Chani Getter

Chani Getter, Nehirim’s Director of Women’s Programming, is a Motivational Speaker, Certified Holistic Life Coach, and Ritual Creator. She leads informational and support groups in parenting, single-motherhood, domestic violence, cross cultural integration, issues of sexuality, and identity. She coaches individuals and offers workshops in the areas of life-balance, self-acceptance, transition, spirituality, and living your dreams. In addition to creating spiriutal and creative ceremonies, Chani follows an eclectic spiritual path that allows her to connect to the source of life within.

Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D.

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).

Holly Taya Shere

Holly Taya Shere is a folklorist, ritual artist and educator on women’s spirituality and Renewal Judaism. Holly received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. She spent several years priestessing in earth-based spiritual communities and working as a healer before returning to Judaism and becoming a student, teacher, and organizer in Jewish spiritual communities. Holly is co-founder and co-director of 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.

Since 2006, Holly has held the rabbinic pulpit at Olney Kehila Jewish Congregation. She serves as Education Director of Yavneh on the Hill and teaches Judaism and facilitates life-cycle ritual in many Washington, D.C. area Jewish communities.

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 with the Kirtan Rabbi, Andrew Hahn, and Tel Shemesh seasonal events.

Laura Evonne Steinman

Laura Evonne Steinman colorfully weaves together art, spiritually, justice, and community action. Laura Evonne’s spiritual journey is informed by her mixed-faith background. She’s the Religious Educator and Artist in Residence at Arlington Street Church (Unitarian
Universalist) in Boston, and teaches art at The Gifford School in Weston, a school for kids with emotional, learning, and behavioral challenges, and other institutions. She lives in a co-op in Somerville, Mass., with 3 amazing housemates, her cat Krowka, and dog Jenna Belle. Laura received her BFA in Sculpture from The Rhode Island School of Design and her Master’s in Art Education (with a focus in Community Arts) from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sabrina Sojourner

Sabrina Sojourner was the first open lesbian to be elected to Congress, in the “shadow” seat representing the District of Columbia. Today, with two decades of experience in management and public policy, she works as an independent consultant.  She was recently the cantor at Temple Beth Emet in Washington, D.C.

 

 

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Ellie Barbarash

Kohenet Ellie Barbarash, MS, CPEA, is an ordained Kohenet from the first graduating cohort of the Kohenet Priestess Institute. She studies about Chevrah Kaddishah practices of Taharah and Shmirah with the Gamliel institute. Ellie has an MS degree in occupational and environmental safety and health, and has worked to advocate, support and promote occupational safety for blue collar and high-risk workers for more than twenty-five years. Her writing has been published in Bridges and Jewish Book World. Ellie davvens, drums, and flutes in Philadelphia.

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; er 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.

Mimi Yasgur

Mimi Yasgur received her Master’s degree from Lesley University in Expressive Arts Therapy and Mental Health Counseling. She enjoys leading expressive arts groups is a variety of settings, with a particular interest in working with the elderly. In her own time, she does collage, creative writing, yoga, and dance. She looks forward to integrating the arts therapeutically in the mental health field and utilizing artistic expression within Jewish communities and other creative environments.

Penina Weinberg

Penina Weinberg is an independent biblical scholar who serves as president of Congregation Eitz Chayim in Cambridge, MA, and on the Boston Keshet community events committee. Her masters studies at Hebrew College concentrated on women-centered readings of biblical texts. Her studying and teaching focus a queer lens on the intersection of power and politics in the Hebrew Bible. Penina teaches at her synagogue, at other Boston area shuls, and at Nehirim, and Keshet. She can hardly wait to share her love of biblical texts with you.

Ariel Vegosen

Ariel Vegosen is proud to be a Jewish queer gender-outlaw. Ariel is a professional dialogue facilitator, Jewish educator, ropes course instructor, community organizer, media consultant, event coordinator, writer, performer, activist, and world traveler. Ariel has facilitated programs for Nehirim, Shomer Shalom, Teva Learning Alliance, Jewish Funds for Justice, Wilderness Torah, and American Jewish World Service. Ariel serves on the board of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Community of Living Traditions and is the founder of the Gender Blender Collective, a group designed to address how gender impacts and affects our lives.

Beth Blackmore

Beth Blackmore has been a social worker for over 25 years, with an MSW degree from Carleton University in Ottawa. During the week, she works with people with mood and impulsivity disorders, using Dialectical-Behavioral and Motivational Interviewing approaches, at a large mental health institute in Montreal. Beth and her partner have been members of Montreal’s Reconstructionist shul, Congregation Dorshei Emet, for 7 years, and were the first same-sex couple to legally marry in the synagogue. They were members and organizers of Nice Jewish Girls, one of Montreal’s Jewish Lesbian groups and Beth is a past vice president of Ga’ava, Montreal’s LGBTQQ organization.

Laura Yaros

Laura Yaros is a long-time activist and lives with her partner in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where she works as a Certified Translator. For the past 32 years, she has been volunteering at her local multi-ethnic, multilingual community radio station (CINQ, Radio Centre-ville, 102.3 FM), where she hosts a weekly 60-minute English-language feminist/progressive magazine show by, for and about women. She and her partner are members of Congregation Dorshei Emet—the Reconstructionist Synagogue of Montreal.

Alyssa Finn

Alyssa (AJ) Finn has been involved with Nehirim since the first Women’s Retreat in 2009. At that retreat, Alyssa realized that Nehirim was exactly the community she needed to combine her Jewish, queer, and spiritual identities in a safe and affirming space. Alyssa has a BA in Religion from Middlebury College and is in her last year at UMass Medical School training to be a Family Physician with special interests lie in the areas of Geriatrics, Palliative Care, and spirituality in medicine.

Sigal Ben Shmuel

Sigal Ben Shmuel’s experience focuses mainly in yoga; while living as a disciple in a hindu ashram for years, she studied and practiced its different aspects including karma yoga (service), bhakti (devotion), raja yoga (study of mind), hatha yoga (posture & breath) and meditation. She regularly led hatha yoga classes first in Israel and later in New York. Sigal received her BA in Landscape Architecture from the Technion in Israel, and currently lives and works in New York.