Ruach HaYam invites you to a full day Shabbat retreat
for LGBTQ Jews and friends and family in Cambridge, MA
Our theme for this year is “Full Spectrum Judaism: the Gift of the Rainbow”

Micrography “Parashat Noach” used by permission. Visit artist Rae Antonoff at www.RaeAnDesigns.com or https://www.facebook.com/RaeAnDesigns

Refresh your spirit and make new friends in this fabulous day of egalitarian davening, creative and thoughtful workshops,
and delicious kosher food!

Ruach HaYam, in partnership with Congregation Am Tikva, and with the co-sponsorship of Congregation Eitz Chayim and Keshet, is presenting our third annual full day Shabbat retreat for LGBTQ Jews and friends and family.

October 17, 2015, from 9:30am to 7:30pm at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

We also invite you to join Congregation Eitz Chayim for Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday, October 16, 2015.

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED
REGISTER  HERE

View comments from previous Retreats here!

Schedule for October 17, 2015
(see below for faculty and leader biographies)

9:30 am to Noon – Led by members of Congregation Am Tikva.  Siddur for Shabbat morning prepared by Marvin Kabakoff and Penina Weinberg.

Lunch 

Noon to 1:30 pm

Workshops

1:45 to 3:00 – Penina Weinberg. Full Spectrum Judaism: The Gift of the Rainbow.  What actually is the gift of the Rainbow?  We’ll look at Parashat Noach and selected other texts and see if we can determine what the gift might be.  Interactive discussion for all levels of text learners.

3:15 to 3:45 – Mimi Yasgur. Time for a 7th inning stretch! Loosen those muscles and take a moment… We’ll do some simple stretching and breathing, and we’ll get your circulation flowing for the next activity!

4:00 to 5:15 – Rachie Lewis. The Flood, Climate Change and Questioning Authority.  Challenging our institutions has been a common thread throughout the Jewish textual tradition. In this session we will look at the implications of our weekly parsha on the current problem of climate change and seek guidance from our text in how we challenge the current systems standing in the way of progress

Closing

5:30 to 7:00 – Meal/ Melave Malka,
7:00 Havdalah and Closing Circle – Jeremy Sher

Retreat Director

Penina Weinberg is an independent biblical scholar who is President Emerita of Congregation Eitz Chayim in Cambridge, MA. and the founder of Ruach HaYam.  Her studying and teaching focus a queer lens on issues of gender, power, and identity in the Hebrew Bible. Penina teaches in Boston area synagogues, and has led many workshops for Nehirim and Keshet.  This is her third year as Ruach HaYam retreat director.

Congregation Am Tikva, since 1976, has been providing a safe and welcoming space for GLBT Jews in the Boston area to pray together and to socialize. It created its own gender-neutral prayerbooks and customs for Friday evening services, the high holidays, and special events, such as the Erev Pride Liberation Seder. Am Tikva is a mixture of genders and sexualities who come from a variety of Jewish backgrounds. The services reflect that variety. Am Tikva offers two Friday evening services a month, one more contemporary and one more traditional, as well as High Holiday services and celebrations of other queer and Jewish holidays.

Faculty and Leaders

Marvin Kabakoff graduated from Brandeis and received a Ph.D. in history from Washington University-St. Louis.  He is recently retired as an archivist with the National Archives and Records Administration at their regional facility in Waltham, and is an adjunct in the Simmons Library School.  Marvin attended a community Hebrew school and Hebrew High School in New Haven, and has been a long-time service leader at Am Tikva.

Rachie Lewis has lived in Boston for 4 years and works with local synagogues on social justice issues. In her spare time, she loves learning and travels between different progressive and traditional communities to meet all of her social and spiritual needs, but hopes that some day, those needs will be met in one place!

Jeremy Sher  is a student for rabbinic ordination of Rabbi Natan Margalit.  He is a Master of Divinity candidate at Harvard Divinity School, where he was honored with the Ministry Fellowship, as well as the Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship for a year of research in Israel, which he just completed.  Author of the upcoming new book A Jewish Approach to Nonprofit Governance (Chaim Mazo Publishers), Jeremy has served on eight boards and in numerous other volunteer roles over 20 years of service.  He lives in Cambridge and is a certified mediator, MBTA busker, and avid cyclist. See his website, ThisIsJudaism.net

Mimi Yasgur, M.A., is an expressive arts therapist and  mental health counselor. She is the Senior Services Clinician and group therapist at the New England Center for Homeless Veterans. She enjoys integrating her passions for art, Judaism, and spirituality to create vibrant community.

