The Bayit Board

Rachel, a fellow of Rabbis Without Borders, was named in 2016 by the Forward  as one of America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis . She holds dual ordination as rabbi and mashpi’ah (spiritual director). Since 2011 Rachel has served as spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Israel (North Adams, MA). She also served as past co-chair of ALEPH and interim Jewish chaplain to Williams College.  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.

Pamela received rabbinic ordination and an M.A. in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1993. Believing the essential meaning of rabbi is “my teacher,” she strives to help individual students reach their potential and she has taught students of all ages in churches, colleges, community centers, mosques, retreat centers, schools, summer camps, and synagogues. As an artist, she often incorporates creative expression and message-driven art in her teaching of teens and adults. Pamela is an alumna of Clal’s Rabbis Without Borders and LEAP fellowships, and a member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and the Clergy Advisory Group at MACoM: Metro Atlanta Community Mikvah. Deeply committed to social justice, Pamela is an activist and volunteer in the LGBTQ community, working with SOJOURN and Georgia Equality, as well as an advocate for racial justice and equality, working with Faith in Public Life, Compassionate Atlanta and the New Sanctuary Movement of Atlanta. 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 crossword puzzles, and taking walks with her spouse and their two canine companions.

Cynthia, 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).  Cynthia 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, Cynthia 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 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.

David brings extensive experience as pulpit rabbi, lawyer, public official, educator and nonprofit leader.  He is rabbi and spiritual leader of Temple Beth El of City Island (New York, NY); past co-chair of ALEPH (the Jewish Renewal movement’s umbrella organization); faculty at the Academy for Jewish Religion; faculty in spiritual direction for the ALEPH seminary; and blogger for multiple national platforms (My Jewish Learning, The Wisdom Daily, The Forward, The Jewish Studio).  A fellow of Rabbis Without Borders, David publishes widely on governance, management, liturgy and spiritual development in Jewish contexts, and has an active spiritual direction practice specializing in clergy development.  By day, David presides in the New York courts in a parallel public service career that also included presidential campaigns, all branches and levels of government, and graduate faculty in government and public administration for Fordham and Pace Universities.  David holds dual ordination as rabbi and mashpia (spiritual director) from ALEPH; a Juris Doctor magna cum laude from Harvard Law School; and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, which named David a global “Innovator in Public Service.”