Faculty
Biographies L to Z
Lori Hope Lefkovitz is the newly appointed Ruderman Professor of Jewish Studies at Northeastern University, where she directs the Jewish Studies program and is a Professor of English. Her most recent book is
In Scripture: The First Stories of Jewish Sexual Identities (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010); her other books include
Shaping Losses: Cultural Memory and the Holocaust (co-edited with Julia Epstein). A graduate of Brandeis University, Lefkovitz received her Ph.D. in English from Brown University and was a recipient of a Woodrow Wilson dissertation fellowship in women's studies, a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute of the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis, a Golda Meir post-doctoral fellowship and a senior Fulbright Professorship at Hebrew University. As the founding director of RRC's Kolot, Lefkovitz long served as www.Ritualwell.org's executive editor. Lefkovitz and her husband, Rabbi Leonard Gordon (of Mishkan Tefila), raised two wonderful daughters and now live in Newton.
Rabbi Maya Leibovich, “HaRav Maya,” as she is known by the children in Kehilat Mevasseret Zion’s Day Care Center, is the first Israeli-born woman ordained by the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. For the past 17 years, Rabbi Leibovitch has served as Rabbi of Kehilat Mevasseret Zion. She was among the first rabbis to go to the Former Soviet Union and teach Reform Judaism and is the editor of both the Siddur and Mahzor of the Reform Movement in the FSU. With her husband, Menachem, Rabbi Leibovich has 4 children and 2 grandchildren.
Rabbi David Lerner has served as the rabbi of Temple Emunah in Lexington since 2004. Previously, he served congregations in Highland Park, IL and White Plains, NY. He is the president of the New England Region of the Rabbinical Assembly and serves on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly. He is also co-President of the Lexington Interfaith Clergy Association and sits on the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Lerner received his BA in Political Philosophy from Columbia College and his MA in rabbinics and his ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary where he was a Wexner Graduate Fellow. He is married to Sharon Levin, a psychotherapist in private practice in Lexington. They are the parents of a nine-year-old daughter, Talya, six-year-old son, Ari, and a three-year-old son, Matan.
Rabbi Daniel Liben received his rabbinic ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1983 and has served as the spiritual leader of Temple Israel of Natick since 1991. A prolific teacher, he is a recipient of the Bureau of Jewish Education's Keter Torah Award for his work in family education, and is on the faculty of Ikkarim. Rabbi Liben has completed Eylat Hayyim's Mindfulness Leadership Training, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality rabbinic training program. He is a past president of the New England Rabbinical Assembly, and is currently serving as president of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis and as a member of the Mayyim Hayyim Board of Directors.
Rabbi Dov Linzer is the Rosh HaYeshiva and Dean of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, a groundbreaking four-year Orthodox smicha (ordination) program, which provides students with rigorous talmud Torah and halakhic study and sophisticated professional training in an open and inclusive religious atmosphere. Rabbi Linzer has published halakha and machshava articles in Torah journals and lectures widely at synagogues and conferences on topics relating to Halakha, Orthodoxy, and modernity. He is the recipient of the prestigious Avi Chai Fellowship.
Jennifer Meltzer prepares brides to immerse before their weddings, and has has served as a mikvah attendant in Israel for women and children completing the process of conversion. Jennifer grew up in Los Angeles,California. She received a Bachelors of Science in Human Development from the University of California at Davis, a Masters in Social Work from the University of Southern California, and a Masters in Jewish Communal Service from Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. Jennifer currently serves as an administrator for the Nierman Preschool at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in San Diego, working largely on programming and admissions. Jennifer also teaches the Mommy and Me Classes for the Nierman Preschool. Jennifer is married to Rabbi Scott Meltzer, and they have four children: Shayna, Nadiv, Maital and Yael.
Rabbi Haviva Ner-David, a post-denominational rabbi, received her PhD from Bar Ilan University and wrote her thesis concerning the nature of the relationship between ritual impurity and niddah. In 2006, she became one of the first women granted the equivalent of Orthodox smicha from Rabbi Dr. Aryeh Strikovsky of Jerusalem. Haviva's book,
Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Towards Traditional Rabbinic Ordination (2000, JFL Press), is a memoir that also explores halakhic topics related to women in Judaism. Her second book,
Giving Chanah Voice: A Feminist Rabbi Reclaims the Women’s Mitzvot of Baking, Bathing and Brightening, will be published in 2010. She is the founding director of "Reut: The Center for Modern Jewish Marriage," which offers marriage and wedding preparation seminars for couples. Rabbi Ner-David serves on the board of Women of the Wall and Rabbis for Human Rights. Recently relocated from Jerusalem to Kibbutz Hannaton in the Lower Galilee with her husband and six children, she oversees the kibbutz mikveh, Sh’maya, which is slowly growing into an Israeli version of Mayyim Hayyim.
