able to offer the CJP Boston Young Adult Scholarship for people aged 22-40 from the Boston metropolitan area. This scholarship pays between 50-100% of your registration costs for Nehirim East. Use the application link above, and indicate CJP-Boston when you apply.

Prices

Other Logistical Information

-The weekend lasts from midday on Friday until midday on Sunday. We do ask that retreatants stay for the entire weekend.

-Childcare and a childrens’ program is available free of charge — families come every year! Please see the schedule below for details. As of April 15 2009, we already have five children registered.

- Questions? email us at info[at]nehirim.org.

Schedule

Friday, May 15 – 21st Iyar
2:00-4:00 Arrival, snacks, and registration
4:00 Welcome and opening program
* Welcome for Kids! Name Games & Jewish Geography
5:15 Optional mikvas
Women’s mikva (Jill Hammer)
Men’s mikva (Jonathan Vatner)
Alternative to Mikva (Becky Emet)
6:00 Get ready for shabbat/ more mikvas
Non-gendered mikva (Ri Turner)
12-step meeting (Rafi Daugherty)
Pre-Shabbat Four-Direction Meditation (Lizzie Kurtz)
Dinner available for Kids
*6:15 Kids’ Scented Candle-Lighting
6:45 Candlelighting and shabbat services (Jay Michaelson, Jill Hammer, and friends)
8:30 Shabbos Dinner
Dvar Torah by Rabbi Joel Alter
10:00-10:50 Mishpacha groups
* Bedtime Storytelling
11:00-12:00 Night session
Tisch (Zvi Bellin)
Being Present for Each Other (John Stasio)

Shabbat, May 16 – 22nd Iyar
7:30-8:00 Coffee, fruit, and pastry available
8:00-8:50 Morning spiritual practice
Morning yoga (Daniel Max)
Silent meditation with instruction (Ri Turner)
8:15-9:15 Breakfast
9:15-11:30 Shabbat Morning Davening (Services)
Traditional-egalitarian davening & Torah reading
(Cantor David Berger)
Renewal davening (Jill Hammer & Chani Getter)
* Kids’ Davening and Parsha Play Practice
11:30-11:45 Parsha Play starring the Nehirim Childrens Players
11:45-1:00 Kiddush and Lunch
Student scholarship recipients please eat together
1:10-2:10 Afternoon Session 1 (choose one)
John Stasio & Jay Michaelson, Gay Catholic/Gay Jew: Comparative Perspectives
Aaron Weininger, Torah Study on the Parsha
Chani Getter, Being with the Mystery
Jase Schwartz, Sexual Health & Communication
* Nature Walk for kids & grownups
2:20-3:20 Afternoon Session 2 (choose one)
Rebecca Alpert, Coming Out: Personal & Spiritual Dimensions of Telling Our Stories
Eli Kaplan-Wildmann, Bible at Play: Drama & Improv
Jacob Staub, Cultivating a Sense of God’s Presence: Advice from the Words of Hasidic Rebbes
Rafi Daugherty, Trans 101
* Kids’ “Fabrengen”: Learning Hasidic Melodies
3:30-4:20 Afternoon Session 3: Discussion Groups (choose one)
Jay Michaelson, Nehirim “Town Meeting”
Becky Emet, Exploring the Queer Jewish Body
Karen & Moss Stern, Being Bisexual and Jewish
Ellie Barbarash, Passing or Shining? Workshop on Class
Create-your-own discussion group
* Kids’ Gaga ball game
4:30-5:30 Afternoon Session 4 (choose one)
Naps, free time, hikes, frisbee, tennis, or nothing at all
Learn Some New Jewish Songs (Cantor David Berger)
Trust Games (Jase Schwartz)
Hike (Alyssa Finn)
Yechidus w/ Chani Getter, Jacob Staub, Rebecca Alpert, Jay Michaelson or Zvi Bellin (signup on bulletin board)
Snacks available near coffee machines
5:40-6:30 Afternoon spiritual practice (choose one)
Traditional-egalitarian Mincha (Rabbi Joel Alter)
Yoga (Daniel Max & Zvi Bellin)
How and Why to Meditate (Jay Michaelson)
More napping (this counts as spiritual practice)
* Kids Playtime: Board Games
6:40-7:50 Seudah Shlishit (Dinner/Third meal)
CJP Boston Scholarship people please sit together
Shalshelet Participants & Prospectives please sit together
8:00-9:00 Mishpacha groups
* Kids’ Brachot Competition and Jewish Jeopardy
9:10-9:25 Maariv/ Evening service
Alternative/Interfaith Maariv (John Stasio)
Traditional Maariv (Aaron Weininger)
(shabbat ends at 8:50)
9:30-10:00 Havdalah (Shoshana Jedwab)
10:00-10:45 Israeli Dancing (Eli Kaplan-Wildmann)
11:00-12:00 Night Program (choose one)
Heart Circle and music w/Zvi Bellin
Wine Bar w/Live Music and Performances by David Berger, Jay Michaelson, & more
Bookstore and hot tub will be open

