Aryeh Bernstein

Aryeh Bernstein is the Assistant Director of the Halakhah Think Tank. He teaches on the Talmud faculty of the Hartman High School for boys, in Jerusalem.  He is a co-founder and faculty member of the Northwoods Kollel and Beit Midrash Program at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, where he has also served as Staff Educator.  Holding B.A.'s in Psychology from Columbia and Talmud from the Jewish Theological Seminary, he also studied for seven years at Yeshivat Ma'ale Gilboa, in Israel, as well as at Yeshivat Hamivtar, in Israel, and Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, in New York, and has completed some of the rabbinic examinations of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.  He is an M.A. candidate in Talmud at Yeshiva University, and was a MeORoT Fellow.  He was a founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of Columbia's student journal of Jewish scholarship, Iggrot Ha-Ari, has been published in The Jerusalem Report, and has taught at numerous communities and Hillels around the U.S.

Email Aryeh Bernstein 

Rachel Forster

Rachel Forster is the Content Editor for Mechon Hadar's Minyan Project. She is a former gabbai of Kehilat Hadar (2004-2006), where she organized ritual and learning programming for the minyan. She also currently leads Rosh Hashanah services at Kehilat Hadar, and works with people who are learning to lead Shabbat services. In her professional life, Rachel graduated from Columbia and is working towards a PhD in clinical psychology at Rutgers University, where she specializes in health and behavioral medicine.

Email Rachel Forster 

Rabbi Shai Held

Rabbi Shai Held serves as Scholar-in-Residence at Kehilat Hadar, teaches at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and is a Jacob Javits Fellow in Religion at Harvard University. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, Shai was Director of Education and Conservative Rabbinic Advisor at Harvard Hillel. There, he helped create the Netivot Fellowship, a program which provided Jewish undergraduates with an immersion in Jewish learning, personal growth, leadership education, and meaningful connection to Israel. A graduate of Harvard, he has taught for institutions such as the Drisha Institute, Hebrew College, Meah, UJA-CJP, and the Rabbinic Training Institute. Shai will lead the Midrash and Mahshavah curriculum at Yeshivat Hadar.

Email Rabbi Shai Held 

Rabbi Elie Kaunfer

Rabbi Elie Kaunfer is the executive director of Mechon Hadar. He was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he recently completed an MA in liturgy. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, Elie is a co-founder of Kehilat Hadar, an egalitarian community committed to spirited traditional prayer, study and social action. Elie is on the advisory board of STAR: Synagogue Transformation and Renewal and is a member of Synagogue 3000's working group on emergent sacred communities. He has taught for the Wexner Heritage Foundation and was a co-founder of LimmudNY. A graduate of Harvard, he is a former corporate fraud investigator and analyst at Morgan Stanley. The Forward Newspaper recently named him one of 50 Top Jewish Leaders. Elie will lead the prayer experience/learning at Yeshivat Hadar.

Email Rabbi Elie Kaunfer 

Elizabeth Kessler Sacks

Elizabeth Kessler Sacks, a professional prayer educator, will be the lead teacher and facilitator for the program. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, Elizabeth was invested as a cantor at the Hebrew Union College School of Sacred Music; she is currently the assistant cantor at Central Synagogue. Elizabeth trained with Hazzan Jacob Mendelson, from whom she learned the art of traditional hazzanut as well as service leading and congregational singing. She has since studied with Cantor Benjie-Ellen Schiller and Merri Lovinger Arian, who are at the forefront of training women to be prayer leaders. Elizabeth received her B.A. in Music and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard, where she studied ethnomusicology, the transmission of oral traditions, and contemporary trends in Jewish pedagogy.

Email Elizabeth Kessler Sacks 

Rabbi Ethan Tucker

Rabbi Ethan Tucker is a co-founder of Mechon Hadar: An Institute for Prayer, Personal Growth and Jewish Study.  He teaches Talmud and Halakhah in the Machon's summer Yeshiva, Yeshivat Hadar, and is also a faculty member at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, where he teaches Talmud and Halakhah in the Scholars Circle.  Rabbi Tucker was ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel after years of study at Yeshivat Ma'ale Gilboa and earned a PhD in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary.  A Wexner Graduate Fellow, he is a co-founder of New York's Kehilat Hadar.

Email Rabbi Ethan Tucker