Vanessa L. Ochs is the author of
Inventing Jewish Ritual (JPS), winner of a 2007 National Jewish Book Award. Her other books include
Sarah Laughed, The Jewish Dream Book (with Elizabeth Ochs),
Words on Fire, and
Safe and Sound: Protecting Your Child In An Unpredictable World. For her writing, she was awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. Dr. Ochs is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies program at the University of Virginia. She earned her B.A. in Drama and French from Tufts University, an M.F.A. in Theater from Sarah Lawrence College, and Ph.D. in Anthropology of Religion from Drew University. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with her husband, theologian Peter Ochs; they are the parents of two grown daughters.
Susan Opdyke is a volunteer mikveh guide and mikveh educator at Mayyim Hayyim. She is a Jew-by-Choice who is active in outreach activities. She is a member of Temple Shalom of Newton where she is chair of the Outreach Committee and a member of the Board of Trustees. She became Bat Mitzvah at Temple Shalom in 2007. Susan is a URJ Outreach Fellow for Conversion. She works with the URJ Outreach Boston office as Outreach Ambassador for Introduction to Judaism classes and as facilitator for Yours, Mine and Ours classes. Professionally, Susan is a clinical social worker with the Partners Healthcare Employee Assistance Program. She lives with her husband in Newton.
Rabbi Michelle Pearlman is Rabbi of Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, NJ. Most recently she served as a pulpit rabbi at Temple Shalom of Newton, MA (2006-2010) where she fell in love with Mayyim Hayyim and the incredible work the community mikveh does for Greater Boston. Following ordination (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion 2005), she worked for Union for Reform Judaism, serving as the Director of Youth and Informal Education (New Jersey Council), and the Project Coordinator in the National Department of Outreach and Synagogue Community. She holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in Voice Performance from the University of Michigan and University of Illinois respectively.
Michelle and her husband Drew have two children, Madeline and Noa.
Rabbi Jay Perlman is the Senior Rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom. Before coming to the Boston area, Rabbi Perlman served as Associate Rabbi of Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis, where he was awarded UJA Federation’s Rabbinic Award for outstanding community leadership. In addition, for several years Rabbi Perlman served as the founding Rabbinic Director of the Fleischer Jewish Healing Center of St. Louis.Rabbi Perlman was ordained from the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 1996. Originally from Boston, Rabbi Perlman is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Brandeis University, where he received his B.A. in both History and Near East and Judaic Studies.
Rabbi Hara Person is the Publisher and Director of CCAR Press and also oversees the publication of the CCAR Journal: A Reform Jewish Quarterly. Rabbi Person was ordained in 1998 from HUC-JIR, after graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College (1986) and receiving an MA in Fine Arts from New York University’s International Center of Photography (1992). She is the author of
Stories of Heaven and Earth: Bible Heroes in Contemporary Children's Literature,
That You May Live Long: Caring for Your Aging Parents, Caring for Yourself (co-editor), and
The Mitzvah of Healing (editor). Since 1998, Rabbi Person has been the High Holy Day rabbi of Congregation B'nai Olam, Fire Island Pines, NY; she is also Adjunct Rabbi at the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue.
Varda Polak-Sahm was born in Jerusalem and grew up in a traditional family in the ultra orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim. An artist, photo journalist, writer, and folklore researcher, Polak-Sahm studied Jewish Folklore, History of Theater and Art at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she did her masters degree. Her thesis about the mikveh was published in 2005 in Hebrew, and appeared in an English translation in 2009 as,
The House of Secrets: The Hidden World of the Mikveh. Her photography has been exhibited in galleries around Israel and Europe, including a show of mikveh ceremony photos. She produced "The Peace Album,” which was presented by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to King Hussein of Jordan in the White House (1994).
Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael is the Rabbinic Director of InterFaithways: the Interfaith Family Support Network of Greater Philadelphia. She received her rabbinic ordination at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, PA, and holds a masters degree in Contemporary Jewish Studies from Brandeis University. A Wexner Graduate fellow, she has also studied at Hebrew University, Pardes and Indiana University. Rabbi Raphael composes Jewish music, sings with MIRAJ and has recorded five albums. She teaches on a variety of topics including dreams, kabbalah, angels, and women's spirituality. Her website is www.shechinah.com
Joseph Reimer is the director of the Institute for Informal Jewish Education and associate professor and former director of the Hornstein Program at Brandeis University. Trained at Harvard as a developmental psychologist, he currently focuses his research on experiential Jewish learning, Jewish camping and the professional development of educators. His book, Succeeding at Jewish Education, won the 1997 National Jewish Book Award. He lives in Brookline with his wife Gail Twersky Reimer.
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Aviva Richman has taught at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, and she is a past Rosh Kollel of the Bet Midrash at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. She has also enjoyed teaching community-wide sessions for the Hadar Bet Midrash and at the National Havurah Institute. She studied in the Pardes Kollel and the Drisha Scholars' Circle and is currently completing semikhah studies with a private teacher. Particular interests include Halakhah, gender and sexuality in Judaism and niggunim. This fall she will be starting a PhD in Rabbinics at NYU.
Rabbi Michelle Robinson has been blessed to serve as a rabbi at Temple Emanuel of Newton since 1999. Before coming to Temple Emanuel, she received her undergraduate degree in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she discovered a love for Jewish texts, Israel, and Jewish life that led her to the rabbinate. She was ordained as part of the first graduating class of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles.
Cookie Rosenbaum is the Judaic Studies principal at the Striar Hebrew Academy in Sharon, MA. Cookie has over 25 years of experience as a Jewish educator and was trained as a teacher of Taharat Hamishpacha in Israel by Tehilla Abramov. She has been teaching the laws of Niddah and mikveh in the US for the last 15 years. A part-time shomeret at the Sharon mikveh, she serves as a consultant-educator for Mayyim Hayyim. In addition to teaching about the mitzvah of immersion, she has also taught many women and men in the process of converting to Judaism through Orthodox auspices.
Rabbi Micha'el Rosenberg is the rabbi of the Fort Tryon Jewish Center, an independent egalitarian synagogue in the Washington Heights section of New York City. An alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, he graduated from Harvard College and received his rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. He is currently a doctoral candidate in Talmud and Rabbinic Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). He has taught Bible, Talmud, and halachah in a wide variety of settings, including the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, JTS, the National Havurah Institute, and the Northwoods Kollel and Beit Midrash of Ramah Wisconsin.
Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University. He also chairs the Academic Advisory and Editorial Board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati and is chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. Author or editor of more than twenty books on American Jewish history and life, his
American Judaism: A History won six awards including the 2004 “Everett Jewish Book of the Year Award” from the Jewish Book Council. Sarna is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Academy of Jewish Research.
Carol Schnitzler has worked as a mikveh attendant and professional coordinator at the Community Mikvah of the Conservative Movement in Wilmette, IL, since it opened over 10 years ago. She is the “face” of that mikveh, answering the phone, explaining what to expect, and answering any and all questions. She was a participant at the National Mayyim Hayyim Mikveh Guide Training in 2008. Schnitzler is eager to share her experiences in the Chicago area, and also to learn from other mikveh administrators, especially as regards conversion to Judaism. She hopes to enhance training her community’s volunteer mikveh guides/attendants and to learn more about contemporary uses of mikveh.
Cindy Shulak Rome
Marjorie Sokoll
Missy Stein is the host of Philadelphia's daily morning radio program
What's Up with Missy on AM 1340 WHAT. Stein serves on the Board of the Mikveh at Temple Beth Hillel Beth El and is well known for her lectures on the topic of Taharat Hamishpacha, the laws of family purity. She has been volunteering on behalf of Mayyim Hayyim for nearly a year, serving as a liaison to mikvaot in Israel and coordinating and co-leading an upcoming Mayyim Hayyim trip, A Women's Spiritual Journey to Israel through Mikveh, Music and Movement in 2011. A popular lecturer, her article “Beneath the Surface: Spirituality and Mikvah,” was published in Women’s League for Conservative Judaism Outlook magazine. She and her husband, Rabbi Jay Stein, are the proud parents of Adi, Nina, Gavriella, Mia and Yasmin; they currently live in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania.