Sunday, May 17 – 23 Iyar

7:30-8:00 Coffee, fruit, and pastry available at the coffee machines
8:00-8:50 Morning spiritual practice (choose one)
Yoga (Daniel Max & Zvi Bellin)
Shacharit (community-led)
8:00-9:10 Breakfast
9:15-10:30 Sunday session 1 (choose one)
Rebecca Alpert, Welcoming but not Affirming: the state of LGBT inclusion in the Jewish community
Jacob Staub, Creating a Personal Spiritual Practice
John Stasio, Introduction to Breathwork
* Kids’ Challah-Cover Making Workshop (til 1145)
10:45-11:30 Sunday session 2
Nehirim Networking: Make the Gay Jewish Mafia Work for You
11:45-1:00 Closing session & final mishpacha group
1:00-2:00 Lunch
2:00-4:00 Be interviewed for the Nehirim promotional video
Bookstore and Farmer’s Market will be open
Tzeitchem l’shalom!

Our teachers and presenters include:

Rabbi Rebecca T. Alpert
Rabbi Rebecca T. Alpert is Associate Professor of Religion and Women’s Studies at Temple University. She is the co-author of Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach, author of Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition and Whose Torah? A Concise Guide to Progressive Judaism and editor of Voices of the Religious Left: A Contemporary Sourcebook and Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation as well as numerous articles. She teaches in the areas of religion and contemporary social issues: sexuality, the politics of race and gender, and medical ethics. She is currently at work on a book on Jews in Black Baseball. Click here to visit her website.

Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D.
Rabbi Jill Hammer is the director and co-founder of Tel Shemesh, a website celebrating and creating Jewish earth-based traditions, and the author of The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons (forthcoming September 2006). She is a poet, writer, myth-maker, and midrashist who has been published in many journals and anthologies, and is the author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, a collection of modern midrash. Rabbi Hammer teaches in Manhattan and around the country on ancient and contemporary midrash, bibliodrama, ritual-making, and the cycles of Jewish time, and is currently an instructor at the Academy for Jewish Religion. She received a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1996 and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001.

Daniel Max
Daniel Max is the founder and director of Max Sense of Self. Daniel is a Nutrition and Health Counselor, Shiatsu Practitioner, and Yoga Instructor.

Rabbi Jacob J. Staub
Rabbi Jacob J. Staub is Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Spirituality at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, where he served as Academic Vice President for 17 years and where he was ordained. He served as editor of the Reconstructionist magazine. He is the founder and director of the first program in Jewish Spiritual Direction at a rabbinical seminary. He teaches medieval Jewish studies, Jewish meditation, and Jewish spirituality. He is the author of The Creation of the World According to Gersonides and the co-author of Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach. He came out as a gay man in 2000.

John Stasio
John Stasio is the founder of Easton Mountain, a retreat center and residential community in upstate New York. A former Catholic seminarian, he has worked as a bodywork therapist, retreat facilitator and teacher. He has worked for over fifteen years assisting people in realizing their dreams and connecting with their inner source of wisdom, well-being and joy.

Eli Kaplan-Wildmann
Eli Kaplan-Wildmann made a trans-Atlantic leap from Israel to design scenery and puppetry for theater in New York. Eli teaches Family Education at Rodeph Sholom Religious School, as well as graphic design courses at NYU. As a designer, Eli has created scenery and/or lighting for numerous productions in New York and he has worked on projects for NBC, Live from Lincholn Center, and the 2010 Winter Olympics. His most theatrical and schtick-filled job, however, was being a drill sergeant in the Israeli Navy.

Becky Emet
Having worked as a therapist with at-risk youth and families, Becky is currently pursuing an MBA in hopes of starting her own social enterprise one day. Committed to social justice and community building, and striving for an ever-compassionate, present-focused perspective, Becky brings her passion and warmth to the Nehirim community.

Cantor David Berger
David Berger is the first full time cantor of CBST. He received cantorial investiture at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, School of Sacred Music in May of 2007. Already an integral part of the musical life of CBST, Cantor Berger served as cantorial intern for two years (2005-2007), working in close partnership with Music Director Joyce Rosenzweig. Today he serves as CBST’s cantor, working to inspire both listeners and worshippers with music that speaks to their hearts and to reach out to the wider GLBT Jewish community.

Zelig Kay, Childrens Program Director
Zelig Kay was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and immigrated to the US as a young child. He studied in yeshivot in Jerusalem and Tzfat for four years, as well as at Yeshiva University. Currently in his last year of graduate school for speech and language pathology, Zelig is a full time single dad living in Queens, NY with my five year old child. He ran the children’s program at Davidman’s Homowack, a resort hotel in the Catskills. In addition, he worked as a tour guide at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, for 2 years, mainly working with public school students, and is a trained counselor for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, where he volunteers with parents of abducted children. Last year, he launched CHUTZAH (chutzah.org), which aims at bringing Judaism to GLBT Jews, via mitzvah campaigns and weekly farbrengens.

Shoshana Jedwab
Shoshana Jedwab is a musician, performer, and prize-winning Jewish educator. She is founding facilitator of the JCC Drum Circle, Sonic Mikva, an interactive program of music, movement, and spirituality, and Tel Shemesh, a website creating and celebrating earth-based traditions within Judaism.

Rafi Daugherty
Rafi is a queer transman living in what the Jews call Flatbush. He describes himself as a non-practicing orthodox Jew with strong spiritual leanings. He’s been a 12th step enthusaist since 2002 and enjoys the color orange and curly hair. He is honored to be a teacher for Nehirim East and hopes to learn a little something from everyone he meets.

Laura Evonne Steinman
Laura Evonne Steinman is a Community Artist who creates arty/spiritual spaces with people of all ages. She believes: “In each of our hands we hold gifts to share with others; let our hands be open wide to all the experiences we encounter in our world community.” Laura lives in Somerville, MA and is the Art Teacher atThe Gifford School (a school for kids with emotional, learning and behavioral challenges) in Weston, MA. In the evening and weekend hours she teaches fabric collage, makes prayer flags with community members of theMoishe/Kavod Jewish Social Justice House, organizes women’s Rosh Chodesh gatherings, and sews a bunch of Colorful Matters. Laura’s spiritual journey is informed by her mixed-faith background. Raised in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, she is nurtured by both her father’s Jewish family with Russian roots, and her mother’s Polish-Catholic experience.

Also teaching this year will be these members of the Nehirim Staff and Faculty:

Jay Michaelson, Retreat Director and Executive Director
Jay Michaelson (www.metatronics.net) is the founder and executive director of Nehirim. He is also the founding editor of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture (www.zeek.net), a Ph. D candidate in Jewish Thought at Hebrew University and a recent Visiting Professor at Boston University Law School. He is the author of God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice(Jewish Lights, 2006) and Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007). He is presently a columnist for the Forward, the Huffington Post, Zeek, Reality Sandwich, and Maariv Online, and his work has appeared in Slate, the Jerusalem Post, and other publications. His next book is Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009).

Chani Getter, Bookkeeper
Chani Getter is a Motivational Speaker as well as a Certified Holistic Life Coach. As a single parent she leads informational and support groups in parenting, single-motherhood, domestic violence, cross cultural integration, issues of sexuality and identity. In addition she coaches individuals and offers workshops in the areas of life-balance, self-acceptance, transition, spirituality and living your dreams. Chani has spoken on numerous panels to tell her story of growing up Ultra-Chasidic and her eventual acceptance of her identity. Chani follows an eclectic spiritual path that allows her to connect to the source of life within. She crafts rituals and brings people together for prayer service. In her work, she creates safe space for individuals to explore the paradoxes in their own lives. Click here to visit her website.

Zvi Bellin, Engagement Associate
Zvi Bellin has, for the past six years, led a variety of workshops on Jewish spirituality and mysticism. He holds an M.A. in Counseling and Guidance from NYU, and is studying for his PhD in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola College, Maryland. He has worked as a therapist in a number of mental health settings, and has interned as a Psychiatric Chaplain. Zvi’s most recent interests include the spirituality of “dark places” and the formation of meaning outside the “normal and acceptable.” He is a co-founder of the Silver Spring Moishe House, a Jewish community house sponsored by the Forest Foundation.

Ri J. Turner, Operations Manager
Ri J. Turner holds a bachelor of arts in anthropology from Cornell University, and has been involved with LGBTQ organizing since her/zir junior year of high school. She/ze has always felt deeply pulled by Jewish learning and community, and alongside her/zir work with Nehirim, she/ze is currently engaged with the Kohenetprogram, a Jewish women’s spiritual leadership training institute, and is on the board of NUJLS, the National Union of Jewish LGBTIQQ Students. Ri is also profoundly committed to intersectional anti-oppression work–anti-racism in particular–and believes in the potential of education, both formal and informal, to transform society.

Questions?

If you would like more information, if you would like to volunteer to teach or lead services, or if your organization would like to cosponsor the retreat, you can always email us at info[at]nehirim.org.

Nehirim’s second annual West Coast Retreat is only one month away!

Directed by soon-to-be-Rabbi Dev Noily, a longtime resident of San Francisco, Nehirim West is a weekend of community-building, spirituality, culture, activism, and fun for GLBT Jews, partners, and allies. Rates begin at $200 including room & board. Click here to register now.

Nehirim West features:

- A truly diverse community: ranging in age from 18-73, orthodox to atheist; gay men, lesbians, genderqueers, bisexuals, transgender folk, straight allies; singles, families, couples (including many non-Jewish partners); radical faeries and nice Jewish boys; suits and radicals; this is a community like no other.

- Spirituality from traditional shabbat davening to meditation, yoga, and dance; Hasidic melodies and alternative ritual; secular Torah study and honoring the Divine Feminine. No Hebrew knowledge required.

- Workshops and seminars featuring a wide range of teachers, community members, and facilitators. Workshop topics range from political activism to personal narrative, Jewish text study to performance.

