Queer Shabbaton 2008
Queer Shabbaton New York
October 31-November 2, 2008
New York, NY
To register online, click here.
To offer or request a ride to the retreat or a place to stay, visit our Ride and Housing Board
Join us for an urban retreat of culture, creativity, and community for GLBT Jews, partners, and allies. This is a Shabbaton like you’ve never experienced before, featuring:
• Pluralistic, alternative community of queer Jews of all ages, religious stripes, and political affiliations
• Workshops and presentations on gender and Judaism, sexuality, politics, spirituality, and more
• Programs and pricing that ensure that everyone is included, with full scholarships for students
• A wide range of spiritual options, from yoga and meditation to traditional davening and text study
• Lots of good food and free time to enjoy Halloween weekend in NYC!
Last year, 140 queer Jews (plus partners and allies) joined us for the first Queer Shabbaton New York, and we had to turn many people away. Don’t be left out!
Please click a link to learn more:
Register Now!
Tachlis (Logistics): Cost, Transportation, Housing, etc.
Student Scholarships and Financial Assistance
Halachic information
Schedule
Presenters and Educators
Sponsors
Tachlis (Logistics): Cost, Transportation, Housing, etc.
We are committed to enabling everyone to attend the Shabbaton, and look forward to a wide range of sexual, gender, economic, religious, and ethnic diversity. Thus, we offer sliding scale rates. If your wallet will allow, please consider registering at the regular or the supporter rate. Your generosity supports our current and future programming.
| Early bird (by Sept. 15) | Regular | |
| Discounted Rate | $100 | $120 |
| Regular rate | $120 | $150 |
| Supporter rate | $150 | $180 |
The Queer Shabbaton will be held at the Kraft Center, Columbia’s Hillel building, at 606 West 115th St. in Manhattan.
Need a ride? Need a place to stay? Want to offer a ride or a place to stay? Check out our Ride and Housing Board.
Or check out nearby hostels:
Candy Hostel (West 95th St.)
Central Park Hostel (West 103rd St.)
HI-New York (Amsterdam Ave.)
Or click here and type “hotels loc: 606 W 115th St, New York, NY 10025″ into the search box to see a list of nearby hotels.
Student Scholarships and Financial Assistance
Student scholarships and financial aid 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.
Friday, October 31
1:00-3:00 Registration, Kraft Center Lobby
3:00-4:00 Welcome and Opening Program
4:00-4:30 Prepare for Shabbat
4:35-5:15 Mishpacha Groups Introduction
5:30-6:15 Candle Lighting [actual candlelighting 5:35 pm] and Shabbat Services with Rabbi Jacob Staub, Shoshana Jedwab, and Chani Getter
6:15-7:45 Dinner and Singing
8:00-11:00 •Evening Session 1: Halloween Parade in the Village with Ri Turner
•Evening Session 2: Jewish Film and Discussion led by Vanessa “Vinny” Prell of NUJLS
•Evening Session 3: Tisch (song, drink, celebration) led by Afraim Katzir and Zvi Bellin
11:00 Laila Tov! (Good Night!)
Saturday, November 1st
9:30-12 •Shabbat davening option 1: Shacharit w/ Rabbi Jacob Staub, Shoshana Jedwab, and Chani Getter
•Shabbat davening option 2: Shacharit at area shuls
•Shabbat davening option 3:
—-10-11 Back to School: Judaism 101 with Nehama Benmosche
—-11-12 Yoga with Daniel Max
12:00-1:20 Lunch (including Nehirim First-Timers Table with Zvi Bellin and Professional Queers/Professional Jews/Professional QueerJews Meet-and-Greet Table with Ri Turner)
1:30-2:30 Afternoon Session 1
•Option 1: Going to and Becoming Ourselves: Transformations and Covenants in Lech Lecha with Dr. Caryn Aviv of Jewish Mosaic and the University of Denver
•Option 2: Intergenerational Community Building with Rabbi Jacob Staub and Jonathan Vatner
•Option 3: Integration of our Jewish Queer Lives with Chani Getter
•Option 4: Educating Your Clergy: The Next Step in GLBT Activism with Gabriel Blau
2:40-3:40 Afternoon Session 2
•Option 1: Creating a Truly Inclusive Jewish Community with Lynn Schusterman, Jay Michaelson, and Dror Chankin-Gould
•Option 2: The Other World: An Exploration of Halloween for Jews with Rabbi Jill Hammer
•Option 3: Trans/Gender 101 with Jase Schwartz
•Option 4: Jews, Muslims and other Interfaith Dating Adventures with Randy Furash and Ty Power
3:45-4:45 Afternoon Session 3
•Option 1: Unkosher Flesh: Noah’s Nakedness and Ham’s Curse-A peek at the Parshah with Rabbi David Dunn Bauer
•Option 3: Hell No We Won’t Go!: Talmudic Texts Of Protest and Social Change with Shoshana Jedwab
•Option 3: Kishkas: Fat Acceptance for a Personal Revolution with Devra Polack
•Option 4: Create your own workshop
—Telling Our Stories: Coming Out Jewish & Queer with D’ror Chankin-Gould
—Sign up to lead your own workshop in the lobby!