Sarah Tasman is entering her fourth year at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College and is currently the rabbinic intern at Temple Shir Tikvah in Winchester, MA. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where she majored in Arts and Ideas in the Humanities. She has served as a chaplain in Washington DC, and worked as a community educator at the BIMA and Genesis programs at Brandeis University. Tasman is a mikveh guide and educator at Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh and Education Center in Newton and was also the rabbinic intern this past year; in that capacity she helped coordinate the “Beneath the Surface” program for bat mitzvah girls and their moms and worked with the educational planning committees for the 2010 Gathering the Waters Mikveh Conference.
Rabbi Uri Topolosky joined Congregation Beth Israel New Orleans in July of 2007. He and his wife Dahlia, a child psychologist, and their two boys, Eylon and Itai, relocated from Riverdale, N.Y. Uri served previously there as the Associate Rabbi of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. Uri received his rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School where he was a member of the second graduating class in 2005. Prior to his rabbinic studies, Uri spent two years studying in Israel at Yeshivat Sha'alvim before attending the University of Maryland at College Park.
Cantor Louise Treitman is the Director of Community Outreach and Admissions Coordinator for the School of Jewish Music Institute at Hebrew College in Newton, where she also serves as adjunct faculty for the Cantor-Educator Program. She served Temple Beth David in Westwood for 20 years, and was recently named Cantor Emerita. With degrees from Wellesley College and the New England Conservatory of Music, she received her Certification as an Invested Cantor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1998. Cantor Treitman was the president of the Jewish Ministers Cantors Association of New England, founding president of the New England Board of Cantors, and a member of the national board of the American Conference of Cantors. She was assistant conductor/vocal coach for the Zamir Chorale of Boston and continues as a guest soloist. Cantor Trietman is on the board of Mayyim Hayyim.
Rabbi Ethan Tucker co-founder and rosh yeshiva at Mechon Hadar and chair in Jewish Law. Ethan was a faculty member at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, where he taught Talmud and Halakhah in the Scholars Circle. Ethan was ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and earned a PhD in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a B.A. from Harvard College. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, hewas a co-founder of Kehilat Hadar anda winner of the first Grinspoon Foundation Social Entrepreneur Fellowship.
Sue Ann Wasserman is currently the Project Manager for Mayyim Hayyim's Ceremonies Project. She was the Director of the Union For Reform Judaism's Department of Worship, Music and Religious Living from 1997-2009. Prior to this, she was the Associate Rabbi at The Temple in Atlanta, GA from 1987 to 1991, and the Rabbi of Brooklyn Heights Synagogue from 1991-1997. Rabbi Wasserman received a B.A. from Brandeis University in 1982 and her rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College -Jewish Institute of Religion in 1987. Four translated poems from her rabbinic thesis,
Women's Voices: Our Present Through Our Past,
and
Mikveh Ceremony for Laura (a ceremony for survivors of rape) were published in
Four Centuries of Jewish Women's Spirituality.
Janet Yassen has been a volunteer Mikveh Guide with Mayyim Hayyim since it's founding, and most recently, has coordinated the Mayyim Hayyim Program entitled
Embracing Waters: Holding Hope and Healing in the Aftermath of Abuse. She is the Crisis Services Coordinator of the Victims of Violence Program at the Cambridge Health Alliance. Her responsibilities include individual, group, and community work with those recovering from trauma and violence. She also teaches, supervises, consults and provides training about recovery from trauma and violence locally, nationally and internationally. Janet is a co-founder of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, where she continues to volunteer.
Julie Youdovin
*
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Click here to see Faculty Biographies A to K.
Click here to see Faculty Biographies A to K.