Join Ruach HaYam for a queer Saturday morning Shabbat service and potluck lunch.
Saturday, April 18  at 9:30am
Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA.

Celebrate the coming of Spring and study parashat Shimini.

For the potluck bring cold veggie/dairy food. If brought in a package, food must be hechshered. Please register and let us know what you will be bringing. If you would like to read from the Torah let us know also. Sign up on facebook and leave a comment, or reply to this post.

We will have a text study over lunch – brought to us by Dev Singer over at Nice Jewish Queer Folk, http://www.meetup.com/Nice-Jewish-Queer-Folk/

THE CREATION OF GENDER.
Genesis 1:27 reads “God created the adam in God’s image; in the image of God [God] created him — male and female [God] created them.” What does this verse mean? How were the genders brought into existence according to the Tanakh? This text study will explore how rabbis explain this through the generations.

Ruach HaYam Shabbaton Retreat November 15, 2014

Miriam dancing at the crossing of the Red Sea. Chludov Psalter. 9th century.

What is the Ruach HaYam Shabbaton? One of last year’s participants describes it as:

 Creating a midrash at Lunch! Telling Stories! Smashing Boundaries! Davening in a Queer Space!

Ruach HaYam, in partnership with Congregation Am Tikva, and with the co-sponsorship of Congregation Eitz Chayim and Keshet, is presenting our second full day Shabbat retreat for LGBTQ Jews and friends and family on November 15, 2014, from 9:30am to 7:30pm.  Retreat is directed by Penina Weinberg and will be held at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA 02139.

We also invite you to join Congregation Eitz Chayim for Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday, November 14 at 7pm.  We will be honoring Transgender Day of Remembrance with Shana Aisenberg as a featured speaker.

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED

View comments from last year’s Retreat here!

Refresh your spirit and make new friends in this fabulous day of egalitarian davening, creative and thoughtful workshops, and delicious kosher food.  We close out the Shabbat retreat with Havdalah and community meal.

Ruach HaYam is the Spirit of the Sea – is Miriam, Moses, and the mixed multitude, for the first time crossing over, transcending boundaries.
We are Jews (and friends and family) of all gender identities and expressions, rearranging and transcending our boundaries.  Ruach HaYam also calls to mind how near we are to the sea in New England.

Please join our event on facebook and/or become a member of Ruach HaYam group to stay in touch throughout the year.

Schedule for November 15, 2014
(see below for faculty and leader biographies)

9:30 am to Noon – Led by members of Congregation Am Tikva with chants led by Shana Aisenberg.  Siddur for Shabbaton prepared by Marvin Kabakoff and Penina Weinberg.  D’var Torah given by Laurie Shapiro.

Lunch 

Noon to 1:30 pm

Workshops

1:45 to 3:00 – Laurie Wolfe.  Laying it All Out…..Seeing Our Relationships to Groups and People in our Lives.  Talk (with Participation!) and Activities.
We are in association with one another, and may also be in social groups; family/ies, communities, organizations, associations, etc. They show up in social networking and email contacts as labels, but we rarely get the opportunity to see them at once. We will start out by discussing the different communities we have in our lives or would like to and then spend time putting them in perspective by placing them on a personal map. In doing this we will have a picture that can help us see where we are and who we are, and perhaps notice things we’d like to change or come up with a new destination.

3:00 to 3:30 – Mimi Yasgur. Time for a 7th inning stretch! Loosen those muscles and take a moment… We’ll do some simple stretching and breathing, and we’ll get your circulation flowing for the next activity!

3:45 to 5:15 – Marla Brettschneider  The Jewish Phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa: Multiple and Conflicting Discourses
In Sub-Saharan Africa there is a shift so far reaching it can only be called a phenomenon.  Millions of people are exploring their relationships to Jewishness, Judaism, Jewish texts and the history of the Jewish people.  Many do not know that they are part of any broader phenomenon than their own, or own communities’, journeying.  We will look at this movement in a spirit of appreciation and curiosity and ponder how we may be more accepting and open to the vibrancy of Jewishness, our cousins and neighbors, and life itself.  We will consider how this diverse and multi-level movement can inform our queerly diverse and multi-level lives.

Closing

5:30 to 5:45- Havdalah (Halachic Havdalah 5:13pm) and Closing Circle – Mimi Yasgur

6:00  – Meal/ Melave Malka

Retreat Director

Penina Weinberg
Penina Weinberg is an independent biblical scholar who
is President Emeritus of Congregation Eitz Chayim, and on the board of Organic Torah.  Her Masters Degree at Hebrew College concentrated on women-centered readings of biblical texts. Current studying and teaching focus a queer lens on the intersection of gender and power in the Hebrew Bible.  Penina teaches in Boston area synagogues, and often leads workshops for Nehirim and Keshet. This is her second year as Retreat Director.

 

Partner

Congregation Am Tikva
Congregation Am Tikva, since 1976, has been providing a safe and welcoming space for GLBT Jews in the Boston area to pray together and to socialize. It created its own gender-neutral prayerbooks and customs for Friday evening services, the high holidays, and special events, such as the Erev Pride Liberation Seder. Am Tikva is a mixture of genders and sexualities who come from a variety of Jewish backgrounds. The services reflect that variety. Am Tikva offers two Friday evening services a month, one more contemporary and one more traditional, as well as High Holiday services and celebrations of other queer and Jewish holidays.

 

Faculty and Leaders

Shana Aisenberg
Shana Aisenberg is an acoustic musician, singer,
composer, songwriter and writer. She has metamorphosed many times throughout her career, both artistically and personally. Shana plays diverse styles from traditional Appalachian, Celtic and New England contradance music to eastern European Klezmer, Balkan, blues and jazz. She plays a wide array of stringed instruments including fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, acoustic guitar, 5 string banjo, fretted dulcimer, ukulele, and Middle Eastern frame drums. Shana performs with Beverly Woods in the duo String Equinox. Shana’s unique life journey greatly informs all her activities, from teaching and performing music, her writings on gender, to her spirituality and community building.

Marla Brettschneider
Marla Brettschneider is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire with a joint appointment in Political Science and Women’s Studies. She is founder and past Coordinator of Queer Studies and has long been serving as Coordinator of Women’s Studies. Marla has written widely on Jewish politics, queer and other diversity matters. Her most recent book The Family Flamboyant: Race Politics, Queer Families, Jewish Lives (SUNY 2006) won an IPPY (Independent Book Publishers Award) in the GLBT category.

Marvin Kabakoff
Marvin Kabakoff graduated from Brandeis and received a Ph.D. in history from Washington University-St. Louis.  He has long been employed as an archivist with the National Archives and Records Administration at their regional facility in Waltham, and is an adjunct in the Simmons LIbrary School.  Marvin attended a community Hebrew school and Hebrew High School in New Haven, and has been a long-time service leader at Am Tikva.

Laurie Shapiro
Laurie Shapiro is a graduate of Brandeis University and Hebrew College. Laurie enjoyed leading services with Marvin, Henry and other members of Am Tikva in decades past. Laurie has been a religious school director and teacher for more than twenty years. Congregation Eitz Chayim is her current spiritual home.

Laurie Wolfe
Laurie Wolfe (Liora) is a writer/performer, speaker/trainer and social activist. She has served on one board and in numerous committees, panels, training and speaking gigs with SpeakOut Boston, the Bisexual Resource Center, Keshet, the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and on her own. Her writings have appeared in Bi Women and The Pride Haggadah. You can catch her latest act about the trials and tribulations of being born in the right body in Bilicious Boston on December 5^th and 6^th at Club Café. (http://www.biliciousproductions.com/Home.html for more details

Mimi Yasgur
Mimi Yasgur, M.A., is an expressive arts therapist and  mental health counselor. She is the Senior Services Clinician and group therapist at the New England Center for Homeless Veterans. She enjoys integrating her passions for art, Judaism, and spirituality to create vibrant community.

Our Ruach HaYam retreat in 2013 was a huge success.
Read the comments from participants.

Retreat as a whole

• “The whole event was very enjoyable and successful in community building which I think there needs to be more of in general for the LGBT Jewish community. It’s a very inclusive and welcoming event to someone like myself who traveled all the way from New York City… I thought the whole thing was a success and can’t wait to see you next year.”
• “A breath of life into Judaism”
• “This was a wonderful retreat. Thank you for organizing!”
• “Great to be together with other queer Jews.  Thoughtful selection of workshops and I liked that it was a partnership between different groups in putting this on.  You created an atmosphere that really let people be at home.”
• “I gained much significant insight from the services, workshops and wonderful interactions with other people attending”
• “Loved it.”
• “Excellent way to spend the day”
• “Well organized. Good co-sponsoring with other organizations.  Friendly atmosphere. Excellent example of building local thoughtful Jewish queer community.”
• “The food was excellent!!!”   “Delicious!”  “We even came up with a queer midrash at our table.”  “Really good food and interesting conversation.  And a chance to meet new people.”

