Please note: Registration is on a first-come, first served basis and as of March 1, only a few spots remained. Click the link above to register online.

After four successful retreats in the Northeast, Nehirim is proud to announce Nehirim West, our first weekend retreat in California, created in partnership with JewishMosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity. The retreat will take place March 7-9, 2008, at the Walker Creek Ranch, outside of San Francisco. The Retreat will be directed by Rabbi Julia Watts Belser. As of today, February 24, over 90 people have registered for the retreat, and we are near capacity.

Nehirim West offers:

- A wide range of spiritual options, from traditional shabbat davening to meditation, yoga, and dance,
- Connections with GLBT Jews of all ages, religious affiliations, and walks of life.
- Workshops and seminars featuring a wide range of teachers.
- Teachers including Jhos Singer, Rabbi Jane Litman, Karen Erlichman, Sara Felder, Andrew Ramer, Noach Dzmura, Dev Noily, Bruce Bierman, Jay Michaelson and Rabbi Julia Watts Belser.
- Full scholarships for students, and financial aid for those in need

Click here to register.
For more information, please email us or Join our mailing list.

Tachlis: Registration, Transportation, Money

Registration is now available. Please register by February 28th. After February 28th, we may still have spaces available, but we cannot guarantee you'll be able to attend.

Financial aid is available for students and others who require it. If you would like to apply for a student or need-based scholarship, please send an email to [email protected] explaining a little about yourself and why you'd like to come to the retreat. We are pleased to have scholarship money available thanks to the generosity of our supporters, so please don't hesitate to ask. Please include the amount that you are requesting in your application.

Pricing is as follows:

Accommodation	By Feb 28
Dorm-style accommodations (6-10 bunk beds per room & shared baths)	$200
Triple room (price is per person)	$325
Double room (price is per person)	$375
Single room (limited)	$475

Triple, double, and single rooms all have shared bathrooms. All prices include full room & board and program expenses for the entire retreat.

Transportation to Nehirim West
Rides Offered/Wanted
We've set up a ride board where you can offer or request a ride. In addition, Greg Lawrence at Congregation Sha'ar Zahav has generously offered to help connect people who are driving to the retreat from San Francisco. If you have a ride to offer, or need a ride, please contact him at 415-861-6932, ext. 303.

Charter Shuttle from Berkeley
Nehirim West has arranged for charter shuttle service from downtown Berkeley, near the Berkeley BART station, on Friday at 12:30 pm. The shuttle will be departing from Walker Creek Ranch at 2:30 pm on Sunday. If you paid extra for the Berkeley Shuttle when you registered, we will email you by 2/28 to confirm and send more details about where and when to meet the van. If you still want a ride, register soon before seats run out!

Driving to Walker Creek Ranch
Driving Directions to the Ranch are available at www.walkercreekranch.org/directions.htm

Childcare:We will gladly provide childcare at cost, for those families who request it. Please contact [email protected] if you are interested in childcare at Nehirim West. Childcare must be reserved by February 28; we cannot accommodate late requests.

Schedule
The following is a tentative schedule for the retreat.

Friday, March 7

3:00 Arrival & Registration Begin
3:45 Welcome & Opening Program
5:00 Preparing for Shabbat
-Meditation before Shabbat or
-Introduction to Shabbat Practices & Spirituality or
-Time to Relax and Enjoy Walker Creek Ranch
5:30 Candle Lighting & Welcome
6:00 Kabbalat Shabbat Service
7:30 Shabbat Dinner
9:00 Mishpacha Groups (groups will meet to check-in throughout the weekend)
10:00 Evening Activity:
-Shabbat Singing & Z’mirot Tisch or
-Performance

Saturday, March 8

8:00 Breakfast Begins
8:30 Morning Spiritual Practice:
-Torah Study or
-Yoga and Dance
9:00 Shabbat Morning Service:
-Contemplative/Renewal Service or
-Traditional Egalitarian Service or
-Family Service or
-Torah Study for Secular Folks
11:30 Lunch
1:00 Afternoon Workshops – Session I (1 hour)
2:30 Afternoon Workshops – Session II (1 hour)
3:45 Afternoon Rest or Facilitated Break-Out Groups or Minchah
-Non-Jewish or Newly-Jewish Partners
-Newly Out? Not Out? Coming Out?
-Choosing Judaism or Returning to Judaism
-Jewishly Ambivalent
-Survivors of Trauma, Abuse & Violence
5:00 Afternoon Workshops – Session III (1 hour)
6:15 Mishpacha Groups
7:00 Dinner
8:30 Healing Service or Ma’ariv
Havdalah
9:30 Evening Program: Performance, with dancing and music to follow

Sunday, March 9

8:00 Breakfast Begins
8:30 Morning Spiritual Practice:
-Traditional-Egalitarian Service or
-Movement & Meditation
9:45 Morning Workshops – Session IV (1½ hours)
11:30 Mishpacha Groups
12:30 Closing & Lunch


Teachers
Rabbi Julia Watts Belser, Nehirim West Retreat Director
Julia Watts Belser strives to blend passionate scholarship with prophetic witness, teaching classic Jewish texts in a way that speak to our contemporary longings. Julia has taught in diverse university, synagogue, and community-based settings, including the Graduate Theological Union, The Leaven Center for Spirituality and Social Change, and the Masorti Lehrhaus in Berlin, Germany. Julia’s written work is engaged in crafting feminist theology and nurturing earth-based Jewish practice. She works as an anti-oppression educator and activist for LGBT issues, anti-racism, and disability rights. She has co-authored A Health Handbook for Women with Disabilities, published by Hesperian Foundation.