Lori Hope Lefkovitz is the newly appointed Ruderman Professor of Jewish Studies at Northeastern University, where she directs the Jewish Studies program and is a Professor of English. Her most recent book is
In Scripture: The First Stories of Jewish Sexual Identities (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010); her other books include
Shaping Losses: Cultural Memory and the Holocaust (co-edited with Julia Epstein). A graduate of Brandeis University, Lefkovitz received her Ph.D. in English from Brown University and was a recipient of a Woodrow Wilson dissertation fellowship in women's studies, a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute of the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis, a Golda Meir post-doctoral fellowship and a senior Fulbright Professorship at Hebrew University. As the founding director of RRC's Kolot, Lefkovitz long served as www.Ritualwell.org's executive editor. Lefkovitz and her husband, Rabbi Leonard Gordon (of Mishkan Tefila), raised two wonderful daughters and now live in Newton. Rabbi Maya Leibovich, “HaRav Maya,” as she is known by the children in Kehilat Mevasseret Zion’s Day Care Center, is the first Israeli-born woman ordained by the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. For the past 17 years, Rabbi Leibovitch has served as Rabbi of Kehilat Mevasseret Zion. She was among the first rabbis to go to the Former Soviet Union and teach Reform Judaism and is the editor of both the Siddur and Mahzor of the Reform Movement in the FSU. With her husband, Menachem, Rabbi Leibovich has 4 children and 2 grandchildren. Rabbi David Lerner has served as the rabbi of Temple Emunah in Lexington since 2004. Previously, he served congregations in Highland Park, IL and White Plains, NY. He is the president of the New England Region of the Rabbinical Assembly and serves on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly. He is also co-President of the Lexington Interfaith Clergy Association and sits on the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Lerner received his BA in Political Philosophy from Columbia College and his MA in rabbinics and his ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary where he was a Wexner Graduate Fellow. He is married to Sharon Levin, a psychotherapist in private practice in Lexington. They are the parents of a nine-year-old daughter, Talya, six-year-old son, Ari, and a three-year-old son, Matan.
Rabbi
Naomi Levy, author of the national bestseller
To Begin
Again and
Talking to God,
is the founder and leader of NASHUVA, the Jewish spiritual outreach movement.
Her new book,
Hope Will Find You
released last month has already received wonderful reviews. She was in
the first class of women to enter the Conservative rabbinical seminary and was
named one of the 50 top rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine and was listed
as one of the 50 most dynamic Jewish leaders in the nation by the Jewish Forward.
She was also recently listed by the Forward as one of the 50 most influential
female rabbis in the nation. Naomi has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show
and NPR. Naomi attended Cornell University where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa
and Summa Cum Laude. She lives in Venice, California, with her husband,
Rob Eshman, and their children, Adin and Noa.
Rabbi Daniel Liben received his rabbinic ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1983 and has served as the spiritual leader of Temple Israel of Natick since 1991. A prolific teacher, he is a recipient of the Bureau of Jewish Education's Keter Torah Award for his work in family education, and is on the faculty of Ikkarim. Rabbi Liben has completed Eylat Hayyim's Mindfulness Leadership Training, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality rabbinic training program. He is a past president of the New England Rabbinical Assembly, and is currently serving as president of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis and as a member of the Mayyim Hayyim Board of Directors. Rabbi Dov Linzer is the Rosh HaYeshiva and Dean of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, a groundbreaking four-year Orthodox smicha (ordination) program, which provides students with rigorous talmud Torah and halakhic study and sophisticated professional training in an open and inclusive religious atmosphere. Rabbi Linzer has published halakha and machshava articles in Torah journals and lectures widely at synagogues and conferences on topics relating to Halakha, Orthodoxy, and modernity. He is the recipient of the prestigious Avi Chai Fellowship. Jennifer Meltzer prepares brides to immerse before their weddings, and has has served as a mikvah attendant in Israel for women and children completing the process of conversion. Jennifer grew up in Los Angeles,California. She received a Bachelors of Science in Human Development from the University of California at Davis, a Masters in Social Work from the University of Southern California, and a Masters in Jewish Communal Service from Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. Jennifer currently serves as an administrator for the Nierman Preschool at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in San Diego, working largely on programming and admissions. Jennifer also teaches the Mommy and Me Classes for the Nierman Preschool. Jennifer is married to Rabbi Scott Meltzer, and they have four children: Shayna, Nadiv, Maital and Yael.
