LeaderFolk

As we approach the second anniversary of the tragic shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sara talks with Kathryn Fleisher and Zoe Terner of Not My Generation, a youth-led, gun violence prevention organization. Kathryn shares about how the Tree of Life shooting inspired her to take action and form NMG. Both young women speak about how their leadership skills and passion for justice were developed and nurtured in the Jewish community.https://notmygenerationgvp.org/

Sally Abrams and Holly Brod Farber of the JCRC of Minnesota and the Dakotas join Sara to talk about the value of their long-lasting collaborative partnership and their latest initiative, The Letters Project. http://minndakjcrc.org/letters@jcrcminndak

Rabbi Jessy Dressin is the executive director of Repair the World Baltimore and serves as the rabbi for Repair the World at the national level. She pops on to chat with Sara about generational shifts in our Jewish communities, Jewish activism, and leading from a place of authenticity and humility.www.werepair.orghttps://jewsofcolorinitiative.org/https://www.myjewishlearning.com/eli-talks/the-new-wanderers-god-millennials-and-jewish-engagement/ (more on the mishkan movement)https://www.powerthepolls.org/https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/charm-city-dreamers

Rabbi Elyssa Cherney (and her son Zeke!) appears on this week's episode to discuss her organization, TacklingTorah, and how to approach meaningful Jewish engagement for those whose Jewish education left off around b'nai mitzvah age. @tacklingtorah for both Instagram and Facebook, and www.tacklingtorah.com

Dubbs Weinblatt joins Sara this week for a conversation about LGBT+ advocacy in the Jewish community and beyond. Dubbs melds their experiences as an improviser and Keshet's Associate Director of Education and Training in the New York Metro area to create meaningful opportunities for queer/LGBTQ+ individuals to share their stories.https://www.keshetonline.orghttp://thankyouforcomingout.comhttp://dubbsweinblatt.comhttp://transformation2020.org

Tamar Ghidalia is a Jew of Color of Sephardic heritage. She joins Sara to speak on her work consulting on Jewish education, arts infused education, and racial equity, diversity, and inclusion as well as how she maintains her connection to her Sephardic roots through music. www.tamarghidalia.com/www.edotmidwest.org/

While the pandemic has forced our attention closer and closer to home, increasingly hyperlocal, Dyonna Ginsburg, CEO of Olam, speaks with Sara about keeping a global perspective. https://olamtogether.org/https://olam.swoogo.com/FocalPoint2020@olamtogether

After many years as a professor, Rabbi Caryn Aviv realized that the university system was restricting her priorities and the kinds of connections she wanted to build. Now on the rabbinic team at Judaism Your Way in Denver, Colorado, Rabbi Caryn joins us to speak about feminism, taking the gender binary out of the b'nai mitzvah process, and more.http://www.judaismyourway.org/

Amy Schilit Benarroch's Righteous Crowd is an exciting, modern way to weave tzedakah into our daily lives. Listen to hear more about Righteous Crowd and Amy's passion for Jewish education.www.righteouscrowd.orgwww.facebook.com/righteouscrowd

Ariele Mortkowitz, the creator of Svivah, joins Sara for a joyous conversation about building an intentional community amongst Jewish women.www.svivah.orgwww.facebook.org/wearesvivahwww.facebook.com/groups/SVIVAHhearsyou/ www.instagram.com/wearesvivahour email: connect@svivah.org

Miryam Kabakov, executive director of Eshel, joins Sara and speaks about her Jewish journey and her work to support and advocate for LGBTQ+ individuals in the Orthodox Jewish community.http://eshelonline.orghttp://funorthodox.comhttps://yenteovertherainbow.comhttps://jewishwomen.org/initiatives/collective/

Amanda Katz, executive director of the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse, joins Sara to discuss power-based violence, the challenges of continuing to serve vulnerable community members from afar and managing work-life balance during the pandemic.http://www.jcada.orgfacebook.com/JewishCoalitionAgainstDomesticAbusetwitter.com/JCADA_ORG www.instagram.com/jcada_orgwww.facebook.com/amanda.c.katz www.linkedin.com/in/amandackatzwww.instagram.com/katzamanda319/

Kelly Cohen, director of JumpSpark, speaks passionately with Sara about innovation in Jewish teen engagement and how teenagers are not just the Jewish leaders of our future, but are Jewish leaders in our current moment. @JumpSparkATL (Facebook and Instagram)Roadtriptocollege.orgJumpSparkATL.orghttps://www.parshastorybookproject.com/

Karen Erlichman joins Sara this week to discuss how her work as a Jewish communal professional intersects with her work as a therapist and a spiritual director. We also explore the feeling of being an outsider within the Jewish community and what our organizations and spaces can do to become truly welcoming.https://karenerlichman.comwww.jewishstudioproject.orgTwitter: @KEreplenishInstagram: @kereplenish

Dana Levinson Steiner joins Sara to talk about developing new generations of creative Jewish leaders and what it means to cultivate diverse leadership in our organizations.Twitter: @DSteinerACCESSInstagram: @dlsteiner87AJC Instagram: @ajc.global

