Rabbi Debra Cantor is the spiritual leader of Congregation B’nai Tikvoh-Sholom in Bloomfield, CT. Earlier, she led congregations in Brooklyn, New York, and Andover, Massachusetts. She has extensive experience in the field of Jewish education; Rabbi Cantor served as Executive Director of Camp Ramah in New England; as Educational Consultant, Director of Family Education and Director of Advancing Congregational Education for the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston; and as Adjunct Lecturer at Hebrew College in Boston.

Maxine Lee Ewaschuk is a Toronto based student and creative with a background in dance and performance. Her current creative practice uses a variety of media and is built on a foundation of a lifelong love for textile and fibre arts. Ongoing questions that arise in her work regard language, memory, and ritual, and draw from a wide range of sources. Through her work, she aims to create and consciously reflect cultural synthesis that is based in lived experience.

https://expressionistthreads.wordpress.com, https://www.instagram.com/exp.threads

Naomi Schmelzer moved to Jerusalem from Boston in 2019. She has been a dentist, worked as a medical writer, managed a Hebrew-as-a-second-language program, and is now working for the External Relations Department at Hebrew University.

Amanda Nube is the author of Healing Mama, an illustrated mythical story highlighting the importance of connection to Mother Earth and motherhood. Her writing, blogs, workshops, and new moon circles bring Jewish wisdom and customs and spirituality back to life. She embodies her art through reverence of sacred time, place, and soul.

www.Healingmama.com

Elizabeth Dunoff is a proud native Philadelphian and Jerusalem resident. After graduating from Williams College, she moved to Israel to learn Torah at Midreshet Nishmat and the Pardes Institute. She is currently a student in the Pardes Kollel and the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators and is an alumna of the Drisha Kollel in New York City. Elizabeth has taught Mishna and Talmud at Limmud in Birmingham, England, The Beis Community in New York City, and in Jerusalem. She is interested in how insights from art, psychology, anthropology, and pedagogy influence our approach to Jewish texts and traditions. Outside of the Beit Midrash, Elizabeth enjoys knitting and fiber arts.

Elizheva Hurvich grew up in the Bay Area, and returned to her native land after living and studying in New York, France, Philadelphia and Israel. She has served as a Jewish educator, artist and community networker for decades, training dozens of b'mitzvah students, creating custom tallitot and huppot, and connecting people with just the right resources. Elizheva learned to sew when she was five and has expanded her textile explorations with silk painting, embroidery, applique and mixed media creations. She was blessed to work in Jerusalem with the Handmade Midrash progenitor, Dr. Jo Milgrom, helping to in augurate her Mirpeset Studio of Handmade Midrash. Elizheva is currently in her third year of Rabbinical school and thrilled to have studio time to translate her academic learning into visual art.

https://www.pinterest.com/elizheva/custom-tallit/

Heather Vidmar-McEwen is a writer, illustrator, and graphic designer who draws on her background in anthropology, museum studies, and the sciences to create works of visual and written art that explore the interaction between the the natural world and the human experience. She was a 2016-2017 Fellow and 2018 Alumni Participant of the Cleveland Jewish Arts and Culture Lab, sponsored by the Mandel Jewish Community Center, and has participated in the Tent Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Workshop at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. She hopes to capture in her art something of the terror, exhilaration, and wonder we experience as we find our way in the world. Heather lives near Cleveland, Ohio with her husband and their three children.

www.otterspiel.com

Rabbi Iscah Waldman is currently the Chair of Jewish Studies a the Golda Och Academy Upper School, in West Orange, NJ. Iscah holds a BA in Talmud, an MA in Midrash, and Rabbinic Ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. In 2019, Iscah completed her PhD in Education from NYU, and wrote her dissertation on the teaching of Midrash in the Jewish Day School. Happily spending her days teaching Talmud and Midrash, and her evenings/weekends hanging with her 2 children and her partner, Matt.

Jane Simon grew up outside of New York and as a child loved nothing better than to be coloring, glueing, sewing, painting and crafting! After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College and then getting her MA in Early Childhood Education from SUNY Buffalo Jane worked in a number of Laboratory schools, most recently at The Mills College Children's School. Now Jane is thrilled to be working in Jewish early childhood education as a mentor in the SF Bay area JECELI (Jewish Early Childhood Educational Leadership Institute). Jane was a fellow in The Spring 2020 Atiq Kollel and is honored to be returning for Spring 2021. Jane sees Judaism as a magnificent framework with potential to bring meaning and purpose to our lives and communities. Jane lives in Oakland with her husband Ben and their dog Mookie. She has two grown children and two young grandchildren with whom she loves to make art.