4:50-5:50 Mishpacha groups
6:00-6:45 Evening Spiritual Practice
•Option 1: Mincha with Aaron Weininiger
•Option 2: Meditation with Jay Michaelson
•Option 3: 12-Step Meeting
•Option 4: Student talk time with Zvi Bellin and Vinny Prell
6:45-8:00 Dinner
8:00-8:15 Traditional Maariv with Aaron Weininger
8:15-8:45 Havdalah
9:00-10:30 Evening Program: Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad
11pm Laila Tov! (Good Night!)
Sunday, November 2nd
9:00-9:50 Morning Program
•Option 1: Early Risers Coffee Klatch
•Option 2: Yoga with Daniel Max
9:50-10:40 Breakfast (including optional discussion table with Jay Michaelson about his 150 days in silence)
10:50-12:00 We will begin promptly: Keynote Panel on Social Justice featuring Vanessa Prell, Ty Power, Becca W., and Sasha T. Goldberg
The perfect end-piece to a weekend full of programming that has centered around Judaism and social justice, community building, and Jewish texts dealing with social change, this keynote panel will feature Nehirim teachers and activists Vinny Prell, Ty Power, Becca W. and Sasha T. Goldberg will be discussing current domestic issues in social justice. The panelists will address feminism, race, interfaith coalition building, community organizing, welfare and the economy, intergenerational work and ageism, how those issues overlap and intersect; and, lastly, how we as Jews can take a hands-on approach to tackling that popular catch phrase, “Tikkun Olam.” We invite you to be part of the dialogue; there will be time for discussion and Q&A afterwards.
12:10-1:00 Closing program/ Last mishpacha group
Our presenters and educators (list still in formation!) include:
Sasha T. Goldberg, Assistant Director, Retreat Co-Director
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. A city Jew in every way imaginable, Sasha is thrilled to be directing the Queer Shabbaton New York.
Vanessa “Vinny” Prell, Retreat Co-Director
Vanessa “Vinny” Prell has dedicated one quarter of his life (and counting) to anti-oppression work, and continues these efforts as the Executive Director of the National Union of Jewish Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, and Intersex Students (NUJLS). An old hand at program development and workshop leading, she has conducted workshops on topics as varied as becoming an ally, sex education, religion and abortion, rape culture, and identity politics. Her background in youth empowerment has led him to work with high school and college aged youth. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with honors, and degrees in Literature and the Study of Racism and is honored to serve on the board of Bet Mishpachah, Washington DC’s egalitarian Synagogue embracing a diversity of sexual and gender identities.
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).
Rabbi Jill Hammer
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy of Jewish Religion, as well as the director and co-founder of Tel Shemesh, a website celebrating and creating Jewish earth-based traditions, and the author of The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons (forthcoming September 2006). She is a poet, writer, myth-maker, and midrashist who has been published in many journals and anthologies, and is the author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, a collection of modern midrash. She received a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1996 and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001.
Rabbi Jacob J. Staub
Rabbi Jacob J. Staub is Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Spirituality at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, where he served as Academic Vice President for 17 years and where he was ordained. He served as editor of the Reconstructionist magazine. He is the founder and director of the first program in Jewish Spiritual Direction at a rabbinical seminary. He teaches medieval Jewish studies, Jewish meditation, and Jewish spirituality. He is the author of The Creation of the World According to Gersonides and the co-author of Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach. He came out as a gay man five years ago.
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.
Chani Getter
Chani Getter holds a BA in Human Development from Empire State College. She is a Motivational Speaker as well as a Certified Holistic Life Coach. A single mother of 3 children, she has led parenting workshops and is currently facilitating a Single-Mother’s support group in her community. Chani has spoken on numerous panels to tell her story of growing up Ultra-Chasidic and of her eventual acceptance of her identity. Chani follows an eclectic spiritual path that allows her to connect to the source of life within. In her work, she strives to creates a safe space for people to explore the paradoxes in their own lives.
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.
Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad
Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad is a refreshing mix of comedy, music, spoken-word and show-stopping burlesque, featuring the gals who learned to smoke at Hebrew School, got drunk at their Bat-Mitzvahs and would rather have more schtuppa than the chupah, featuring performers seen on Comedy Central, HBO and Late Night TV. These badass chosen chicks boldly dare to deconstruct years of tradition, expectations and guilt in a fast-paced vaudeville extravaganza.”Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” gets remixed, Tumbalaika gets a makeover and we all find out what’s in Gefilte Fish? (it’s “Fear Factor” for Jews!) Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad has been spreading their own brand of nuevo schmaltz across the land to sold-out crowds in NYC, DC, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Pittsburgh, Madison, Detroit, Montreal, Burlington, Provincetown, The Berkshires, The Hamptons, and of course, The Catskills. Audiences can’t get enough of these wayward girls!
