SVARA’s Pedagogy Chaburah is a rigorous ten-month learning opportunity for queer and trans rabbis and educators working in Jewish communities. This space nurtures those who are seeking to expand their pedagogical toolkits to include SVARA’s empowering (and traditionally radical) approach to teaching Talmud.
Participating in the Pedagogy Chaburah will help you integrate elements of the SVARA method into your specific teaching setting, and will include sessions on pedagogy and practical skill-building.
This program will run from October through June, and includes a weekly commitment of approximately three hours of learning (synchronous shiur, independently scheduled chevruta, and practice teaching).
Weekly sessions will take place on Wednesdays at 7:00-8:30 PM ET, and the overall calendar is as follows:
Learn and ground in SVARA’s method through weekly chevruta learning and shiur, accompanied by readings and reflections
Explore SVARA’s pedagogical framework and approach (“COMP”) through workshops, readings, and reflections; independent learning in chevruta
Implement practice-teaching with support, coaching, and observation (no synchronous meeting times); learn independently in chevruta
Reflect on practice-teaching; learn independently in chevruta
Learn and ground in SVARA’s method through weekly chevruta learning and shiur, accompanied by readings and reflections
Wednesday, October 11: First Day of Fall Zman
Wednesday, November 22: No Shiur
Wednesday, December 20: Final Day of Fall Zman
Explore SVARA’s pedagogical framework and approach (“COMP”) through workshops, readings, and reflections; independent learning in chevruta
Wednesday, January 10: First Day of Winter Zman
Wednesday, February 28: Final Day of Winter Zman
Implement practice-teaching with support, coaching, and observation (no synchronous meeting times); learn independently in chevruta
Reflect on practice-teaching; learn independently in chevruta
Wednesday, May 15: First Day of Spring Zman
Wednesday, June 5: Siyum
Rabbi Atara Cohen (she/her) teaches Judaics at The Heschel Middle School and has just launched New Yeshiva, a community of learning in New York City. She received semikha from Yeshivat Maharat and has studied Torah in a variety of settings, including Nishmat, Hadar, Drisha, and a BA in Religion at Princeton University. During rabbinical school, she focused on human rights and pastoral care through various fellowships and internships. Rabbi Atara is passionate about cultivating curiosity for the ways Torah might speak to our social, emotional, and intellectual realities.
Aviva Stein (she/they) is a Jewish educator from a Reconstructionist background. She grew up in Skokie, went to school at the University of Wisconsin Madison where she majored in Creative Writing and Environmental Studies. Her career has been a mix of environmental and Jewish education (the best work has been when it’s both) and She’s landed in two leadership positions in Jewish communities working with teachers and students. I live in Chicago with my partner and our two sweet cats, Yosi and Dirtbike.
Candice Levy (she/her)
Caroline Taymor (they/them) is a non-binary darshan, artist and teacher who believes Talmud learning can change lives and the world. They fell in love with Talmud at the first west coast Queer Talmud Camp, as a patrilineal convert with serious Jewish imposter syndrome. They came home teaching that talmud to their shul, and knew it was just the start of a life of teaching Torah. Outside of parenting, Torah, and their day job, Caroline cultivates vegetables and wildlife habitat, paints, and practices a variety of textile crafts. Caroline is a deep believer in mending as an environmental and world changing habit, and studying Torah as a neshama changing habit.
Emily Holtzman (she/her) grew up attending camp for 14 summers as a camper, CIT, and staff member, where her connection to Judaism was enhanced and she found a home. Over the years, Emily has served in leadership roles at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple Camps, Oregon Hillel, Camp Newman, IKAR, Temple Beth Am, the AJU Community Mikveh, Hillel 818, Beit Teshuvah, the Pardes Kevah Teaching Fellowship, MAZON, and many others. She has spent my career creating connections with children and their families, deepening her own Jewish learning, and striving to make our tradition relevant for those who she is blessed to teach.