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).

Jhos Singer
Jhos Singer is a transgender musician, a gifted meditation teacher, a story teller, and a Jewish spiritual leader serves the. Jhos has served Coastside Jewish Community of Half Moon Bay as rabbi/maggid since 2000 and has also served Chochmat Halev in Berkeley.

Rabbi Jane Littman
Jane Rachel Litman is the Chair of the East Bay Interfaith Council for Worker Justice and the Rabbinic Board of the Progressive Jewish Alliance. She has served as the rabbi of Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative and Gay Outreach congregations, as well as taught in academic institutions including the University of Judaism, California State University Northridge,and Loyola Marymount University. Rabbi Litman is considered an authority on moral education for diverse families. She edited the award winning Lifecycles 2: Jewish Women on Scripture in Contemporary Life with Rabbi Debra Orenstein. The next volume in the series Lifecycles 3: Jewish Women on Holy Times and Seasons is due out in 2008.

Karen Erlichman
Karen Lee Erlichman, MSS, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker in private practice in San Francisco, where she provides psychotherapy and spiritual direction. Karen is also the director of Jewish Mosaic’s San Francisco Bay area office. She is a past co-chair of the Jewish Women’s Caucus of the Association for Women in Psychology, and a current member of Spiritual Directors International.

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.

Noach Dzmura
Noach Dzmura recently completed his M.A. at the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, CA; his thesis is entitled “Textual Relations in the Restroom: Countering Inauthenticity in Jewish Transgender Lives.” A recipient of the Haas-Koshland Award, Mr. Dzmura will be studying at Pardes Institute for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in 2006-07.

Sara Felder
Sara Felder is a juggler, playwright and performance artist. She has performed at Festivals of Jewish/Yiddish Culture around the world. Her popular solo play June Bride tells and juggles the story of a traditional Jewish lesbian wedding and has toured to 35 venues. Felder's most recent solo play Out of Sight brings circus tricks, shadow puppets and a Jewish queer perspective to questions of family loyalty and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Website.

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.

Sasha T. Goldberg
Sasha T. Goldberg is a professional Jewish educator who, in the past two years, has worked five different Jewish jobs, taught six different grades in Hebrew School, led eight Jewish teen retreats, served on a Jewish Board, davenned in at least seven different shuls, and spent four months living in Israel. Accordingly, Sasha is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Judaism at The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Out in the queer world, Sasha has organized conferences, presentations, and workshops, and she has spoken extensively on sexuality, gender and identity.

Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla
Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla has been an activist, writer and educator for more than a decade. He has taught widely about sexual and gender diversity in Judaism in the US, Canada and Israel. His writing appears in and is upcoming from numerous magazines including Lilith, Shm'a: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility and Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Art and Culture, as well as in anthologies published by New York University Press, Jewish Lights and the Union for Reform Judaism Press. For the last 2 years, Elliot served as the rabbi of the Danforth Jewish Circle, in Toronto, Canada, a congregation grounded in social justice and inclusion. Elliot was the Rabbinic Organizer of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) in LA.

Gregg Drinkwater
Gregg Drinkwater is Executive Director of Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, an organization dedicated to helping Jewish institutions become more welcoming of LGBT Jews and their families. He is the co-editor of the book Torah Queeries (NYU Press, forthcoming). He has served as a board member or advisor to a wide range of Jewish and LGBT organizations and is currently the vice president of Limmud Colorado and the secretary of the World Congress of GLBT Jews. Drinkwater has worked in nonprofit communications, at a daily newspaper in Russia, and as the news editor for Gay.com and PlanetOut.com, the world's most popular LGBT Web sites.

Dev Felder Noily
Dev Felder Noily is a student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia (class of '09). She 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.

Bruce Bierman
Bruce Bierman is the artistic director of the San Francisco based Jewish Dance Theatre. The JDT creates collaborative ensemble work blending experimental theatre with traditional Jewish dance and movement. The JDT also offers traditional Jewish dance programs and workshops for all ages. Bruce holds his B.A. in Asian Theatre and Dance from U.C. Santa Cruz and has toured the country performing and teaching with the Aman Folk Dance Ensemble. He is a student of the great Jewish dancer and choreographer, Felix Fibich and Yiddish dance teacher Steve Weintraub.

Sponsoring Organizations
Nehirim West is supported by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund. This retreat is cosponsored by JewishMosaic and the Institute for Judaism and Sexual Orientation. If your organization would like to be a cosponsor, please contact us.