Rabbi Haviva Ner-David, a post-denominational rabbi, received her PhD from Bar Ilan University and wrote her thesis concerning the nature of the relationship between ritual impurity and niddah. In 2006, she became one of the first women granted the equivalent of Orthodox smicha from Rabbi Dr. Aryeh Strikovsky of Jerusalem. Haviva's book,
Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Towards Traditional Rabbinic Ordination (2000, JFL Press), is a memoir that also explores halakhic topics related to women in Judaism. Her second book,
Giving Chanah Voice: A Feminist Rabbi Reclaims the Women’s Mitzvot of Baking, Bathing and Brightening, will be published in 2010. She is the founding director of "Reut: The Center for Modern Jewish Marriage," which offers marriage and wedding preparation seminars for couples. Rabbi Ner-David serves on the board of Women of the Wall and Rabbis for Human Rights. Recently relocated from Jerusalem to Kibbutz Hannaton in the Lower Galilee with her husband and six children, she oversees the kibbutz mikveh, Sh’maya, which is slowly growing into an Israeli version of Mayyim Hayyim.Vanessa L. Ochs is the author of
Inventing Jewish Ritual (JPS), winner of a 2007 National Jewish Book Award. Her other books include
Sarah Laughed, The Jewish Dream Book (with Elizabeth Ochs),
Words on Fire, and
Safe and Sound: Protecting Your Child In An Unpredictable World. For her writing, she was awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. Dr. Ochs is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies program at the University of Virginia. She earned her B.A. in Drama and French from Tufts University, an M.F.A. in Theater from Sarah Lawrence College, and Ph.D. in Anthropology of Religion from Drew University. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with her husband, theologian Peter Ochs; they are the parents of two grown daughters. Susan Opdyke is a volunteer mikveh guide and mikveh educator at Mayyim Hayyim. She is a Jew-by-Choice who is active in outreach activities. She is a member of Temple Shalom of Newton where she is chair of the Outreach Committee and a member of the Board of Trustees. She became Bat Mitzvah at Temple Shalom in 2007. Susan is a URJ Outreach Fellow for Conversion. She works with the URJ Outreach Boston office as Outreach Ambassador for Introduction to Judaism classes and as facilitator for Yours, Mine and Ours classes. Professionally, Susan is a clinical social worker with the Partners Healthcare Employee Assistance Program. She lives with her husband in Newton.
Rabbi Michelle Pearlman is Rabbi of Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, NJ. Most recently she served as a pulpit rabbi at Temple Shalom of Newton, MA (2006-2010) where she fell in love with Mayyim Hayyim and the incredible work the community mikveh does for Greater Boston. Following ordination (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion 2005), she worked for Union for Reform Judaism, serving as the Director of Youth and Informal Education (New Jersey Council), and the Project Coordinator in the National Department of Outreach and Synagogue Community. She holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in Voice Performance from the University of Michigan and University of Illinois respectively.
Michelle and her husband Drew have two children, Madeline and Noa.Rabbi Jay Perlman is the Senior Rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom. Before coming to the Boston area, Rabbi Perlman served as Associate Rabbi of Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis, where he was awarded UJA Federation’s Rabbinic Award for outstanding community leadership. In addition, for several years Rabbi Perlman served as the founding Rabbinic Director of the Fleischer Jewish Healing Center of St. Louis.Rabbi Perlman was ordained from the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 1996. Originally from Boston, Rabbi Perlman is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Brandeis University, where he received his B.A. in both History and Near East and Judaic Studies.Rabbi Hara Person is the Publisher and Director of CCAR Press and also oversees the publication of the CCAR Journal: A Reform Jewish Quarterly. Rabbi Person was ordained in 1998 from HUC-JIR, after graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College (1986) and receiving an MA in Fine Arts from New York University’s International Center of Photography (1992). She is the author of
Stories of Heaven and Earth: Bible Heroes in Contemporary Children's Literature,
That You May Live Long: Caring for Your Aging Parents, Caring for Yourself (co-editor), and
The Mitzvah of Healing (editor). Since 1998, Rabbi Person has been the High Holy Day rabbi of Congregation B'nai Olam, Fire Island Pines, NY; she is also Adjunct Rabbi at the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue. Varda Polak-Sahm was born in Jerusalem and grew up in a traditional family in the ultra orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim. An artist, photo journalist, writer, and folklore researcher, Polak-Sahm studied Jewish Folklore, History of Theater and Art at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she did her masters degree. Her thesis about the mikveh was published in 2005 in Hebrew, and appeared in an English translation in 2009 as,