Josie is a student at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. She began exploring with combining her love of art and Judaism in 2019. Before she came to study torah in Jerusalem, she was working as a theatrical stage manager in the Washington D.C. and San Francisco Bay areas. Josie is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park where she studied Theatre.

Megan J. Smith is an illustrator and organizer based in Western Massachusetts. Although they had no formal arts education, they credit their grandmother Sylvia with teaching them to paint at an early age. Their work explores themes of Jewish identity, ancestry, queerness, and longing. In 2015, Megan was the recipient of the Arts and Healing Network Award for Arts and Social Change. Their work was also displayed in 2016 in partnership with the Amplifier Foundation and the Women’s March on Washington at the Center for Contemporary Art in Seattle. They currently reside in Florence, MA with their partner, Clare, and 17 year-old cat, Boxer.

https://www.instagram.com/repealhyde/

Naomi Rose Weintraub (they/them) is a Jewish, qender-queer, multi-media artist and educator based in Maryland on Piscatway land. Naomi’s work explores themes of play, imagination, activism, and Jewish ritual. Naomi received a B.A. in Studio Art and Community, Youth, Education Studies in 2019 from Clark University. Since then, Naomi has worked as a freelance artist and educator. They had their first solo show, “Jewish Ritual as Rebellion'' in June 2019 at RhizomeDC in Takoma Park, Washington D.C. In 2019 and 2020, Naomi worked for PROTOCOLS Magazine as a New Voices Fellow. Since then, Naomi has created numerous works for Jewish organizations they are passionate about such as: Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, New Synagogue Project, Hinenu Baltimore Shtiebel, Let My People Sing!, Ratzon: Center for Healing and Resistance, and Shulayim L’Shalom.

https://www.behance.net/naomiroseW

Riv Ranney Shapiro (they/them/theirs) is a queer Ashkenazi multi-modal artist, educator and ordained Kohenet (feminist Jewish ritualist) living on Chochenyo Ohlone land. Their creative work is process-oriented and often participatory, reveling in the intersections of ancestors, interspecies relationship, justice, queerness and spirituality. Blending the roles of Educator, Priestess and Artist, Riv is dedicated to sharing the wisdom and the medicine of their Jewish ancestors through adaptive, accessible, and liberatory means. For music, film and Kohenet offerings, visit rivshapiro.com or follow them on IG @kohenet.riv.

Sharoni lives in Toronto but participates in Jewish communities in many places. She is a culture vulture and maker, a lifelong learner and an experienced educator across multiple disciplines including literature, ceramics, and Jewish studies. She holds a BA and an MA in English Literature from the University of Toronto, pursued part of a PhD in English at Indiana University, and took courses in ceramics at Sheridan College. She got her start in Jewish communal work as the Managing Interim Director of Kolel at the Prosserman JCC and ran adult Jewish education programs at the Miles Nadal JCC in downtown Toronto. She currently learns with Maharat's Mind the Gap program, makes art, dabbles in poetry, sometimes bakes cakes, and lectures on things she gets excited about.

http://www.woodlawnpottery.com/sharoni-sibony.html

Shira Bannerman is a designer, making art under the name Shiracle Designs. She sews clothes and quilts and curtains and likes to turn her feelings into something she can wear. Currently, she works as a resource teacher at an Oakland public school, where she is passionate about creating space for student voices.

https://www.instagram.com/shirabanana/

Shirah Rubin is a sculptor who works in mixed media most often incorporating ceramics. She utilizes a visual language with materials appropriate to the metaphorical, historical, and social elements of a project. As a teaching artist, she develops art workshops for audiences ranging from young children through adults in museums, universities, schools, camps, and synagogues. A few of the organizations for which Shirah has worked include the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Israel Museum, the Shrine of the Book, and Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design Hillel. Shirah recently completed a certificate course on facilitation through Georgetown University. She is looking forward to utilizing the art of facilitation through her Co-Imagine Arts consultancy to creative customized art workshops for groups, teams, and organizations.

https://www.shirahrubin.com