Jamie Weisbach (he/him) is a member of Hadar’s Advanced Kollel. Jamie studied English, Theater and Religion at Bowdoin College and has studied Torah, Gemara, and Halakha at The Conservative Yeshiva, SVARA, Drisha, and Hadar. He is also a member of the steering committee for the Trans Halakha Project and has taught Torah in a variety of settings in New York City, Chicago, and beyond. He is an active member of the Fort Tryon Jewish Center, where he chairs the ritual committee. A Chicago native, Jamie now lives in upper Manhattan with his husband, Amram; their two cats, Perle and Herschel; and an ever-growing collection of books.
Jason Rodich (he/him) is a rabbi at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. Born and raised in Minneapolis, Jason received his rabbinic ordination from HUC in Los Angeles and his BA in Cultural Studies from The New School. Since 2015 he has led Emanu-El’s nationally recognized young adult community. As part of his work with young adults, he created “Eimatai: Disruptive Judaism for Future Leaders”, an intensive cohort-based year of deep Jewish learning, and also leads intensive educational trips to Germany. In the summer of 2023, after nearly a decade of pulpit work, Jason will be taking a step back to figure out what’s next. He’s excited and anxious about that.
Jordyn Whitman (she/her)
Maya Zinkow (she/her) is west coast-born, midwest-raised, and east coast-schooled. She received rabbinic ordination and a Masters in Jewish Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary as a Wexner Graduate Fellow. While studying at JTS, Maya served as a rabbinic intern at the Columbia/Barnard Hillel and at Kehilat Romemu on the upper west side. Before starting her rabbinic studies, Maya graduated from Barnard College with a degree in English literature and creative writing and followed her love of text to the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, where she learned Torah for two years. Maya loves doing things your bubbe might do (speaking Yiddish, embroidering things, wearing comfortable footwear) and wants to know what you’re reading, what you’re watching, and what you’re singing when you think no one is listening.
Mimi Farb (she/her)
Shula Pesach (they/she) is a community ritualist, public astrologer, and trans theologian. They are guided by a commitment to creating resilient peer and intergenerational relationships centered on earth-intimacy, queer brilliance, ancestral ritual, and radical hospitality. Shula serve movements for flourishing and collective liberation through their work with Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education and as the Program Director for Taproot. Shula is an apprentice of bird-language, herbal medicine, and stretching strudel dough. Shula also goes by Solace, Shlomo, and Salomé.
Simchah Hollenbach (she/her) was incredibly privileged to grow up in a pretty Jewish area in Philly suburbia in a school district that was well-funded and nourished and encouraged her love of learning. She went to college and forged a path where she could study a wide range of topics, and left with three majors, a minor, two semesters spent abroad, and a rekindled relationship with Judaism. Over the following few years, she managed a research lab, got my MA, and started a new job, never leaving academia for long. If you were to ask her friends to describe her, she imagines it would sound something like this: Simchah’s always jumping down rabbit holes of learning new things, and often throwing wild fun facts into everyday conversation. She demands a lot (they may say ‘too much’) of herself to live out her values, particularly around protecting the environment and being caring/supportive of her friends and communities. Also she sings a lot, loves action movies, and has crocheted some incredible gnomes!”
Talia Kaplan (she/her) serves as the Rabbinic Fellow at Park Slope Jewish Center and Program Coordinator of the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue. Talia comes to New York from D.C., where she advocated for immigration justice with colleagues of diverse faiths for the Religious Action Center. She has written and spoken on reproductive justice, gender and Jewish ritual, and sexual ethics for organizations such as U.N. Women and the National Council of Jewish Women. Having been trained in pastoral care and movement chaplaincy, she has provided care as a chaplain at New York Presbyterian Hospital and as a mikveh guide with ImmerseNYC. Talia is in her penultimate year of rabbinical school at JTS, where she is also pursuing a M.A. in Jewish Gender and Women’s Studies and a Certificate in Pastoral Education.
SVARA envisions a future in which liberatory expressions of Judaism equip individuals and communities to realize a just and healed world. As a learning community, we hold ourselves to a set of cultural norms to help shape a bet midrash experience that enables each person to be fully present, supported, and nurtured.
