The Bayit Board

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, M.F.A., Founding Builder; Board member; Lead Architect, Bayit Publishing and Liturgical Arts Working Group. She/her.

Rachel was named in 2016 by the Forward  as one of America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis. A fellow of Rabbis Without Borders, she holds dual ordination as rabbi and mashpi’ah (spiritual director). Since 2011 Rachel has served as spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires (North Adams, MA). She also served as interim Jewish chaplain to Williams College and, with David Markus, as past co-chair of ALEPH.  She holds an MFA in Writing and Literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and is author of six volumes of poetry, among them 70 faces: Torah poems (Phoenicia Publishing, 2011), Open My Lips  (Ben Yehuda Press, 2016), Texts to the Holy (Ben Yehuda 2018), and Crossing the Sea (Phoenicia, 2020). Since 2003 she has blogged as The Velveteen Rabbi, and in 2008 TIME named her blog one of the top 25 sites on the internet. Her work has appeared in Reform Judaism, The Wisdom Daily, The Forward, and anthologies ranging from The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry (Bloomsbury) to The Women’s Seder Sourcebook (Jewish Lights). Her downloadable Velveteen Rabbi’s Haggadah for Pesach has been used around the world. She is visiting faculty at the Academy for Spiritual Formation (teaching both at two-year and at five-day retreats) and has also taught (among other places) at Beyond Walls, a writing program for clergy of many faiths at the Kenyon Institute.

Rabbi Jonathan Freirich, Board member. He/him.

Jonathan, a fellow of Rabbis Without Borders, participated in cutting edge engagement techniques starting as a Rabbinic Intern in the 1990’s at Hillel on campus in the Philadelphia area. Since then, he has brought small group learning experiments, Jewish worship innovations, and organizational expertise, to Hillel organizations in Tucson, Arizona, and Cleveland, Ohio; and worked with Jews of all ages and stages as a congregational rabbi in a small synagogue in South Lake Tahoe, California, and in large synagogues in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Buffalo, New York. Open Door Judaism is Jonathan’s venture aiming to bring Jewish meaning to those currently outside of institutional Jewish life. Jonathan received rabbinic ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and is a member of both the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

Rabbi Pamela Gottfried, Board member; builder, Bayit Publishing; she/her

Since receiving rabbinic ordination and earning an M.A. in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1993, Pamela Gottfried has taught students of all ages in churches, colleges, community centers, mosques, retreat centers, schools, summer camps, and synagogues. She currently serves as the Interim Rabbi at Temple Kol Emeth in Marietta, GA while the congregation conducts a search for their next rabbi. Pamela is an alumna of Clal’s Rabbis Without Borders and LEAP fellowships, and a member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. She is the author of Found in Translation: Common Words of Uncommon Wisdom, and is currently working on a collection of creative nonfiction that includes stories and poems about her 25+ years as a parent and rabbi. In addition to attending Spiritual Poetry Writing classes, she spends her free time reading novels, solving crosswords, playing Scrabble with her spouse, and taking walks with her faithful canine companion, Henry.

Rabbi Cyn Hoffman, Bayit Board; Builder, Bayit Publishing. They/them.

Cyn, a writer, intellectual, and teacher, started Rabbinical School at The Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, and holds dual ordination from ALEPH as rabbi and mashpi’ah (spiritual director).  Cyn attended graduate school in English at UC Berkeley, where they served as Production Director for the early internet zine bad subjects. Their work has appeared in bad subjects, Tikkun Magazine, and Zeek, among others, and in anthologies ranging from The Bad Subjects Anthology (NYU) and Technologies of Writing (Prentiss Hall) to Beside Still Waters, a recent publication of Bayit and Ben Yehuda Press. Disability has taken them out of the public arena, but they continue to write and teach as often as possible. Among their current projects, Cyn is working with their rebbe Burt Jacobson on his book on The Mystery of the Ba’al Shem Tov. In addition, they are working on two books of their own: one on the philosophy and poetry of the commentary and teachings attributed to the Besht, and another on Mysticism in the Mediterranean Basin, 1200-1500.

Rabbi Dara Lithwick, Board member; Builder, Liturgical Arts Working Group. She/her.

Rabbi Dara is passionate about building bridges between people and communities and promoting inclusion as a fundamental Jewish practice. She is an advocate for LGBTQ2+ inclusion within diverse Jewish spaces, as well as for Jewish inclusion in LGBTQ2+ spaces. When not at work as a constitutional and parliamentary affairs lawyer, Rabbi Dara is active as an outreach rabbi at Temple Israel Ottawa, where she helps lead services and lifecycle events, teach adult and youth programs, and engage in outreach and social action initiatives, and led High Holiday services at Congregation Shir Libeynu in Toronto, the longest standing LGBTQ-inclusive shul in the city. Rabbi Dara is also chairing a Canadian Council for Reform Judaism group to develop a Tikkun Olam strategy for Canada and is the Canadian representative to the Union for Reform Judaism’s Commission on Social Action. She also serves on the JSpace Canada Advisory Board, and on the LGBTQ2+ Advisory Council at CIJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.. Rabbi Dara and her partner love chasing their two children around Ottawa.

Rabbi David Evan Markus , J.D., M.P.P., Founding Builder; Board Co-Chair. He/him.

David is a unique pathfinder and change agent across sectors, honored among Jewish life’s “36 to Watch” (Jewish Week 2022) and New York’s Power 100 (City and State 2023) for his double leadership in secular and spiritual life.  David is rabbi of Congregation Shir Ami (Greenwich, CT) and faculty at the Academy for Jewish Religion.  A Rabbis Without Borders fellow and Oreach Fellow for Jewish spiritual arts, David has served as ALEPH Board co-chair with Rachel Barenblat, scholar in residence for My Jewish Learning and communities across North America, and ALEPH spirituality faculty.  David is lead author and editor of A Year of Building Torah, an anthology harvesting Jewish wisdom for community and leadership development.  “By day,” David presides in the New York Judiciary in a parallel public-service career spanning presidential campaigns, all branches and levels of government, and graduate faculty in government and public administration at Fordham and Pace Universities.  David holds double ordination as rabbi and mashpia (spiritual director) from ALEPH; a graduate certificate in spiritual entrepreneurship from Columbia Business School; a Juris Doctor magna cum laude from Harvard Law School; and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School, which named him a global Innovator in Public Service.