Nehirim East 2010: A Weekend of Community, Spirituality, and Fun for GLBT Jews, Partners & Allies
The Nehirim East GLBT Jewish Weekend Retreat
June 4-6, 2010
Isabella Freedman Retreat Center, Falls Village, CT
Register Now
Nehirim East is Nehirim’s flagship retreat weekend, bringing together over one hundred LGBT Jews from around the country to the beautiful Isabella Freedman Retreat Center in Connecticut. This year directed by Dr. Zvi Bellin, Nehirim East is a unique weekend of spirituality and community: workshops, great food, sports & swimming, a pluralistic community (Orthodox to atheist, teens to 70s, with non-Jewish partners welcome), and plenty of time to connect and meet new people.
This year, our 6th Annual East Coast Retreat, features familiar faces (Jay Michaelson, Becky Emet, Rabbi Joel Alter) and new ones (Rabbis Sue Levi Elwell, Alissa Wise, Ilana Kramer, and Aaron Katz). As always we will have inspiring prayer services, dynamic spiritual and intellectual workshops, and delicious food.
Learn More :
-Registration Costs and Financial Aid
-Tentative Schedule
-Halachic Information
-This Year’s Teachers and Presenters
-Testimonials from Nehirim Retreat Participants
- Is Nehirim for You?
- Logistics
Registration Costs and Financial Aid
As of May 13, Nehirim East is 2/3 sold out.
Financial Aid. Nehirim is committed to making its retreats accessible to all. Click here to apply for financial aid using our secure, online form. The deadline to apply for financial aid was April 25. However, Boston residents: 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.
Registration Pricing. Early bird registration ended May 5. Please note that prices go up $75 on June 1; we assess a $75 “late bird” fee for registrations received after that time. Don’t delay — Register Now
| Room Type | Regular Price (until May 31) | Late Registration Price (after May 31) |
| Dorm Triple/Quad | $225 | $300 |
| Economy Double (shared bath) | $300 | $375 |
| Economy Single (shared bath) | $350 | $425 |
| Triple (private bath) | $275 | $350 |
| Double (private bath) | $350 | $425 |
| Single (private bath) | $450 | $525 |
| Luxury Double (Weinberg bldg.) | $400 | $475 |
| Luxury Single (Weinberg bldg.) | $500 | $575 |
Program
We are excited to announce the schedule for Nehirim East 2010:
Friday, June 4 - 22nd Sivan
2:00-4:00 Arrival, snacks, and registration
4:00 Welcome and opening program
5:15 Optional mikvas (and alternatives)
6:00 Get ready for shabbat/ more mikvas
- Non-gendered mikva
- 12-step meeting
- Pre-Shabbat Meditation (Ken Page)
- Intro to Jewish Spirituality (Rabbi Aaron Katz)
6:45 Candlelighting and shabbat services
(Eli Kaplan-Wildmann and Rabbi Alissa Weiss)
8:30 Shabbos Dinner
D’var Torah by Rabbi Joel Alter
10:00-10:50 Mishpacha groups
11:00-12:00 Night session
- Tisch (Rabbi Aaron Katz and Eli Kaplan-Wildmann)
- Being Present for Each Other (Ilana Kramer & Corey Friedlander)
Shabbat, June 5 - 23 Iyar
7:30-8:00 Coffee, fruit, and pastry available
8:00-8:50 Morning spiritual practice
- Morning yoga (Dr. Zvi Bellin)
- Silent meditation (Participant Led)
8:15-9:15 Breakfast
9:15-11:30 Shabbat Morning Davening (Services)
Traditional davening & Torah reading (Rabbi J. Greenberg)
Renewal davening (Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell and Dr. Zvi Bellin)
11:45-1:00 Kiddush and Lunch
1:10-2:10 Afternoon Session 1 (choose one)
- Shabbat Text Study with Rabbi Joel Alter
- Opening to Grace with Becky Emet
- GLBT Living in Israel Today with Shein
2:20-3:20 Afternoon Session 2 (choose one)
- The Spirituality of Being Queer with Daniel Max
- Mussar for Queers who Love Justice with Rabbi Wise
- Torah Perspectives on Penetration with Rabbi J. Greenberg
3:30-4:20 Afternoon Session 3: Discussion Groups (choose one)
- My Life as a Queer Jewish Activist with Kramer
- International Journey of a Gay Rabbi with Rabbi Aaron Katz
- Insights into Partnership with Nurit Shein and Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell
4:30-5:30 Afternoon Session 4: (choose one)
- Naps, free time, hikes, frisbee, tennis, or nothing at all
- Hike (Esther Smigel and David Bass)
- Snacks available
- Board Games
5:40-6:30 Afternoon spiritual practice (choose one)
- Traditional-egalitarian Mincha (Rabbi Joel Alter)
- Yoga (Daniel Max)
- Queer Voices and the Poetry of Torah (Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell)
- More napping (this counts as spiritual practice)
6:40-7:50 Seudah Shlishit (Dinner/Third meal)
8:00-9:00 Mishpacha groups
9:10-9:25 Traditional Maariv/ Evening service (Rabbi J. Greenberg)
(shabbat ends at 8:50)
9:30-10:00 Havdalah (Dr. Zvi Bellin)
10:00-12:00 Barefoot Boogie (Eli Kaplan-Wildmann and Daniel Max)
11:00-12:00 Wine and Juice Bar w/Live Music
Bookstore and hot tub will be open
Sunday, June 6 - 24 Iyar
7:30-8:00 Coffee, fruit, and pastry available at the coffee machines
8:00-8:50 Morning spiritual practice (choose one)
- Yoga (Zvi Bellin)
- Shacharit (Rabbi J. Greenberg)
8:00-9:10 Breakfast
Note: Please be out of rooms by 9:30 AM
9:15-10:30 Sunday session 1 (choose one)
- Faces of Burma with Ilana Kramer
- GLBT Political Activism with Alex Weissman
10:45-11:30 Sunday session 2
- Keynote Speaker: Nurit Shein – New GLBT Health
- Heart Space with Ken Page
11:45-1:00 Closing session & final mishpacha group
1:00-2:00 Lunch
2:00-3:00 Bookstore and Farmer’s Market will be open
Tzeitchem l’shalom!
