About Me

I am a Jewish spiritual leader, educator, and rabbinical student in upstate New York. For over 15 years, I have been teaching and guiding people through life’s most meaningful moments—the past seven years focused on Jewish education and two years serving as a spiritual leader at a synagogue.

I am grounded in a prophetic, justice-centered Judaism. I lift up elements from our traditions, prayers, texts, and rituals that support a vision of liberation for all peoples. My work seeks to build a Judaism that embraces movements for freedom, finds safety through solidarity with marginalized and oppressed communities, and moves us away from colonial, exploitative, militaristic, patriarchal, white supremacist systems toward life-giving ways of being—where everyone can survive, access resources and decision-making, and thrive together.

I work with individuals and families to create deeply personalized rites of passage, lifecycle ceremonies, and Jewish learning experiences rooted in this vision.

The Judaism I Practice and Teach

My approach to Judaism weaves together three essential threads:

Resilience and Resistance. Our people have survived expulsions, pogroms, and genocide—from our biblical ancestors enslaved in Egypt to the traumas of our recent history. We have learned to resist, endure, and preserve our traditions in the face of tremendous hardship. This legacy of survival grounds my work.

Change and Growth. Judaism is a living tradition, always evolving. I bring this alive through storytelling, art-making, cooking foods from the Jewish diaspora, crafting sacred objects, and nature experiences. Our rituals, prayers, and stories connect us to the earth, our ancestors, each other, and other peoples in common cause—and learning them should be joyful, creative, and nourishing. Drawing from Jewish Renewal and Reconstructionist traditions, I understand halacha—Jewish law—as walking a spiritual, meaningful, and ethical path. We create practices that nourish our spirits, care for the earth and its peoples, connect to movements for liberation, and bring joy through art, story, and community. I am grateful to those who have transformed Judaism through the generations—the keepers, the innovators, and the radicals who joined movements for freedom and dignity.

Justice and Liberation. All human beings are created in the divine image. We must pursue justice and love our neighbors as ourselves, and use all our spiritual tools in Judaism and beyond to work toward this. These aren’t abstract ideals—they shape every aspect of my Jewish practice.

Facing Our History, Building Our Future

Judaism requires us to face hard truths. Jews have been hurt, and Jews have hurt others. Our sacred texts contain violent narratives—the destruction of the Canaanites, the casting out of Hagar. Our traditions have been patriarchal and have embraced white supremacy, Jewish supremacy, male supremacy, and LGBTQ discrimination. The modern Zionist movement has perpetrated displacement, occupation, apartheid, and genocide against the Palestinian people.

I reject the parts of our tradition that encourage harm—like Jewish chosenness used to justify supremacy or narratives that dehumanize others—while lifting up the principles that guide us toward solidarity and collective freedom. In Israel-Palestine, this means working toward a future where Israelis and Palestinians live together in a system they all create, with equal rights and honest reckoning with the past.

Our tradition teaches us that hope looks like making miracles together, one step at a time.

My Journey

I come from Yiddishkeit—Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe and Russia who immigrated to the United States. I grew up in rural New York State in a small Conservative synagogue.

In college, I studied world religions, which deepened my connection to Judaism and led me to Reconstructionist and Renewal Judaism—movements that honor tradition while remaining responsive to contemporary questions and commitments.

For my rabbinical training, I am apprenticing under Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, one of the first eight women ordained as rabbis in the world. Before rabbinical schools became common, this direct teacher-student model was the traditional path. I sought out Rabbi Lynn because her values and approach align with the rabbi I want to become.

Her method, Shomeret Shalom (שומרת שלום)—the Jewish path of nonviolence—is grounded in care for peoples and planet, land back, decolonial practice, challenging patriarchy, and confronting various forms of oppression, including Zionism’s prominent place in modern Judaism.

While I have years of study remaining, I am already doing the work of rabbinate—teaching b’nei mitzvah students, leading services, developing curriculum, and supporting communities through lifecycle moments and spiritual practice. I serve as spiritual leader at a synagogue in the Finger Lakes and work independently with people of all ages to co-create meaningful rites of passage and lifecycle ceremonies.

I’m excited to work with you.

Organizations I’m Connected to Rabbis for Ceasefire Shomeret Shalom Jews Food Aid For the People of Gaza , Ithaca Committee for Justice in Palestine (ICJP)

Organizations I’m inspired by Jewish Voices for Peace, If Not Now, Jews For Racial and Economic Justice(JFREJ), Bend the Arc, Standing Together, B’tselem, Resistance Solidarity Network, Breaking The Silence

Books

Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza by Peter Beinart

Replanting the Seeds of Jewish Revolutionary Non-Violence after October 7 by Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb

Questions to Ask Before Your Bat Mitzvah Edited by Morgan Bassichis, Jay Saper, and Rachel Valinsky

The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinians Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat

Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation Marc Ellis

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire

The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan