Faculty

Each Nehirim retreat features a mix of Nehirim staff, Nehirim core faculty, and guest teachers and scholars in residence from around the Jewish (and non-Jewish) worlds. Nehirim’s faculty includes some of today’s most innovative thinkers in the Jewish world: rabbis, bestselling authors, members of the “Forward 50,” and up-and-coming teachers and scholars who combine spiritual depth with intellectual rigor, accessibility with sophistication.

Core Faculty Members

Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D.

Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy of Jewish Religion, is an author, educator, midrashist, myth-weaver, and ritualist. She is the director of Tel Shemesh, a website and community celebrating and creating Jewish earth-based traditions, and the co-founder of Kohenet: The Hebrew Priestess Institute. She is the author of two books: Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women (Jewish Publication Society, 2001) and The Jewish Book of Days (Jewish Publication Society, forthcoming 2006). She is a poet and essayist whose work has been published in many journals and anthologies such as Lilith, Bridges, Response, Natural Bridge, Zeek, The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion,The Jewish Spectator, Biblical Women in the Midrash, and The Womens Torah Commentary. Rabbi Hammer is a celebrated adult educator who has taught in many venues including retreats, conferences, synagogues, Jewish community centers, new moon gatherings, and on-going adult education classes. She conducts workshops around the country on ancient and contemporary midrash, bibliodrama, creative ritual, and Jewish cycles of time. She is also currently serving as an adjunct at the Academy for Jewish Religion in Riverdale, NY.

Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ph.D.

Jacob J. Staub, Ph.D., was ordained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1977 and has been on the faculty since 1983 (including 15 years as academic dean). Today, he serves as chair of the Department of Medieval Jewish Civilization, professor of Jewish philosophy and spirituality and director of the Jewish Spiritual Direction Program, which he was instrumental in developing. Spiritual direction is a contemplative practice that helps individuals discern God’s presence in their lives.

Staub’s own spiritual quest led him to complete certification in mindfulness leadership training with Sylvia Boorstein, a widely respected teacher of mindfulness meditation. He teaches meditation and spirituality at RRC and has taught Jewish spiritual direction across North America, and served in 2008 as the Conference Spiritual Director for Spiritual Directors International.

Staub is the co-author of Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach and the author of The Creation of the World According to Gersonides. He has published over 100 articles on contemporary Jewish life and thought, queering Judaism, and medieval Jewish civilization. He is also a published poet.

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.

Rabbi Steve Greenberg

Rabbi Steve Greenberg isn’t afraid of a challenge. Known as an award-winning author, noted teacher, and religious iconoclast, Steve has broken boundaries and led the fight to make Orthodox Judaism more open and inclusive and accepting of gays and lesbians. A Senior Teaching Fellow at CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Steve was featured in the acclaimed 2001 film Trembling Before G-d, about Orthodox gay Jews, and has appeared in over 500 post-screening community dialogues throughout the world. As educational coordinator for the films outreach project, he arranged for screenings in Israels religious school system, reaching over 2,000 principals, educators and school counselors. A popular speaker on issues of faith, sexuality, and tradition, Steve helped organize the first Orthodox Mental Health Conference on homosexuality, and has worked with numerous families in reconciliation. Winner of the coveted Koret Book Award for Philosophy and Thought, Steve is the author of the groundbreaking book Wrestling with God & Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), which explores homosexuality and Jewish tradition. The Koret awards are the most prestigious in Jewish prose. The book was also selected as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards.

Rabbi Dev Felder Noily

Rabbi Dev Felder Noily 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.

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.

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.

S. Bear Bergman

S. Bear Bergman is a writer, 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 three award-winning solo performances, as well as a frequent contributor to anthologies on all manner of topics.

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.

Additional Faculty Members

Rebecca Alpert East2009
Rabbi Joel Alter QSNY2007 East2009
Rabbi Camille Angel West2009
Dr. Caryn Aviv QSNY2009 West2009
Gabriel Blau East2005 East2006 QSNY2007 QSNY2008
David Brodsky East2008
Rabbi Ayelet Cohen QSNY2009
Rafi Daugherty East2008 East2009 Men2010
Gregg Drinkwater West2008 QSNY2007 QSNY2009
Noach Dzmura East2006 West2008
Karen Erlichman West2008 West2009
Sara Felder QSNY2007 West2008
Rabbi Rafael Goldstein QSDC2010
Miryam Kabakov Womens2009
Eli Kaplan-Wildmann East2008 East2009
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum QSNY2009
Shira Kline QSNY2007 Womens2009
Miryam Klotz Womens2010
Rabbi Elliot Kukla West2008 West2009
Professor Joy Ladin Womens2010
Rabbi Joshua Lesser West2009
Rabbi Jane Littman West2008
Ken Page East2005 East2006 East2007East2008 East2009
Professor Ann Pellegrini QSNY2007
Vinny Prell QSNY2007 QSNY2008 QSNY2009
Rabbi Dawn Rose East2008
Day Schildkret West2009
Naomi Seidman QSNY2007
Jhos Singer West2008
John Stasio East2009 Gathering2010
Laura Evonne Steinman East2008 East2009 Womens2009
Max Strassfeld West2009
Rabbi Julia Watts-Belser East2006 West2008 West2009