Faculty
Dr. Zvi Bellin, Retreat Director
Dr. 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.
Rabbi Joel Alter
Joel Alter lives in Boston where he serves as Rav Beit HaSefer (School Rabbi) and Assistant Head of School at JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School, a K-8 pluralistic school. He also volunteers as co-chair of the Greater Boston Steering Committee for Keshet. In 1991, just as he began his rabbinical and masters studies at JTS he was coming out to himself, and so he made that journey inside the Seminary closet. Since his ordination in 1996 Joel has been a teacher of young people and adults, with an emphasis on Tanakh (Bible) and T’fillah (Prayer), along with school administration. In each of the three schools where he has worked Joel has cultivated a culture of Jewish pluralism, committed to the idea that there are many ways to live in response to the call that Judaism, the Jewish People, and the Torah have on us. Shabbat, Hebrew, hiking, and good friends eating good food are among the things that bring him joy.
Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell
Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell has served congregations in California, New Jersey and Virginia, and has taught at the University of Cincinnati, UCLA, and LaSalle University. Elwell edited The Open Door, the CCAR Haggadah (2002), served as the poetry editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (2008), and as one of the editors of Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation (2001). The founding director of the Los Angeles Jewish Feminist Center, Elwell has served the Union for Reform Judaism since 1996. A Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, she continues her studies through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. A life-long Reform Jew, Elwell is the mother of two grown daughters. She lives in Philadelphia with her partner, Nurit Shein, who directs The Mazzoni Center, Philadelphia’s pre-eminent LGBT health center
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 newest book is Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009). In 2009, he was named to the “Forward 50″ list of the fifty leaders “creating the Judaism of the 21st century.”
Nurit Shein
Nurit Shein is the executive director of Mazzoni Center, Philadelphia’s only nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the healthcare needs of the LGBT community. A native of Israel, Nurit was a career officer in the Israeli Army. She served in intelligence, women’s corps and commanded the education corps of the Israeli army, and retired as a colonel. She later worked as the director of programs for the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center. Nurit has taught extensively on Jewish and LGBT issues, Israel, and the Middle East Conflict and is a board member of the LGBT synagogue of Philadelphia, Beth Ahavah.
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.
Alex Weissman
Alex Weissman is the Social Justice Coordinator at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, the world’s largest synagogue for LGBTQ Jews, our families, and friends. At CBST, he works with members on congregational-based community organizing to develop and run campaigns for social justice. His work also includes transforming Judaism and Jewish institutions to recognize, affirm, and celebrate trans and queer Jewish communities. Recently, he organized a conference for rabbinical and cantorial students on creating LGBTQ ritual, spiritual, and pastoral homes. Alex previously worked in behavioral HIV/AIDS research with the goals of preventing the spread of HIV among gay/bi men and trans women as well as improving the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS. Alex has also served as the Education Coordinator at Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project in Cambridge, MA, working to increase knowledge of partner abuse within LGBT communities and to improve the existing services that exist for survivors of partner abuse. Alex also serves on the board of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, where he completed the Grace Paley Organizing Fellowship.
Eli Kaplan-Wildmann
Eli Kaplan-Wildmann came to New York from Jerusalem to study and work in design for theater. He has been designing scenery, puppetry and lighting for various off off Broadway shows over the past few years, most recently City of Angels with the Gallery Players and …Slimy Things, a conservationist spectacle performed on a docked barge in Brooklyn. He also works as an assistant designer on scenery for television and live events with MTV, NBC, Live From Lincoln Center, ESPN and the Toy Fair. On the educational side of things, Eli teaches a graphics course at NYU, where he also graduated from. He ran a family education program at the Religious School of Rodeph Sholom for four years, and was a Rosh Edah (division head) at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires. Other conferences he has taught at include Limmud NY and the Hadar Shavuot Retreat. Before all of that, the most theatrical type of teaching that he did was as a drill sergeant in the Israeli Navy.