We know that building a culture that is responsive, healing, and connective is not static work. And just as we approach our time in the bet midrash as a space to practice liberatory learning, we know the work of creating a community that is growthful takes time and practice. We hold the wisdom of bell hooks in our commitment to keep striving:
“The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.”
Thank you for your partnership in growing this incredible movement, for holding us accountable to our actions, and for your commitment to holding these community norms as they evolve over time.
We understand our project as queer in our effort to move towards a more just, inclusive and accessible world in which all people are able to live out their most fully human lives by allowing the insights of those on the margins to be brought to bear on the world.
Queerness is about thinking, living, and learning in radical ways. It is about challenging society’s norms not only related to gender and sexuality, but also more broadly challenging the silences and injustices around us, while creating subversive, brave, joyful culture that celebrates who we are. Like Jewish insight, queer insight is drawn from the experience of being on the margins and the wisdom gained from it. We believe that in their creativity, resilience, and radicalism, the Rabbis of the Talmud were queer. The innovators of the Jewish future will be queer. To be deeply Jewish is to be queer.
There are folks in our batei midrash with many different identities, and we are committed to making sure that everyone feels comfortable bringing their most dazzling, embodied, fabulous queer selves into the room. We invite you to bring the full range of your experiences and identities to the learning, something queer folks are rarely invited to do in Jewish community. We also welcome allies, and are grateful for their self-awareness and humility while engaging with queer culture and participating in queer-normative space. We ask that you:
Throughout history, the Talmud has been accessible to just 1% of Jews. We believe in expanding the Talmud’s teaching to the other 99%, and we commit to ensuring accessibility in the bet midrash for all people who are seeking to learn.
All of our online programming includes:
When we are in person, we utilize venues that meet or exceed ADA requirements and allow full access to folks who use scooters, wheelchairs, and other mobility tools, and we seek out locations that are easily accessible by public transportation.
We invite participants to share specific access needs with us in all of our registration processes and do our best to support our learners by designing an environment that works for them. Identities and access needs shared privately with the staff will never be shared outside of SVARA’s administrative team and immediate teaching team, and anything shared internally is on a need-to-know basis. All participants are expected to show the same level of discretion when their peers share personal information.
As a general rule, we invite each person to reflect on the ways in which we occupy positions of privilege, as opposed to asking those who are in a marginalized group to explain their oppression. These kinds of inquiries may be experienced as intrusive, insensitive, misguided, or hurtful – so be mindful before asking questions.
If you feel uncomfortable with the way another participant is engaging in the space, please reach out to a staff person privately to let them know. The SVARA bet midrash is, in its most powerful moments, a healing space and we ask everyone to treat each other with kindness and love.
We stive to be an anti-racist space, which we understand to mean one that is actively working to dismantle white supremacy culture and lift up the voices and insights of Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color in our community. Guided by SVARA’s Justice & Equity committee we are committed to:
SVARA is a home for queer and radical Torah, and we are committed to building a culture where we are all students and teachers to each other. We strive to create an environment of mutual respect, where a myriad of voices and perspectives are welcome. We believe that words create worlds, and we commit to thoughtful speech with integrity. We invite you to play an active role in manifesting this commitment by:
Inevitably, there are moments where we let one another down, misstep, misspeak, hurt others, or get hurt ourselves. This is part of the deal when building community (not to mention when just being human!), and it can get messy. Harm can happen on multiple levels and we are here to nurture a community where it’s okay to own mistakes and work towards repairing them. While we always strive to reach resolutions that lead to an ongoing relationship with SVARA, we reserve the right to restrict people from learning with us for a given period of time or, in some cases, indefinitely, as they move through a teshuva process.
Harm from Surfacing Past Events
Harm Between Participants in the Present Moment
Harm Between Participants and SVARA’s Staff, Faculty, or Fairies
Throughout history, the Talmud has been accessible to just 1% of Jews. We believe in expanding the Talmud’s teaching to the other 99%, and we commit to ensuring accessibility in the bet midrash for all people who are seeking to learn.