- More than ever before: full scholarships for students, full scholarships for Bay Area residents sponsored by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, 50% and full-price subsidies for those in financial need, and more. Please click this link to learn more.

Tachlis: Costs, Transportation, etc.

Registration and Costs

Registering is easy: Click here to register Online Now!
We are committed to enabling everyone to attend Nehirim West, and recognize that times are tough for all of us right now. We’ve slashed our prices in order to enable as many people to attend as possible. In addition, student scholarships and financial assistance are both available on a first-come, first-served basis. We also have a special scholarship for residents of the Bay Area, thanks to a generous grant from the Jewish Community Foundation of San Francisco. Click here to apply.

2009 prices are as follows:

Transportation

Walker Creek Ranch is in Petaluma, CA. For driving directions, please visit the Walker Creek Ranch website. To offer or request a ride to the retreat, visit our Ride Board.

We want to make sure out-of-towners have transportation to the retreat–so if you offer a ride to an out-of-towner, we will give you a $25 rebate on your registration fee. Simply post your ride on the ride board, and let us know at the retreat that you brought an out-of-towner with you.

If you are unable to find a ride to the retreat and are looking for ideas about how to get there, the Oakland Airport website is a good place to start. If you don’t want to take a taxi all the way from San Francisco to Walker Creek Ranch, you can look into public transportation options. The Trip Planner site is a helpful resource. Just enter your starting location (for example, the San Francisco Airport) and your ending location (Walker Creek Ranch, 1700 Marshall Petaluma Rd., Petaluma, CA), and the site will show you which BART train and buses to take.

Logistical Questions?

Ask us at info[at]nehirim.org.

Tentative 2009 Schedule

Friday

2:30 Arrival Begins & Registration Opens
3:30-4:15 Welcome & Opening Program
4:15-4:30 Orientation to Walker Creek Ranch
4:30-4:45 Time to Prepare, Change for Shabbat
4:45-5:30 Preparing for Shabbat (choose one)
-Walking Meditation
-Discussion about our Diverse Shabbat Practices
5:30-7:30 Candlelighting & Kabbalat Shabbat Services (Rabbi Joshua Lesser & Dev Noily)
-Kabbalat Shabbat will include singing and drumming.
-Ma’ariv (Evening Prayers) will be without instruments.
7:30-9:00 Shabbat Dinner
9:00-9:45 Mishpacha Groups
10:00 Evening Activity
-Shabbos Tish with Zvi
-Informal Schmooze Time

Saturday

7:30-8:30 Yoga space and Meditation space
8:00-9:30 Breakfast
9:30-10:30 Morning Spiritual Practice part 1 (please choose one)
-Nature Walk/Wandering outdoor service (Lisa Finkelstein & Ora Prochovnick)
-Traditional-Egalitarian Shabbat Service (Rabbi Julia Watts-Belser)
-Contemplative/Meditative Service (Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla & Karen Erlichman)
10:35-11:50 Morning Spiritual Practice part 2: Torah Service (Rabbi Camille Angel & Andrew Ramer)
12:00-1:15 Lunch
1:30-2:30 Workshop Session I (please choose one)
-The One-Hour Klezmer Band (Ilana Sherer)
-Gender Diversity in the Talmud: Meet the Tumtum and Androgynos (texts in English) (Max Strassfeld)
-Yoga (Zvi Bellin)
-Counting the Omer as a Spiritual Practice (Rabbi Joshua Lesser)
2:45-3:45 Workshop Session II (please choose one)
-Shmi’at haNefesh (Listening of the Soul): Jewish Spiritual Direction with Queer Jews (Karen Erlichman)
-The Art of Book Making (Ruby Cymrot-Wu)
-Beyond Marriage: Alternative Legal and Social Models for LGBT Families (Ora Prochovnick)
-Let’s Go Outside & Play! (Rabbi Joshua Lesser)
4:00-4:45 Afternoon Snack or Facilitated Conversation Circles (topics TBA)
5:00-6:00 Workshop Session III (please choose one)
-The Queer Art of Jewish Storytelling (Rabbi Camille Angel)
-Sacred Ecologies: God/dess, Earth, and Eros in the Song of Songs (Rabbi Julia Watts-Belser)
-Mensches, Mama’s Boys, and Machers: A Discussion on Jewish Masculinity (Sasha T. Goldberg)
-More than Twice Blessed (Corey Friedlander)
6:15-7:45 Dinner
7:45-8:30 Mishpacha Groups
8:45 Ma’ariv and Havdalah, followed by Campfire, Storytelling, Singing, and S’mores

Sunday

8:00-9:30 Breakfast
9:15-10:00 Morning Spiritual Practice
-Traditional/Egalitarian Service (self-led)
-Meditation (Ri J. Turner)
10:15-11:30 Workshop Session IV (please choose one)
-Writing Queer Liturgy (Andrew Ramer)
-Queer Jews in 2009 (Caryn Aviv)
-Fabric Arts for the Omer Season (Ri J. Turner)
-Gender Diversity in the Talmud: Meet the Tumtum and Androgynos (texts in Hebrew) (Max Strassfeld)
11:30-12:15 Mishpacha Groups
12:30-2:00 Closing and Lunch

Our Teachers for 2009
Dev Felder Noily, Retreat Director
Dev Felder Noily is a student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia (class of ’09). She develops readings of Jewish text and tradition to serve queer Jewish lives. A long-time member of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco, Dev has served as a student rabbi there, as well as for LGBT-founded Jewish communities in Atlanta, GA and Amsterdam, Netherlands. She currently offers spiritual care in the transgender communities of Philadelphia, as an Albert Schweitzer Fellow, and serves as rabbinic intern at Congregation Beth El of Bennington, VT. Dev also works with the Jewish Dialogue Group, facilitating conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other controversial issues.

Rabbi Joshua Lesser leads Atlanta’s growing Congregation Bet Haverim as a place dedicated to celebrating all aspects of Jewish life and creating a spiritual home that is accessible to those who have not connected in other settings. As a former Teach For America corps member, Rabbi Lesser is committed to creating innovative programs and events to further their Jewish education in fun and exciting ways. At Bet Haverim, he has worked with a wide variety of groups and coalitions to build a better community for Atlanta, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta’s Task Force on Healing and Spirituality. In partnership with the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta and Jewish Family & Career Services, he founded The Rainbow Center, a place of support and information for GLBTQ people, as well as their families.

Rabbi Julia Watts Belser
Julia Watts Belser strives to blend passionate scholarship with prophetic witness, teaching classic Jewish texts in a way that speak to our contemporary longings. Julia has taught in diverse university, synagogue, and community-based settings, including the Graduate Theological Union, The Leaven Center for Spirituality and Social Change, and the Masorti Lehrhaus in Berlin, Germany. Julia’s written work is engaged in crafting feminist theology and nurturing earth-based Jewish practice. She works as an anti-oppression educator and activist for LGBT issues, anti-racism, and disability rights. She has co-authored A Health Handbook for Women with Disabilities, published by Hesperian Foundation.

Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla
Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla has been an activist, writer and educator for more than a decade. He has taught widely about sexual and gender diversity in Judaism in the US, Canada and Israel. His writing appears in and is upcoming from numerous magazines including Lilith, Shm’a: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility and Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Art and Culture, as well as in anthologies published by New York University Press, Jewish Lights and the Union for Reform Judaism Press. For the last 2 years, Elliot served as the rabbi of the Danforth Jewish Circle, in Toronto, Canada, a congregation grounded in social justice and inclusion. Elliot was the Rabbinic Organizer of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) in LA.

Rabbi Camille Angel
Rabbi Camille Angel was ordained at the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in New York. In 2000, she became the rabbi of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, a prominent LGBT synagogue in San Francisco, after serving as Associate Rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom on the Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Rabbi Angel has been a guest lecturer at the HUC-JIR in Practical Rabbinics and a Scholar-in-Residence for Women of Reform Judaism. She has written widely on creative liturgy, Judaism, and women. Her work has been published in the Journal of Psychology and Judaism, Walt Disney/Ideal Books, and other magazines as well as academic journals and books.

Dr. Caryn Aviv
Caryn Aviv is the director of research for Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity. She is also the Posen Lecturer in Secular Jewish Culture in the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, 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 forHa’aretz.

Ora Prochovnick
Ora Prochovnick is a professor and clinical director at John F Kennedy University School of Law. She was a partner and founding member of Bayside Legal Advocates, a woman-run community law office in the Mission District of San Francisco, where for ten years her practice focused on tenant advocacy, nontraditional family law, police misconduct cases and civil rights litigation. She is a member of the Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, the National Lawyers Guild and the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association. She has previously served on the board of directors of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel, and is currently on the “brain trust” committee of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. She was named a Northern California Super Lawyer by San Francisco Magazine in 2004 and 2005, and received the Transgender Law Center’s 2008 Community Ally award.

Ruby Cymrot-Wu
Ruby Cymrot-Wu works in community organizing with several progressive Jewish organizations advocating for LGBTQ rights, including Jewish Mosaic. Ruby also develops youth empowerment curricula to provide multi-issue political education to Elementary, Middle, and High School students. As a long time volunteer with COLAGE, she has been an advocate for children and adults with LGBTQ parents through panels, media interviews, and youth leadership.

Max K. Strassfeld
Max K. Strassfeld is a genderqueer activist, working towards a doctoral degree on transgender and intersex categories in the Talmud at Stanford University. He has taught classes on queer Talmud and gender diversity in Judaism, sex positivity, and sexual communication (when he was a sex educator at Good Vibrations), and workshops on the intersection of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. Ze enjoys book binding and letterpress printing (as well as crafts of all kinds), and cooking ridiculous amounts of food.

Day Schildkret
Day Schildkret is the Director of Tri–Valley/Tri–Cities Midrasha in Berkeley. He has has worked in Jewish education on both the East and West Coasts for over a decade. Day has a B.A. in Judaic Studies and Political Science from Binghamton University and has studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Art Student League in New York. He has directed on Broadway, produced television and worked in politics.

Andrew Ramer
Andrew Ramer lives in San Francisco. He writes a column, “Praxis,” for the gay men’s spirituality journal, White Crane. He is the author of the groundbreaking gay classic,Two Flutes Playing and his next book, Queering the Text: Biblical, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Stories, is forthcoming from Suspect Thoughts Press.

Karen Erlichman
Karen Lee Erlichman, MSS, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker in private practice in San Francisco, where she provides psychotherapy and spiritual direction. Karen is also the director of Jewish Mosaic’s San Francisco Bay area office. She is a past co-chair of the Jewish Women’s Caucus of the Association for Women in Psychology, and a current member of Spiritual Directors International.

Plus these members of Nehirim’s core staff and faculty:

Jay Michaelson, Executive Director
Jay Michaelson is the founder and Executive Director of Nehirim. He is also among the most widely-read Jewish writers of his generation, as a columnist for the Forward, a featured contributor to the Huffington Post, the Founding Editor of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture, and the author of God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2006) and Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007). A recent visiting professor at Boston University law school, Jay holds a J.D. from Yale teaches widely on issues of religion and sexuality; his work in the area has been featured in the New York Times and on NPR. Recent publications on the subject include “Queering God, Torah, and Israel” in The Passionate Torah (2009), “Chaos, Law and God: The Religious Meaning of Homosexuality” in the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, and “Boundaries and the Boundless: Homosexuality, Liminality, Judaism” in Jews and Sex (2008).

Sasha T. Goldberg, Assistant Director
Currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Judaism at The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Sasha takes a hands-on approach to integrating social justice into the curriculum of Jewish learning, teaching, and practice, with a long history of advocacy, spanning grass-roots to board room. Her other areas of interest include the intersections between religious and secular practices of Judaism, and finding ways to draw in the unaffiliated. Out in the queer world, Sasha has organized conferences, film festivals, presentations, and workshops, and she has spoken extensively on sexuality, gender and identity.

Zvi Bellin, Engagement Associate
Zvi Bellin leads workshops and directs retreats that integrate body-heart-mind-soul in a variety of spiritual and religious contexts. Zvi holds an M.A. in Counseling and Guidance from NYU, and is studying for his PhD in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola College, Maryland. Zvi is a 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) with the Yoga Alliance. He has worked as a therapist in a number of mental health settings, and has interned as a Psychiatric Chaplain. He is a co-founder of the Silver Spring Moishe House, a Jewish community house sponsored by the Schusterman Foundation.

Ri J. Turner, Operations Manager
Ri J. Turner holds a bachelor of arts in anthropology from Cornell University, and has been involved with LGBTQ organizing since her/zir junior year of high school. She/ze has always felt deeply pulled by Jewish learning and community, and alongside her/zir work with Nehirim, she/ze is currently engaged with the Kohenet program, a Jewish women’s spiritual leadership training institute, and is on the board of NUJLS, the National Union of Jewish LGBTIQQ Students. Ri is also profoundly committed to intersectional anti-oppression work–anti-racism in particular–and believes in the potential of education, both formal and informal, to transform society.

Questions?

If you would like more information, if you would like to volunteer to teach or lead services, or if your organization would like to cosponsor the retreat, you can always email us at info[at]nehirim.org.

March 20-22, 2009
Elat Chayyim/Isabella Freedman
Falls Village, CT

Register Online Now!
To offer or request a ride to the retreat,
visit our Ride Board.

Please join us for our inaugural Nehirim Women’s Retreat. The Women’s retreat, for LBTQ Jewish women and their partners and allies, will be a soulful, heartful gathering where you can connect with your community, relax and refresh, and explore your spiritual path, forming connections that last a lifetime. It will feature:

-Stimulating workshops designed to rejuvenate mind, body & spirit
-A top-notch faculty including Miryam Kabakov, Dr. Mara Benjamin, and others
-Delicious organic Kosher food
-Children’s programming for all ages with Camp JRF’s Shulamit Izen & music with ShirLaLa
-Hot tub & fireplace nestled in a Berkshire Mountains setting
-Inclusive community of women of diverse identities & experiences
-Supportive social activities
-Prayer, study, music & much more

All self-identified women are welcome.

Click one of the following links for more info:

-Tachlis/Logistics
-Financial Aid
-Tentative Schedule
-Halachic Information
-Teachers and Presenters
-What People Are Saying about Nehirim
-Questions

Tachlis: What does it cost, where do I register

-Register Online Now!

-The retreat will be held at Isabella Freedman Retreat Center in Falls Village, CT. For directions and transportation information, please visit the Isabella Freedman website. To offer or request a ride to the retreat, visit our Ride Board.

-If you need to be picked up or dropped off at the Wassaic train station (for MetroNorth service from New York City), you must email info[at]nehirim.org and let us know by close of business on Tuesday, March 17. There will be a $15 charge per person each way (non-refundable after March 17). Pickup is available on Friday, March 20 for the 2 PM train. Dropoff is available on Sunday, March 22 for the 2:30 PM train.