Morning Services with Am Tikva

• “A sweet service.”
• “It was really nice to have the diversity and participation of the members.”
• “I really liked the explanations and commentary that was provided throughout the service. I used to always go to synagogue and listen to the services all in Hebrew and not really understand what was going on so to have someone stop in the middle and explain exactly what it was that they were doing was an interesting change and I liked it.”

Workshop 1: Gender Detours (interactive story-telling) with Laurie Wolfe

• “I liked the small group work – great way to get to know each other and share our stories.”
• “Fantastic… Really made me feel connected.”
• “Wonderful opportunity to discuss our common gender/coming out stories. Laurie did a great job at the beginning of leading a large group discussion. I learned a lot and made many connections from the smaller groups as well. This was the best part of the day by far!!!”

Workshop 2: Smashing Binaries: Gold Meir, with Dr. Marla Brettschneider

• “Excellent workshop, very thought provoking discussion on multiple levels.”
• “Totally fascinating and well prepared.”
• “Marla did a great job in facilitating a fascinating discussion of gender boundaries.”
•  “People got very engaged and participated in a really nice discussion.”

Havdalah with Jeremy Sher Service Leader and Shana Aisenberg Music Leader

• “I very much enjoyed the Havdalah Service!”
• “I liked the way the Jeremy spoke and how he tied the ritual together. And I really liked the Miriam song!”
• “One of my favorite services, and really well done.  I like the idea of multiple havdalah candles.”  “Very well-done and inclusive service.”
• “Shana is full of joy and passion, and I really enjoyed listening to her play and dancing with folks.”
• “I really enjoyed hearing the music that Shana had written and played for us.”

Ruach HaYam Shabbaton Retreat October 19, 2013

Collegiate Church of San Gimignano, Italy, 1356.  Israelites safely cross the Red Sea; Pharaoh and his troops are drowned.

Ruach HaYam, Congregation Am Tikva, and Keshet collaborate to present a full day Shabbat retreat for LGBTQ Jews and friends and family.  Refresh your spirit and make new friends in this fabulous day of egalitarian davening, creative and thoughtful workshops, and delicious food.  We close out the Shabbat retreat with Havdalah and live Klezmer music for dancing.  Retreat is directed by Penina Weinberg and co-sponsored by Congregation Eitz Chayim and StudywithPenina.

Shabbaton Retreat takes place at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge, MA 02139. Please note that pre-registration is required.  Fee for the full day, including two meals, is $36, with sliding scale options.  See registration form for details.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER:  (you will be taken to Keshet webpage)

Please like and join the Ruach HaYam group on facebook to be updated.

Ruach HaYam is the Spirit of the Sea – is Miriam, Moses, and the mixed multitude, for the first time crossing over, transcending boundaries. There is a narrow and dangerous, but miraculous, parting of the sea – a point of transition between the known past (Egypt) and the unknown future (the desert and eventually the Land of Israel).
We are Jews (and friends and family) of all gender identities and expressions, rearranging and transcending our boundaries.  Ruach HaYam also calls to mind how near we are to the sea in New England.

Schedule
(see below for faculty and leader biographies)

9:30 am to 11:30 – Led by members of Congregation Am Tikva

Lunch 

Noon to 1:30 pm

Workshops 

1:30 to 3:00 – Laurie Wolfe – Gender Detours, Destinations, and other True Stories
We picked a direction, we moved, we made changes, and now we are where? Are we in the place we thought we’d be? Are we truly in a different place? Are we where we’re supposed to be, and if not, what would that look like? Do we know at this point? Have we picked a new direction (or changed a prior one)? Did God, HaShem, Shekinah, Adonai play a part in your journey? And has your relationship to spirit or ritual changed and in what ways?  We will explore these questions through both listening to stories and telling our own.