We invite you to share specific access needs with us in all of our registration processes, and we’ll do our best to incorporate your requests as much as possible to ensure that the bet midrash is an environment that supports your learning.
Below, you will find the latest accessibility systems we are using to support our online learning. We know that systems don’t always work, or fail to live up to their greatest dreamiest potential. If something isn’t going right for you in a learning space, please be in touch with your fairies, your facilitator, Elaina, or Olivia, SVARA’s point people for supporting access needs.
We learn for 1.5-2 hours at a time on Zoom. There is a break scheduled for all learners during 2-hour shiurim. At all times, you are welcome to sit, stand, lay down, stretch, get a snack, drink some water, and take breaks according to your own needs. Please do what you need to do to take care of your body and yourself!
Feel free to turn your video on/off as needed throughout the session. While you are encouraged to have your video on during shiur, we honor that at times learners may need to have their cameras off. You always have the option of declining to read when you’re called on, and teachers will not call on you if you have your video off unless you have previously notified the teacher otherwise.
All full-group learning will be live-captioned by our captioning team, and all Zoom rooms support automatic integrated live-captioning. At various moments throughout our sessions, we may make use of breakout groups for chevruta (one-on-one learning) and smaller group discussion spaces of 3-6 people. Upon registration, you will be asked if you would like your chevruta and breakout groups to be captioned by one of the members of our captioning team.
All shiurim provide instructions for using Zoom, as well as options for increasing contrast and font size on your screen.
We have large-print copies of materials available to send along with printed materials. If you would like enlarged printed materials, please indicate this on your registration form and we will send them to you. Many students also choose to use a magnifying glass to read small print texts—we recommend the Magnabrite Magnifier.
Each shiur session will have an online learning portal with all bet midrash materials available digitally. Materials will be available in 13-point font, 20-point font, and in Google Doc formats compatible with screen reader technology and other formatting options.
After each session, we will upload recordings of the session, along with the Hebrew/Aramaic pronunciation of the text covered and inside/outside translations of the text onto the Class Portal.
There are two dictionaries that you will use when learning Talmud in the original at SVARA (or anywhere else!): a “Jastrow,” and a “Frank.” Below you will find descriptions for how to access these dictionaries.
A “Jastrow”—Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature, by Marcus Jastrow
You can access this dictionary in a printed bound book, or online. Only you know what you need in order to learn best! We encourage when possible to use printed and paper materials and recommend, if accessible to you, a paper copy of the Jastrow dictionary.
About the printed Jastrow Dictionary:
About the online Jastrow Dictionary:
The Jastrow dictionary is available online in several forms. We recommend the following two options:
A “Frank”—Practical Talmud Dictionary, by Yitzhak Frank
A note about the “Frank”: It has come to our attention that this dictionary is currently not in print and finding a copy of a Frank might be difficult. We will ensure that any entries that are relevant to your learning will be scanned and placed on the portal for you to use during this class.
If purchasing dictionaries or a magnifying glass is beyond your means, please be in touch with Olivia.
No one will be turned away for lack of funds: during the registration process, you will be asked to identify the tuition amount that you would like to pay. All classes have a sliding scale tuition structure. If the tuition scale remains prohibitive, you will be offered the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution that is right-sized for your budget. You will be asked to choose a tuition or contribution amount in step two of SVARA’s two-step enrollment process.
Payment options include the opportunity to pay all at once or in a 2- or 3-installment pay plan.
If you have any other needs for making your learning experience with SVARA accessible, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’re learning more each day about how to make online learning more accessible, and we’re grateful to everyone who shares feedback and ideas!
Hover your mouse over your own video feed and click the ⋯ button in the top right corner. Select ‘rename’ and type your name as you would like it to appear. Add your pronouns if you’d like after your name.
There are two views available in every zoom meeting and you can toggle between them whenever you want. Speaker view enlarges the video of whoever is speaking at the time and switches between speakers as new people begin speaking. (If you want to stick with one person’s feed, even when new people start speaking, see the next tip.) Gallery view shows up to 25 meeting participants in a grid of video feeds. If more than 25 people are in the session, you can scroll between different subsets of participants.
