Mechon Hadar Guest

Rabbi Shai Held

Rabbi Shai Held is co-founder and rosh yeshiva at Mechon Hadar and chair in Jewish Thought. He served as scholar-in-residence at Kehilat Hadar, taught 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. A graduate of Harvard, he has taught for institutions such as the Drisha Institute, Hebrew College, Meah, UJACJP, and the Rabbinic Training Institute.

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Avital Hochstein

Avital Campbell Hochstein is rosh yeshiva at Mechon Hadar and teaches Talmud at Yeshivat Hadar. She is the former rosh kollel at the Pardes Institute. A research fellow at Mechon Shalom Hartman, she has taught Talmud for several years at both institutions and was rosh beit midrash at the new Hartman High School for Girls. She is the co-author of The Place of Women in Midrash (Yedioth Ahronoth 2008). Avital is also a founder of Kehilat Shirah Hadashah in Jerusalem.

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Rabbi Elie Kaunfer

Rabbi Elie Kaunfer is co-founder, rosh yeshiva and executive director of Mechon Hadar and on the Talmud faculty at Yeshivat Hadar. A graduate of Harvard College, he was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he also completed an MA and is pursuing a doctorate in liturgy. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, Elie is a co-founder of Kehilat Hadar and in 2009 Newsweek named him one of  the top 50 rabbis in America. He was selected as an inaugural AVI CHAI Fellow, and is the author of Empowered Judaism: What Independent Minyanim Can Teach Us About Building Vibrant Jewish Communities (Jewish Lights, 2010).

Click here to learn more about Empowered Judaism, Elie Kaunfer's forthcoming book.

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Rabbi Ethan Tucker

Rabbi Ethan Tucker is co-founder and rosh yeshiva at Mechon Hadar and chair in Jewish Law. Ethan was a faculty member at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, where he taught Talmud and Halakhah in the Scholars Circle. Ethan was ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and earned a PhD in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a B.A. from Harvard College. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, he was a co-founder of Kehilat Hadar and a winner of the first Grinspoon Foundation Social Entrepreneur Fellowship.

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Dr. Devora Steinmetz

Dr. Devora Steinmetz is a senior faculty member at Yeshivat Hadar where she teaches Talmud and Midrash. She is the author of From Father to Son: Kinship, Conflict, and Continuity in Genesis and Punishment and Freedom: The Rabbinic Construction of Criminal Law. She has taught rabbinic literature at Drisha and the Jewish Theological Seminary. She was a visiting scholar at the Hebrew University’s Hevruta Program and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Steinmetz is the founder of Beit Rabban, an innovative day school that is profiled in Daniel Pekarsky's Vision at Work: The Theory and Practice of Beit Rabban. She serves as an educational leadership consultant to the Mandel Foundation.


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Dena Weiss

Dena Weiss is a faculty member at Yeshivat Hadar. She earned a BA in Religious Studies from New York University and an MA in Theology from Harvard Divinity School. She has studied and taught in a variety of Jewish educational settings including Drisha, Midreshet Lindenbaum, and Pardes. She currently serves as the editor in chief of the Mima'amakim journal of Jewish religious art.

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Aviva Richman

Aviva Richman has taught at the American Jewish University  in Los Angeles, and she is a past Rosh Kollel of the Bet Midrash at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin.  She has also enjoyed teaching community-wide sessions for the Hadar Bet Midrash and at the National Havurah Institute.  She studied in the Pardes Kollel and the Drisha Scholars' Circle and is currently completing semikhah studies with a private teacher.  Particular interests include Halakhah, gender and sexuality in Judaism and niggunim.  This fall she will be starting a PhD in Rabbinics at NYU.

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Jason Rubenstein

Jason Rubenstein is Dean of Students and a faculty member at Yeshivat Hadar, where he teaches Mussar  (ethics). He is a fourth-year rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary and holds an MA in Talmud from JTS and an AB in Social Studies from Harvard College. For the past two summers, Jason has coordinated Yeshivat Hadar's group processing and worked as sho'el umeshiv (a resource during Talmud study). An alumnus of Yeshivat Ma'ale Gilbo'a, Jason is a member of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship and has led several trips for the Nesiya Institute.

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Miriam-Simma Walfish

Miriam-Simma Walfish is the sho'elet u'meishiva (a resource during Talmud study) and coordinates Yeshivat Hadar's group processing. She is a graduate of the Pardes Educators Program, where she studied in the Pardes Kollel and through which she received an MA in Jewish Education from Hebrew University. She also studied at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education and at Midreshet Ein haNatziv. She has taught Tanakh and Talmud and the Heschel High School in New York City, as well as at the Northwoods Kollel and Beit Midrash of Ramah Wisconsin and the National Havurah Institute.

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Joey Weisenberg

Joey Weisenberg is a faculty member at Yeshivat Hadar in charge of all musical programming. He is a mandolinist/guitarist and currently performs with bands including Romashka, The Amazing Frozen String Quartet, others including his own ensembles. Joey also works as the Musical Director at the Kane Street Synagogue. As a teacher, Joey leads his “Spontaneous Jewish Choir” workshops, teaches for institutions including Klez Kanada and the Jewish Theological Seminary, and teaches private instrumental lessons to a variety of students.

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David Goshen

David Goshen is a faculty member at Mechon Hadar.  A graduate of the Har Etzion and Mir Yeshivot, he has studied Philosophy and Religion at the Hebrew University. He taught at the ‘Havruta’ Beit Midrash program at Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University.

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Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels

Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels is a faculty member at Mechon Hadar and teaches Kabbalah and an elective on spritual practices at Yeshivat Hadar. He teaches Jewish thought and mysticism at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. James holds a BA in Philosophy and Judaic Studies from Brown University and an M.St. in Modern Jewish Studies from Balliol College the University of Oxford. He studied at the Conservative Yeshivah, the Hartman Institute of Jewish Studies, and in the Advanced Learning Seminar at Pardes and received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Daniel Landes in Jerusalem. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Chicago in Jewish Studies specializing in Jewish mysticism. He has taught in a variety of settings in America and Israel on Judaism and Jewish Mysticism. He hopes to integrate his study and practice and to help teach and live Judaism as a spiritual discipline.

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Amanda Pogany

Amanda Pogany is the fellows' project coordinator at Yeshivat Hadar. She teaches 8th grade Judaic Studies and Hebrew language at the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan where she is also the middle school student life coordinator. A trained mentor through the Jewish New Teacher Project, Amanda mentors for the Davidson School at JTS, the Pardes Educators program, and the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan. Amanda is a graduate of the Pardes Educators Program, has a Masters in Jewish Education from Hebrew University and a BA from Barnard College. She is co-founder of Altshul, an independent egalitarian minyan in Brooklyn.  She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Aaron Bisman and their son Asher.

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Rabbi Ben Skydell

Rabbi Ben Skydell is a faculty member at Mechon Hadar and teaches Hasidut.  He also teaches Talmud and Chumash and is the Director of Religious Guidance at North Shoren Hebrew Academy. He has ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.

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Mishael Zion

Mishael Zion is a faculty member at Mechon Hadar.  He is also a Faculty Fellow at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning in New York and a student at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School. Mishael was born and raised in Jerusalem, where he served on the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute and the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. He is co-author of A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices (2007).

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Elizabeth Sacks

Elizabeth Sacks is a faculty member at Yeshivat Hadar.  She was invested as a cantor in 2007 from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, whre she was a recipient of the Wexner  Graduate Fellowship, as well as awards in Traditional Hazzanut, Talmud, and Midrash.  She received her B.A. in Jewish Studies and Music from Harvard University.

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