3:00 to 3:45 – break

3:45 to 5:15 – Marla Brettschneider –  Smashing Binaries:  Golda Meir
The Golda Meir you never knew and who queers need. In this workshop we will explore Golda Meir’s radical legacy for us in a queer Jewish context. We will look at the ways that Meir smashed overlapping binaries central to Jewish life and thought in such areas as diaspora and queer theories. Participants might want to utilize Meir’s intense life experience to explore together the many ways in which we are still constricted by binary gender expectations and to look at strategies to more constructively challenge and accept them with ourselves and each other.

Third meal
5:15 to 6:30

Havdalah

6:30 to 7:00 – Havdalah Service Leader – Jeremy Sher
7:00 to 8:30 – Live Klezmer music and dancing – Shana Aisenberg
Shana will be playing traditional Eastern European klezmer music on violin and other instruments for dancing. Shana invites other musicians to play and/or sing along. Feel free to bring an instrument and even your own songs. Some music notation will be available.

 

Shabbaton Retreat Director

Penina Weinberg
Penina Weinberg is an independent biblical scholar who serves as president of Congregation Eitz Chayim in Cambridge, MA, and on the Boston Keshet community events committee. Her Masters Degree at Hebrew College concentrated on women-centered readings of biblical texts. Her studying and teaching focus a queer lens on the intersection of power and politics in the Hebrew Bible. Penina teaches at her synagogue, at other Boston area shuls, and at Nehirim and Keshet.

 

Partners

Congregation Am Tikva
Congregation Am Tikva began in 1976 to provide a safe and welcoming space for GLBT Jews to pray together and to socialize. It created its own gender-neutral prayerbooks and customs for Friday evening services, the high holidays, and special events, such as the Erev Pride Liberation Seder. Am Tikva is a mixture of genders and sexualities who come from a variety of Jewish backgrounds. The services reflect that variety. Am Tikva offers two Friday evening services a month, one more contemporary and one more traditional, as well as High Holiday services, and celebrations of other queer and Jewish holidays.

Keshet
Keshet is a national grassroots organization that works for the full equality and inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Jews in Jewish life. Led and supported by LGBT Jews and straight allies, Keshet strives to cultivate the spirit and practice of inclusion in all parts of the Jewish community. What began as a small, grassroots group working for change in the Greater Boston area, is are now a national organization with offices in the Bay Area and Denver, in addition to the national office in Boston

 

Faculty and Leaders (in order of appearance)

Laurie Wolfe
Laurie Wolfe is a writer, poet, performer, activist, speaker, trainer and an alternative healer of people and pets. Laurie has appeared in Bilicious Boston 2 and 3; Boundless: Body Verse, and the VDay Boston productions of The Vagina Monologues. She’s emceed Trew Tales, Keshet’s LGBTQ/Jewish Open Mic about our gender journeys. She’s been a trainer for SpeakOut Boston and is on the MTPC (Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition) Training Committee. She will be appearing in Bilicious Boston 4 at Club Café on November 8th and 9th.

 

Marla Brettschneider
Dr. Marla Brettschneider is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire with a joint appointment in Political Science and Women’s Studies. She is founder and past Coordinator of Queer Studies and has long been serving as Coordinator of Women’s Studies. Marla has written widely on Jewish politics, queer and other diversity matters. Her most recent book The Family Flamboyant: Race Politics, Queer Families, Jewish Lives (SUNY 2006) won an IPPY (Independent Book Publishers Award) in the GLBT category.  Her workshop today is from her current project on the revolutionary legacies of Jewish feminist political thinkers and activists.

 

Jeremy Sher
Jeremy Sher is a rabbinical student at Organic Torah Institute and is studying for his M.Div. at Harvard Divinity School.  He currently serves as Student Rabbi at Congregation Eitz Chayim.  He has taught extensively in the Jewish community in New England and Seattle, including at Keshet and Isabella Freedman.  He lives in Cambridge, where he is a dedicated Freemason and an avid cyclist.

 

Shana Aisenberg
Shana Aisenberg is an acoustic multi-instrumentalist, composing, playing, recording and teaching diverse styles from traditional Appalachian, Celtic and New England contradance music to eastern European Klezmer, Balkan, blues, jazz and classical. She sings and plays a wide array of stringed instruments including fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, acoustic guitar, banjo, fretted dulcimer, ukulele, and frame drums. Shana often performs with her partner Beverly Woods in the duo String Equinox. Shana has recently embarked on Cantorial studies, and is truly enjoying her return to being a redhead!

 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER:  (you will be taken to Keshet webpage)