Caroline Rothstein, internationally touring performer, poet, and Jewish leader, speaks openly with Sara about creating cultures of consent within our Jewish communities. Using this framework of consent as a jumping-off point, we explore the complicated ways that Jewish identity intersects with white supremacy and how transparency and consent create spaces for our fullest, most authentic selves.Website: https://www.carolinerothstein.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/cerothsteinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolinerothstein/

Stephanie Goldfarb, director of community engagement for Honeymoon Israel Chicago, joins Sara for a discussion about her intersectional work at Honeymoon Israel and how grassroots Jewish projects, like Stephanie's Seven Species Supper Club, can be powerful communal touchpoints.www.honeymoonisrael.orginstagram.com/foodfarb

Why does this moment, from the killing of George Floyd to the subsequent protests nationwide, resonate more strongly and activate our communities more viscerally than previous examples of police brutality or violent racism? This is just one question that we pose to Beckee Birger this week. Beckee also speaks about her amazing work developing future generations of justice-oriented, Jewish philanthropists through her work as the Program Director for Teen Leadership and Philanthropy for the Jewish Federation of Chicago and the power of spaces specifically for Jews of Color, like the Jews of Color Caucus which she helped to create at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. https://jcua.org/kol-or/

Carrie Bornstein, executive director of Mayyim Hayyim, swings by to talk about her experiences taking over for a founding executive director (Fun fact: She took over for Aliza Kline, our first ever LeaderFolk guest!), becoming a surrogate as an ED, and managing family-life boundaries as a Jewish leader.http://Mayyimhayyim.orghttp://Risingtideopenwaters.orghttp://Theresnoiinuterus.wordpress.com

Sara Shapiro-Plevan, co-founder of the Gender Equity in Hiring Project and the founder of Rimonim Consulting, is a leader when it comes to improving and implementing gender equity in Jewish communal leadership. Her background as a congregational educator serves as an important foundation for her work and her conversation on this week's episode.https://www.facebook.com/jwequity/https://www.instagram.com/genderequityinhiringproject/

Rabbi Julia Appel joins Sara to discuss design thinking in relation to Jewish community innovation. Inspired by her work with college students and within more typical congregational environments, Rabbi Julia shares what's next: Bina Community Circles.https://www.binacommunitycircles.org/https://m.facebook.com/binacommunitycircles/

Rabbi Gabi Arad joins Sara this week to talk intentional community innovation and how our Jewish communities can thrive online during this difficult time. Gabi is a rabbi cantor and co-founder of the Jewish Collaborative of San Diego.

Miriam Steinberg-Egeth joins us this week to talk boundaries as a Jewish professional. She discusses her professional versus personal presence in the community, how a patchwork of part-time Jewish work may be her ultimate goal, and how working from home has evolved over the past few months in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.https://www.jewishexponent.com/category/community/miriams-advice-well/ The Center City Kehillah: https://centercityjews.org/

This week we chat with Caroline Kessler, Ava Rosen, and Arielle Tonkin, three Bay Area artists and Jewish leaders. We discuss the intersections of their art and their Judaism, time as a secular and a religious concept, and the ideas of "exercising leadership" and of leading by creating opportunities.and other tags/links/etc they provided since recording:arielle & ava's mutual aid creative practice space throughout shelter-in-place:https://linktr.ee/mutualaidmaterials@mutualaidmaterialsava's SF-based art cooperative:https://www.openwindowscooperative.com/@openwindowscooperativearielle's collaboration with the muslim jewish arts fellowship:https://muslimjewisharts.wordpress.com/our individual sites:https://avasayakarosen.wixsite.com/hello/abouthttps://galoresf.bandcamp.com/releases@avasayakarosen (Instagram)https://carokess.com/https://18somethingsproject.com/@caro_kess(twitter)http://www.arielletonkin.com/@arielletonkin(instagram)

This week, we sit down with Samantha Vinokor-Meinrath. She is the Associate Director of Adolescent Initiatives for the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland and is completing her doctorate in Jewish Education at Gratz College. We discuss Samantha's research into Jewish teen engagement, body image in the Jewish community, and how to think Jewishly about our large, intersectional lives. samanthavinokormeinrath.com/@sam_vinokor on Instagramhttps://www.jecc.org/

Welcome to LeaderFolk! Aliza Kline, founding executive director of OneTable, joins us for a moving conversation about customizing Jewish rituals and shaping our Jewish practices to infuse our lives with meaning and grounding, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.https://onetable.org https://onetable.org/shabbatshalone/

This is LeaderFolk: An Inclusive Look Inside the Jewish Community. Join us bi-monthly, that’s twice a month, for a conversation about what it means to be a woman, non-binary or genderqueer individual working as, what we like to call, a “professional Jew.” Tune in for explorations of the unique triumphs and challenges that face these Jewish community leaders at the blurry intersection between the professional and the personal. Welcome to the table, we’re saving a spot for you!