Alex Kaufman

Alex Kaufman (Tufts ’14) is a junior majoring in Sociology with a double minor in Drama and Communication and Media Studies. He served on Hillel Student Programming Board as Freshmen Programming Chair when he was a freshman, and has been the Jewish and Queer Students at Tufts (JQUEST) Chair since sophomore year. He was student intern at Nehirim for Summer, 2012. Additionally, he is Vice President of Tufts’ chapter of Theta Chi, performs regularly in theatrical productions, and is an editor of the Tufts Daily’s New Media. He is extremely excited for this retreat!

Rachel Stein

Rachel Stein is a recent graduate of The George Washington University where she studied psychology and explored the nation’s capital. In her junior year, Rachel traveled most of Israel while studying at the University of Haifa. Now you can find her in Ann Arbor as the Berman Fellow at the University of Michigan Hillel! She is excited to bring her passion for community and Jewish learning to the 2013 Nehirim Jewish Students Retreat.

Ethan Sobel

Ethan Sobel recently graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) and is now pursuing his M.A. in Public Relations at Boston University. While at UMass, Ethan served as the co-founder of LGBT Jews, the university’s queer Jewish organization, and at BU he is the founder of JewQ, LGBTQ Jewish group on campus. Ethan is also a speaker and educator for Parents of Families and Friends of Gays and Lesbians (PFLAG) and a Nehirim and NUJLS veteran. In his spare time, Ethan enjoys playing classical cello, healthy eating and cooking, and playing sports.

Lesléa Newman

Lesléa (pronounced “Lez-LEE-uh”) Newman is the author of 60 books including A Letter to Harvey Milk, Nobody’s Mother, Hachiko Waits, Write from the Heart, The Boy Who Cried Fabulous, The Best Cat in the World, and Heather Has Two Mommies. She has received many literary awards including Poetry Fellowships from the Massachusetts Artists Fellowship Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Highlights for Children Fiction Writing Award, the James Baldwin Award for Cultural Achievement, and three Pushcart Prize Nominations. Nine of her books have been Lambda Literary Award finalists. From 2008—2010, she served as the Poet Laureate of Northampton, MA. She has taught fiction writing at Clark University and currently she is a faculty mentor at Spalding University’s brief residency MFA in Writing program.

Karla Goldman

Karla Goldman is a professor at the University of Michigan school of social work. Her research focuses on the history of American Jewish experience with special attention to the history of American Jewish communities and the evolving roles and contributions of American Jewish women. She directs the Jewish Communal Leadership Program.

Mordechai Levovitz

Mordechai Levovitz is the Co-Executive Director and co-founder of JQY, a support and advocacy organization for LGBT Jewish youth in the Orthodox community and the LGBT Coordinator for the United Nations NGO Committee for Human Rights. Mordechai served as social worker and youth leader at the Manhattan LGBT Community Center, Youth Enrichment Service (YES) program. He grew up in a “black-hat” yeshivish rabbinic family, and has been active in creating gay Orthodox community events since 1999. He organized the historic YU (Yeshiva University) Gay Panel, the Orthodox “It Gets Better” video, as well as over 50 gay panels in the Orthodox community, and he meets regularly with Orthodox rabbis in order to educate, spread awareness and advocate for a more inclusive Orthodox Community.

Mycroft Masada Holmes

Mycroft Masada Holmes (right) is an interfaith transgender leader based in hir native Boston. Mycroft is Chair of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition’s Interfaith Committee, in leadership at TransFaith, and a board member of Congregation Am Tikva. Mycroft is also a thin ally in the movement for fat social justice, and a writer and artist. Ze is partnered with Julia McCrossin (left), the Fat Studies scholar; they co-parent a dog, Ursula.

Joanna Ware

Joanna Ware is Keshet’s Lead Organizer and Training Coordinator, employing grassroots community organizing strategies to build powerful communities of LGBTQ and allied people working for justice, equality, and the full inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Jewish world. In Massachusetts, Joanna directs Keshet’s organizing in the Jewish community on behalf of gender justice and trans equality, including organizing the Jewish community in support of the successful passage of the Massachusetts Trans Equal Rights Bill in November, 2011. Nationally, she organizes and trains clergy, educators, communal professionals, and lay leaders working for LGBTQ inclusion across the Jewish world.

Bryan Mann

Bryan Mann is currently in his second semester of Rabbinical School at Hebrew College. He recently moved from Philadelphia, PA, where he graduated from Temple University with a BA in Jewish Studies. He is an active member of the Moishe Kavod and Keshet Boston communities. Outside of these communities he can be found working as a sales associate at the Microsoft Store in Boston and working as a Hebrew Tutor for Temple Sinai in Brookline.