Jess Belasco is a radical torah teacher, organizer, and community convener primarily focused on disabled and queer Jewish communities. They are very nearly finished with rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where they are focusing on midrash and pastoral care, and are a Wexner Graduate Fellow. Jess’s interests include using Jewish sources to facilitate honest conversations about human and spiritual experience, developing disability justice-informed readings of Jewish text, and helping more marginalized people speak truth to power. She believes that the covid pandemic (which is very much NOT over) is a crucial moment to develop both the pastoral and prophetic aspects of disability torah. Jess runs the Disability Justice Torah Circle, which hosts classes, facilitates connection, and provides pastoral resources for disabled, high-risk, and chronically ill people who desire Jewish community.