David Brody
David Brody was born in London, UK, and graduated with a BA from Edinburgh University. He then emigrated to Canada and worked at Radio-Canada. In the early 1980s he moved to Israel, where for the first time, he felt Canadian rather than British. On his return to Montreal, he worked as a freelance French-to-English translator. David was an active member of Naches, Montreal’s first gay Jewish group, and after spending two years in Israel, he founded that group’s successor, Yakhdav. In 1994, he and three other gay men sued the Quebec government for the right to receive the survivor’s pension following the death of their respective partners, winning the case after an eight-year battle. His retirement project was to write his first novel, Mourning and Celebration, the imaginary story of his life as it would have been, had he been born 100 years before his time as an Orthodox, gay Jew in his grandfather’s shtetl.
Rabbi Alissa Wise
Rabbi Alissa Wise joined Ma’yan, a non-profit think tank focused on the cultural challenges and identity issues that Jewish teen girls face, as Program Director in June 2009 upon completing her studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. Before training for the rabbinate, Alissa worked as a tenant organizer with the Fifth Avenue Committee in Brooklyn and was a participant in AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. As a rabbinical student she worked as a chaplain at Planned Parenthood, authored a pastoral counseling curriculum on queer reproductive rights and loss, and was the Education Director at both String of Pearls Hebrew School in Princeton, New Jersey, and Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) in New York City. Alissa is currently also the Coordinator of Mussar and Social Justice with the Mussar Leadership Program in Philadelphia. Alissa was recognized in 2009 as one of the “Heeb100”- Heeb Magazine’s annual roundup of “the 100 Jews you should know”.
Ilana Kramer
Ilana Kramer is currently completing her PhD in Clinical Psychology with a focus in international mental health issues. She received an M.A. in Gender Politics and an M.A. in Psychology. A strong commitment to social justice issues, Ilana continues her international work training Burmese refugee women on the Thai-Burma border and spent her last summer creating psychosocial programs in a rural village in Kenya. She was recently nationally awarded the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award for 2010 from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). She is based in Brooklyn, NY.
Daniel Max
Daniel Max is a Nutrition and Health Counselor, Shiatsu Practitioner, and Yoga Instructor. He began his studies in holistic health in Israel, his home country. Leaving Israel, Daniel traveled through Far East Asia studying various modalities of healing arts such as Chinese medical and Indian Ayurvedic therapies. Once settling in the US, Daniel completed his studies in the fields of shiatsu, nutrition and health counseling. Daniel is a graduate of Columbia University affiliated Institute Of Integrative Nutrition and of the former Boston Institute of Shiatsu. Daniel is a nationally certified massage therapist as well as certified by the American Association of Drugless Practitioners.
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.
Ken Page
Ken Page, LCSW is a psychotherapist and workshop leader. His blog, Finding Love (deeperdating.com/findinglove) offers tools and insight for single people exploring the inner work of finding partnership. He is the founder of Deeper Dating. He’s also the happy dad of 9 year old David, whom you’ll be seeing this weekend!
Logistical Information
- Transportation. For directions and transportation information, please visit the Isabella Freedman website. To offer or request a ride to the retreat, visit our Ride Board. The retreat center is available by train, and a shuttle is available for $15 (non-refundable) from the Wassaic train station (for MetroNorth service from New York City) — please email info[at]nehirim.org before June 1. 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.
- Time. The weekend lasts from midday on Friday until midday on Sunday. In order to maintain the community dynamic, we do ask that retreatants stay for the entire weekend.
- Children. If there is sufficient demand, a childrens’ program will be offered. The decision will be made on May 15, based on the number of families registered. If you register with your children and a children’s program is not offered, we will refund 100% of your registration costs.
For more information, please email us at info[at]nehirim.org.
Fordham University. His research focuses on religious and sexual
identity conflicts, and the integration of these identities. Erez is
currently teaching undergraduate courses in Psychology at Fordham, and
is working as a therapist with parolees with histories of substance
abuse. Erez’s past clinical experiences have included working with
substance abuse and personality disorders in the LGBT community, and
blending Eastern mindfulness practices with concrete behavioral change
(Dialectical Behavior Therapy). Erez is also a co-founder of Jewish
Queer Youth, a social and support group for LGBT Jews from Orthodox
and Traditional backgrounds, ages 18-30. He has spoken on numerous
panels on topics including being gay and Orthodox, “Reparative
Therapy” for homosexuality, Ethical therapy with gay adolescents, and
treatment of conflicting identities.”