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, Tikkun, and Reality Sandwich magazine, and 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), Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007), and Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009).

Gregg Drinkwater

Gregg Drinkwater is Deputy Director for Research and Special Projects at Keshet. Prior to joining Keshet, Gregg was the director of Jewish Mosaic and one of the organization’s three co-founders. He is the co-editor, with Dr. David Shneer and Rabbi Joshua Lesser, of the book Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible (NYU Press, Sept. 2009). Drinkwater has served as a volunteer, board member or advisor to a wide range of Jewish, LGBT, and social justice organizations and is currently president of Limmud Colorado. Drinkwater earned his B.S. and M.A. degrees at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also devoted several years to a Ph.D. in history.