When in speaker view you can switch to gallery view by clicking the speaker view button in the top right corner of the zoom window. When in gallery view you can switch to speaker view by clicking the gallery view button in the top right corner of the zoom window.
The faculty will sometimes use physical whiteboards to present ideas in shiur. If you would like to stay with their video feeds even when other participants are speaking, you can pin their video by hovering your mouse over their video feed, click the ⋯ button in the top right corner, and select ‘pin video’.
If you want to stop seeing your own video feed, hover your mouse over your own video feed, click the ⋯ button in the top right corner, and select ‘Hide Self View’. Note well: Hiding self-view keeps your camera on and other participants will still be able to see you. If you want to turn your video feed off for everyone, turn off your video.
In the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, click ‘stop video’.
Closed captioning will be available throughout our shiurim. To turn on captioning, select the CC button from the toolbar at the bottom of the window.
Unfortunately, chat notifications interfere visually with the closed captioning. To avoid this challenge, click the chat button in the toolbar to open the chat feed in a side panel, and thereby shut off the notifications.
Step 1: Log into zoom and hit your profile icon in the top right corner
Step 2: From the drop down menu that will pop up, select ‘Settings.’
Step 3: Select the “Accessibility” settings at the end of the list
Step 4: Move the slider to adjust the closed captions size. Below the sample closed captions, you can choose how big you’d like your chat to be.
Bonus: While on a zoom call, click the chat box as if you were going to write a message. If on a mac: hold down the “command” key and then hit the “+” key to increase the chat font size or “-” to decrease! If on a PC: hold down the “ctrl” key and then hit the “+” key to increase the chat font size or “-” to decrease.
Facilitators will periodically use ‘screen share’ to share important information with you in writing. Screen share produces a split-screen effect in which you will see the shared content on the left pane and the speaker’s video feed on the right. You can control the size of these two panes by clicking the center of the bar separating the two panes and dragging left or right.
SVARA will provide you with most of the materials and goodies that you’ll need in order to learn throughout your time in the Pedagogy Chaburah. In addition to your Jastrow & Frank dictionaries, we recommend you have these resources on-hand:
Syllabus coming soon!
One of the most powerful ways to grow in our learning and teaching is to bring attention to our practice and reflect on what we’re doing. Practice, reflect, practice, reflect: that is the cycle of learning that we’re all about, and mentorship gives time and space to that reflection.
Mentorship meetings happen approximately six times throughout the year, though you are welcome to meet with your mentor for up to one session per month. (If you find that you’d benefit from direct relational support from a faculty member more regularly than once per month, be in touch with Laynie, Benay, Olivia, or Bronwen to help make a plan to get you resourced.)
This space is for you, and is an opportunity to explore areas of your learning and teaching with a SVARA faculty member who can create a container of reflection and support for you. Your mentor might point you to a resource that can further your exploration or help you work on a skill you’d like to bring attention to. They might listen, hold space for what’s coming up, and offer a reflection or resonance from their own experience teaching. Your mentors can also serve as a resource to help you design, implement, and reflect on your teaching practica. Your mentor will come to each session with some broad questions for you, and you should come to your mentorship session with a sense of what you’d like to explore in the conversation.
Things you might explore in mentorship:
Leading up to the practicum:
During and after the practicum:
You are responsible for scheduling with your mentor! If you’re having trouble finding a time and need some help, you can write to Olivia and they’ll help you get a time on the books.
Becky | schedule a meeting with Becky
Bronwen | schedule a meeting with Bronwen
Julie | schedule a meeting with Julie
Mónica | schedule a meeting with Mónica
You can also schedule a meeting with Benay or Olivia here!
You’ll find a number of questions below to help you organize your thoughts, ideas, and dreams for your practicum, and we strongly recommend you find a time to meet with your mentor before the end of December to start reflecting together about your dreams and schemes!
Create a WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY for your bet midrash:
