Nehirim is proud to announce our second annual Nehirim West, our West Coast weekend retreat, created in partnership with JewishMosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity. The retreat will take place May 8-10, 2009, at the Walker Creek Ranch, outside of San Francisco. The Retreat will be directed by Devra Noily.

Nehirim West offers:

- 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.
- A variety of excellent teachers and presenters (a full list will be posted as the date nears).
- Scholarships are available for students, as well as financial assistance for those in need.

For more information, please email us or Join our mailing list.

Tachlis (the facts): Registration, Transportation, Money

Registration will be available online as the date nears. We will offer early-bird discounts for those who register ahead of time, and many kinds of accommodations are available.

Student scholarships and Financial Assistance are both available through a simple application process. If you would like to apply for a student or need-based scholarship, please read this before you apply. 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.

Last Year's Schedule
As a sample, the following is last year's retreat schedule.

Friday

2:30 Arrival Begins & Registration Opens
3:30 – 4:15 Welcome & Opening
4:15 – 4:45 Time to Prepare, Change for Shabbat…
4:45 – 5:30 Preparing for Shabbat (please pick one)
-Introduction to Shabbat & Jewish Spirit – Dev Noily
-Entering Shabbat: Meditation – Zvi Bellin
5:30 – 7:30 Candlelighting & Kabbalat Shabbat Services
Rabbi Elliot Kukla & Rabbi Julia Watts Belser, Jay Michaelson, & Gregg Drinkwater
-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 (please pick one)
-Shabbos Tisch – Maggid Jhos Singer
-Sacred Chant & Holy Silence: Entering Mishkan & Honoring New Moon – Rabbi Julia Watts Belser

Saturday

8:00 – 9:30 Breakfast
8:30 – 9:15 Morning Movement – Bruce Bierman
9:30 – 11:45 Morning Spiritual Practice (please choose one)
-Secular Torah Study – Sasha Goldberg & J Wallace
-Traditional-Egalitarian Shabbat Service
-Renewal Shabbat Morning Service – Maggid Jhos Singer
12:00 – 1:30 Lunch
1:30 – 2:30 Workshop Session I (please choose one)
-When Sex Matters, and When it Doesn’t: Queer Spirituality In Nondual Perspective – Jay Michaelson
-Creating Solo Performance: The Art of Juggling Truth - Sara Felder
-Created Beings of Our Own: Jewish Liberation Theology For Men, Women, & Everyone Else – Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla
2:45 – 3:45 Workshop Session II (please choose one)
-Storytelling & Resistance – S. Bear Bergman
Gender Trouble: Queering Genesis & Thinking Beyond Binaries – Gregg Drinkwater & Noach Dzmura
-Replenishing the Souls of Jewish Communal Professionals - Karen Erlichman
-Sara’s Juggle Fest – Sara Felder
4:00 – 4:45 Afternoon Snack or Facilitated Conversation Circles
-Non-Jewish and Newly-Jewish Partners – Rabbi Elliot Kukla
-Newly Out? Not Out? Coming Out? – Zvi Bellin
-Choosing Judaism or Returning to Judaism – Andrew Ramer
-Survivors Group – Rabbi Jane Litman
-Minchah – Kenny Altman
-Afternoon Snack
5:00 – 6:00 Workshop Session III (please choose one)
-You Go Girl! Kings, Queens & Other Queer Bits of Torah - Maggid Jhos Singer
-Living Out of the Box: Gender & Sexual Identity Diversity - Rabbi Jane Litman
-Psalm 118 as Radical Prayer – Dev Noily
-Yoga – Zvi Bellin
6:15 – 7:45 Dinner
7:45 – 8:30 Mishpacha Groups
8:45 – 9:10 Ma’ariv & Havdalah
9:15 Evening Program (please choose one)
-Simcha Hoe Down – Bruce Bierman
-Performance & Talk Back: Monday Night In Westerbork - S. Bear Bergman

Sunday

8:00 – 9:30 Breakfast
9:15 – 10:00 Morning Spiritual Practice
-Traditional/Egalitarian Service
-Movement – Bruce Bierman
10:15 - 11:15 Workshop Session IV (please choose one)
-Writing Queer Midrash – Andrew Ramer
-Rereading Leviticus – Dev Noily
-Twice Blessed: Queer Jewish History from Magnus Hirschfeld to Harvey Milk – Gregg Drinkwater
11:30 – 12:15 Mishpacha Groups
12:30 – 2:00 Closing & Lunch
2:30 Berkeley Shuttle Departs Walker Creek Ranch


Teachers (list still in formation!)

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 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.

Jay Michaelson
Jay Michaelson is the founder and executive director of Nehirim. He is also the chief editor of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture, a columnist for the Forward, a Ph.D. candidate in Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 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). His recent academic articles include "I'm Just Not That Kind of God: Queering Kabbalistic Gender Dimorphism" in Jewishness and Sexuality, Danya Ruttenberg, ed. (NYU Press, 2008) and "The Idea of Order vs. Key West: Homosexuality as Liminality" (also forthcoming).

Caryn Aviv
Dr. 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.

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.


Sasha T. Goldberg
Sasha T. Goldberg is a Jewish educator currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Judaism at The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, with a strong focus on issues of Grief and Loss. Prior to joining Nehirim in 2007, she taught grades K-12 in Religious Schools and led Jewish teen retreats. 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
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.

Sponsoring Organizations
Nehirim West is supported by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund. This retreat is cosponsored by JewishMosaic and the Institute for Judaism and Sexual Orientation. If your organization would like to be a cosponsor, please contact us.

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