-For other pickup times or locations, Lakeville Taxi, (860) 435-8000, is available. Lakeville Taxi is a reservation service. Voicemails for the purpose of reserving rides must be left before 5pm and at least 24 hours in advance. Credit card information must be provided with your reservation. Your card will be charged if you cancel a ride with less than 24 hours notice.

-The weekend lasts from 2:00 on Friday until 2:00 on Sunday. We do ask that retreatants stay for the entire weekend.

Prices

We are committed to enabling all self-identified women to attend the Women’s Retreat and look forward to a wide range of sexual, gender, economic, religious, and ethnic diversity. Please note that we do offer some financial aid on a first-come, first-served basis.

Tentative Schedule
Blue text indicates children’s programming

Friday, March 20th – the 24th of Adar

2:00-4:00 Arrival, snacks, and registration
4:00 Welcome and opening program with Chani Getter and Shoshana Jedwab
4:00 Making a Moon–Coming into the Newness
5:00 Get ready for shabbat/ optional mikvas
5:15 Adult Women’s Mikva with Rabbi Jill Hammer
5:15 Kids’ Mikva in Pool – Jumping into Shabbat (for Elementary School and older)
5:15 Mishpacha Facilitators meet with Chani Getter
5:45 Tots’ Mikva with their grown ups – Shabbat Shalom Dippers
6:00 Adult Human’s Mikva with Ri
6:45 Candle-lighting with Dr. Mara Benjamin (6:51)
Shabbat Services with Shoshana Jedwab and Shir Lala
8:00 Shabbos Dinner, Kiddush with Chani Getter
9:30 – 10:20 Mishpacha Group
9:30 – 10:20 Kids’ Mishpacha Group – tweens and teens
10:30 – 11:30 “Joining a club that will not have you as a member–traditional LBTQ women” with Miryam Kabakov
11:35- 12:00 Hanging out and building community

Shabbat, March 21st – 25th of Adar
Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei — Shabbat Parshat HaChodesh

7:30-8:15 Cold breakfast available in dining hall
8:00-8:50 Morning spiritual practice
* Morning yoga with Rabbi Tzipi Radonsky
* Silent meditation with instruction with Ri Turner
* 12-Step meeting with Chani Getter
* Kids’ Playtime
* Board Games (older children)
8:15-9:15 Breakfast
9:00-9:45
* Secular Torah Study with Judy Hollander
* Shir Lala Shabbat for Tots and their grown ups
10:00-12:00 Shabbat Morning Davening
* Cafe Planet
* Traditional Egalitarian Minyan with Dr. Mara Benjamin and Julie Seltzer
* Renewal with Shosh, Shira, Chani, Rabbi Jill Hammer
* Babysitting for the tots
* Kids’ Davennen and Parsha play rehearsal
12:00 – 12:15 Children’s Parsha Play Performance
* All are welcome
12:30-1:20 Lunch
1:30-2:30 Afternoon Session 1
* Dina Has Four Mommies and other tales of co-mothering in the Torah with Dr. Mara Benjamin
* Shabbat nature walk – learning about hitbodetut for upper elementary and older kids
* Shabbat in our bodies – making Hebrew letters with our bodies and other songs and movement games about shabbat
2:40-3:40 Afternoon Session 2 (choose one)
* Balance yourself with Miryam Kabokov
* Betzal’el: Maker of the Mishkan with Julie Seltzer (Torah Study)
* Kids’ Guided Sensory Meditation with Laura Evonne Steinman ALL AGES
3:50 – 4:50 Afternoon Session 3 (Choose one)
* The Divine Feminine with Rabbi Jill Hammer
* Kids’ ultimate frisbee
* Session TBA with Becky Emet
5:00 – 5:50 Afternoon Session 4
* Create Your Own Discussion Group
Sign up Board where coffee is..
* Shabbat Nap
* Shabbat Nature Walks
* Shmooze N Lounge
* Babysitters available at sign up board
* Sat night program leaders meet
6:00-6:50 Seudah Shlishit (Third Meal/Dinner)
7:00-7:50 Mishpacha Groups
Kids’ Mishpacha Groups with Shulamit Izen
8:00-8:50 Havdala ALL AGES
8:50- 9:05 Maariv/ Evening service
* Traditional Maariv with Dr. Mara Benjamin
9:05 – 10:30 Talent Show, MC’d by Judy Hollander

Sunday, March 22 – 26 Adar

7:30-8:00 Cold breakfast available in dining hall
8:00-8:50 Morning spiritual practice
* Silent meditation with instruction with Ri Turner
* 12-Step meeting with Chani Getter
* Shacharit with Julie Seltzer
* Board Games (older children)
* Adults hang out
8:00-9:10 Breakfast
9:00-9:30 Pack up and checkout of rooms
9:30-10:30 Sunday session 1 (choose one)
* In the beginning, God created the Aleph-Bet with Julie Seltzer
* Is it DRAG or is it YOU with Chani Getter
* Fabric Arts PART I (must be at both sessions) (Challah covers) with Laura Evonne Steinman
* Passover Holiday Family singalong for tots and grownups with Shir Lala
10:45-11:45 Sunday session 2 (choose one)
* Writing the erotic with Corinn Adams
* Fabric Arts PART II (must be at both sessions)
* Passing or Shining? A workshop on class with Ellie Barbarash
12:00-12:50 Lunch (Mishpacha leaders have lunch together)
1:00-2:30 Closing session & final mishpacha group (ALL AGES)