The House of Secrets: The Hidden World of the Mikveh. Her photography has been exhibited in galleries around Israel and Europe, including a show of mikveh ceremony photos. She produced "The Peace Album,” which was presented by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to King Hussein of Jordan in the White House (1994). Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael is the Rabbinic Director of InterFaithways: the Interfaith Family Support Network of Greater Philadelphia. She received her rabbinic ordination at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, PA, and holds a masters degree in Contemporary Jewish Studies from Brandeis University. A Wexner Graduate fellow, she has also studied at Hebrew University, Pardes and Indiana University. Rabbi Raphael composes Jewish music, sings with MIRAJ and has recorded five albums. She teaches on a variety of topics including dreams, kabbalah, angels, and women's spirituality. Her website is www.shechinah.com Joseph Reimer is the director of the Institute for Informal Jewish Education and associate professor and former director of the Hornstein Program at Brandeis University. Trained at Harvard as a developmental psychologist, he currently focuses his research on experiential Jewish learning, Jewish camping and the professional development of educators. His book, Succeeding at Jewish Education, won the 1997 National Jewish Book Award. He lives in Brookline with his wife Gail Twersky Reimer. Aviva Richman has taught at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, and she is a past Rosh Kollel of the Bet Midrash at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. She has also enjoyed teaching community-wide sessions for the Hadar Bet Midrash and at the National Havurah Institute. She studied in the Pardes Kollel and the Drisha Scholars' Circle and is currently completing semikhah studies with a private teacher. Particular interests include Halakhah, gender and sexuality in Judaism and niggunim. This fall she will be starting a PhD in Rabbinics at NYU.Rabbi Michelle Robinson has been blessed to serve as a rabbi at Temple Emanuel of Newton since 1999. Before coming to Temple Emanuel, she received her undergraduate degree in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she discovered a love for Jewish texts, Israel, and Jewish life that led her to the rabbinate. She was ordained as part of the first graduating class of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles. Cookie Rosenbaum is the Judaic Studies principal at the Striar Hebrew Academy in Sharon, MA. Cookie has over 25 years of experience as a Jewish educator and was trained as a teacher of Taharat Hamishpacha in Israel by Tehilla Abramov. She has been teaching the laws of Niddah and mikveh in the US for the last 15 years. A part-time shomeret at the Sharon mikveh, she serves as a consultant-educator for Mayyim Hayyim. In addition to teaching about the mitzvah of immersion, she has also taught many women and men in the process of converting to Judaism through Orthodox auspices.Rabbi Micha'el Rosenberg is the rabbi of the Fort Tryon Jewish Center, an independent egalitarian synagogue in the Washington Heights section of New York City. An alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, he graduated from Harvard College and received his rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. He is currently a doctoral candidate in Talmud and Rabbinic Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). He has taught Bible, Talmud, and halachah in a wide variety of settings, including the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, JTS, the National Havurah Institute, and the Northwoods Kollel and Beit Midrash of Ramah Wisconsin.Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University. He also chairs the Academic Advisory and Editorial Board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati and is chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. Author or editor of more than twenty books on American Jewish history and life, his
American Judaism: A History won six awards including the 2004 “Everett Jewish Book of the Year Award” from the Jewish Book Council. Sarna is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Academy of Jewish Research. Carol Schnitzler has worked as a mikveh attendant and professional coordinator at the Community Mikvah of the Conservative Movement in Wilmette, IL, since it opened over 10 years ago. She is the “face” of that mikveh, answering the phone, explaining what to expect, and answering any and all questions. She was a participant at the National Mayyim Hayyim Mikveh Guide Training in 2008. Schnitzler is eager to share her experiences in the Chicago area, and also to learn from other mikveh administrators, especially as regards conversion to Judaism. She hopes to enhance training her community’s volunteer mikveh guides/attendants and to learn more about contemporary uses of mikveh.
Cindy Shulak Rome
Sandy
Slavet is the Director of the Disabilities Resource Network of Jewish Family
& Children’s Service. She is also a nationally certified American
Sign Language Interpreter. Sandy has served as the president of Randolph
Special Education Parent Advisory Council, is the immediate past Chairperson of
the Board of Directors is South Shore Mental Health and is a member of the Town
of Randolph Disabilities Commission.Sandy is also a past president of Temple
Beth David of the South Shore in Canton, served on the URJ Northeast Region
Council of Leaders and is currently serving as the assistant secretary of the
Board of Directors of Synagogue Council of Massachusetts. She serves as a
Mikveh guide at Mayyim Hayyim and is in her 20th year teaching 7th
graders in the T. Beth David Religious School. Most importantly, she and her
husband, Joe, have four wonderful daughters: her youngest daughter, Marie is a
beautiful 24 year old who happens to have Down syndrome.