Teachers
We will be joined this year by the following Visiting Faculty members (list still in formation!):

Nehama Benmosche, Retreat Co-Director
Nehama Benmosche is a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbincal College and 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. She spent the last two years working as a rabbinic intern at a small Conservative congregation in Woodbury, NJ. Next year she will begin working at the West End Synagogue, a Reconstructionist congregation in New York City, coordinating the teen communal service projects and a 3rd and 4th grade family education program. She recently received the Tikkun Olam award at RRC for her work in organizing and maintaining the davening community at the college and will serve on RRC’s Keshet Committee on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Mara Benjamin
Dr. Mara Benjamin is Assistant Professor of Religion at St. Olaf College, in Northfield, MN. She received her doctorate in modern Jewish thought from Stanford University and has held fellowships at the University of Washington and Yale University. Her book, Rosenzweig’s Bible: Reinventing Scripture for Jewish Modernity, is due out from Cambridge University Press this spring. She and her partner, Miryam, live in St. Paul, MN with their daughter, Rayzel.

Miryam Kabakov
Miryam Kabakov, CSW, is Director of the Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival and editor of a forthcoming anthology of essays by and about lbt women and Orthodoxy. Previously, she was National Program Director of AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps and Coordinator of LGBT programming at the Manhattan JCC. She lives in Minnesota with her partner Mara and daughter Rayzie.

Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D.
Rabbi Jill Hammer 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 author of The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons (forthcoming September 2006). She is a poet, writer, myth-maker, and midrashist who has been published in many journals and anthologies, and is the author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, a collection of modern midrash. Rabbi Hammer teaches in Manhattan and around the country on ancient and contemporary midrash, bibliodrama, ritual-making, and the cycles of Jewish time, and is currently an instructor at the Academy for Jewish Religion. She received a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1996 and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001.

Shira Kline
Shira is a New York based performer and music educator. She travels with her band, ShirLaLa, throughout the country and internationally bringing a dynamic, fully participatory program of joy and spirit, story and song, not to mention all out rock-star dancing and grooving! Shira works with communities to deepen rituals, holiday celebrations, and love for Jewish life and prayer. Visit her online.

Laura Evonne Steinman
Laura Evonne Steinman is a Community Artist who creates arty/spiritual spaces with people of all ages. She believes: “In each of our hands we hold gifts to share with others; let our hands be open wide to all the experiences we encounter in our world community.” Laura lives in Somerville, MA and is the Art Teacher at The Gifford School (a school for kids with emotional, learning and behavioral challenges) in Weston, MA. In the evening and weekend hours she teaches fabric collage, makes prayer flags with community members of the Moishe/Kavod Jewish Social Justice House, organizes women’s Rosh Chodesh gatherings, and sews a bunch of Colorful Matters. Laura’s spiritual journey is informed by her mixed-faith background. Raised in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, she is nurtured by both her father’s Jewish family with Russian roots, and her mother’s Polish-Catholic experience.

And by these members of the Nehirim Staff and Faculty:

Chani Getter, Retreat Co-Director
Chani Getter is a Motivational Speaker as well as a Certified Holistic Life Coach. As a single parent she leads informational and support groups in parenting, single-motherhood, domestic violence, cross cultural integration, issues of sexuality and identity. In addition she coaches individuals and offers workshops in the areas of life-balance, self-acceptance, transition, spirituality and living your dreams. Chani has spoken on numerous panels to tell her story of growing up Ultra-Chasidic and her eventual acceptance of her identity. Chani follows an eclectic spiritual path that allows her to connect to the source of life within. She crafts rituals and brings people together for prayer service. In her work, she creates safe space for individuals to explore the paradoxes in their own lives. Click here to visit her website.

Shoshana Jedwab, Retreat Co-Director
Shoshana Jedwab is a prize winning Jewish educator and the Jewish Studies Coordinator at the A.J. Heschel Middle School in NYC. She is the founding facilitator of the Makom Drum Circle at the JCC in Manhattan and is a percussionist and performance artist who has trained in bibliodrama and psychodrama. Shoshana has provided empowering drum circles to singles, student, training, and bereavement groups. Shoshana has performed with: Storahtelling, Chana Rothman, Debbie Friedman, Akiva Wharton, A Song of Solomon, Hebrew Mystical Chant with the Kirtan Rabbi, Andrew Hahn, and Tel Shemesh seasonal events.

Questions? If you would like more information, if you would like to volunteer to teach or lead services, or if your organization would like to cosponsor the retreat, you can always email us at info[at]nehirim.org.