Marjorie Sokoll
Missy Stein is the host of Philadelphia's daily morning radio program
What's Up with Missy on AM 1340 WHAT. Stein serves on the Board of the Mikveh at Temple Beth Hillel Beth El and is well known for her lectures on the topic of Taharat Hamishpacha, the laws of family purity. She has been volunteering on behalf of Mayyim Hayyim for nearly a year, serving as a liaison to mikvaot in Israel and coordinating and co-leading an upcoming Mayyim Hayyim trip, A Women's Spiritual Journey to Israel through Mikveh, Music and Movement in 2011. A popular lecturer, her article “Beneath the Surface: Spirituality and Mikvah,” was published in Women’s League for Conservative Judaism Outlook magazine. She and her husband, Rabbi Jay Stein, are the proud parents of Adi, Nina, Gavriella, Mia and Yasmin; they currently live in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania. Sarah Tasman is entering her fourth year at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College and is currently the rabbinic intern at Temple Shir Tikvah in Winchester, MA. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where she majored in Arts and Ideas in the Humanities. She has served as a chaplain in Washington DC, and worked as a community educator at the BIMA and Genesis programs at Brandeis University. Tasman is a mikveh guide and educator at Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh and Education Center in Newton and was also the rabbinic intern this past year; in that capacity she helped coordinate the “Beneath the Surface” program for bat mitzvah girls and their moms and worked with the educational planning committees for the 2010 Gathering the Waters Mikveh Conference. Rabbi Uri Topolosky joined Congregation Beth Israel New Orleans in July of 2007. He and his wife Dahlia, a child psychologist, and their two boys, Eylon and Itai, relocated from Riverdale, N.Y. Uri served previously there as the Associate Rabbi of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. Uri received his rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School where he was a member of the second graduating class in 2005. Prior to his rabbinic studies, Uri spent two years studying in Israel at Yeshivat Sha'alvim before attending the University of Maryland at College Park.Cantor Louise Treitman is the Director of Community Outreach and Admissions Coordinator for the School of Jewish Music Institute at Hebrew College in Newton, where she also serves as adjunct faculty for the Cantor-Educator Program. She served Temple Beth David in Westwood for 20 years, and was recently named Cantor Emerita. With degrees from Wellesley College and the New England Conservatory of Music, she received her Certification as an Invested Cantor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1998. Cantor Treitman was the president of the Jewish Ministers Cantors Association of New England, founding president of the New England Board of Cantors, and a member of the national board of the American Conference of Cantors. She was assistant conductor/vocal coach for the Zamir Chorale of Boston and continues as a guest soloist. Cantor Trietman is on the board of Mayyim Hayyim.
Rabbi Ethan Tucker co-founder and rosh yeshiva at Mechon Hadar and chair in Jewish Law. Ethan was a faculty member at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, where he taught Talmud and Halakhah in the Scholars Circle. Ethan was ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and earned a PhD in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a B.A. from Harvard College. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, hewas a co-founder of Kehilat Hadar anda winner of the first Grinspoon Foundation Social Entrepreneur Fellowship.Sue Ann Wasserman is currently the Project Manager for Mayyim Hayyim's Ceremonies Project. She was the Director of the Union For Reform Judaism's Department of Worship, Music and Religious Living from 1997-2009. Prior to this, she was the Associate Rabbi at The Temple in Atlanta, GA from 1987 to 1991, and the Rabbi of Brooklyn Heights Synagogue from 1991-1997. Rabbi Wasserman received a B.A. from Brandeis University in 1982 and her rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College -Jewish Institute of Religion in 1987. Four translated poems from her rabbinic thesis,
Women's Voices: Our Present Through Our Past,
and
Mikveh Ceremony for Laura (a ceremony for survivors of rape) were published in
Four Centuries of Jewish Women's Spirituality. Janet Yassen has been a volunteer Mikveh Guide with Mayyim Hayyim since it's founding, and most recently, has coordinated the Mayyim Hayyim Program entitled
Embracing Waters: Holding Hope and Healing in the Aftermath of Abuse. She is the Crisis Services Coordinator of the Victims of Violence Program at the Cambridge Health Alliance. Her responsibilities include individual, group, and community work with those recovering from trauma and violence. She also teaches, supervises, consults and provides training about recovery from trauma and violence locally, nationally and internationally. Janet is a co-founder of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, where she continues to volunteer. Julie Youdovin
