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The New Shul

We are a progressive synagogue in Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan (downtown New York).

SERVICES & EVENTS
272 W 10th St
New York City
(unless otherwise noted)

OFFICE
505 8th Ave
Suite 1212
New York, NY 10018
212-284-6773 (phone)
212-284-6806 (fax) info@newshul.org

NEWS

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Introducing The New Shul Chavurah

July 13, 2011

Dear Friends,

After many months of tireless work by the Rabbinic Search Committee and the Va'ad on our community's behalf, we are thrilled to announce The New Shul Rabbinic Chavurah*, a talented team of spiritual leaders who will challenge and inspire us.

First, the roster: (please see bios which follow; we'll be sending additional information about roles and descriptions of programs later in the summer):

Individually, each of these talented individuals possesses the leadership experience, knowledge and skills essential to guide our community. Together, they will be able to provide The New Shul community with a broad spectrum of resources—inventiveness, wisdom, inspiration, scholarship, compassion, pastoral support—that will deepen our connections to Judaism and enrich our lives.

Most of the members of the The New Shul Rabbinic Chavurah have been connected to The New Shul in one way or another throughout our 13 (!) years and will be familiar to many of you. New to our community is Rabbi Darby Leigh, whom we're excited to welcome as an integral part of our spiritual leadership team. We're also delighted that after spending last year serving as our Youth Rabbi, Zach Fredman is stepping into a larger role at The New Shul.

We know you all join us in expressing our gratitude to the Rabbinic Search Committee—Alison Gerson (co-chair), Brian Browdie (co-chair), Cathy Gins, Amie Gross, Tonda Marton, Andrea Osnow, Tracy Ross, and Susan Weinstein, who have worked so long, hard and successfully to find extraordinary rabbinic support for our community. We also want to thank everyone who participated in candidate-led services and community listening sessions. Both the committee and the Va'ad relied on your feedback significantly throughout the search process.

Although our search took longer than expected, we're excited about the outcome. By assembling what we think is a stellar team of inspired and inspiring spiritual leaders to serve our community on a part-time basis, we are able to stretch our strained financial resources to support an innovative leadership model that both informs and is reflective of the creative mission of The New Shul.

B'Shalom,

The New Shul Va'ad
Susan Berger, Brian Browdie, Andy Cohen, Holly Gewandter, Ellen Gould, Robb McDougle, Daniel Ray, Marty Umans, Maia Wechsler

*Ancient rabbinic documents refer to alliances of scholars and rabbis who discussed Torah together as "chavurot."

The New Shul Rabbinic Chavurah

Rabbi Zach Fredman has a deep love for the stories and texts, songs and teachings of our ancestors; he is a talented musician and composer who uses music to infuse prayer with meaning. Rabbi Zach spent a year in India and Israel studying the different ways human beings make meaning in their lives; his practice of meditation offers a grounding in which his rabbinic work is held. Rabbi Zach has been a Storah-teller, Translator, and Midrashic Archivist with StorahTelling, and is a CLAL fellow with Rabbis Without Borders. Since 2005 Rabbi Zach has been a Shabbat/High Holiday Service leader at Bnai Jeshurun, and he is the resident Oud-ist at Romemu. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Religion, Music, Mysticism and Philosophy, Magna Cum Laude, from NYU Gallatin School, and spent three years at the rabbinical school of the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is currently studying for private rabbinic ordination.

Rabbi Darby Leigh is a native New Yorker who loves mountains. His rabbinate is characterized by creativity, inclusivity, and a commitment to diversity. A life-long "truth-seeker," Rabbi Leigh is also a passionate snowboarder and fire-juggler, who toured as a leading actor with the Tony award-winning National Theater of the Deaf (NTD), and has appeared on stage with the alternative rock band, Jane's Addiction. He and his wife, Randi, are the proud parents of two daughters, Rayna and Ariza.

Rabbi Leigh was honored to be featured in the ABC and NBC Emmy-nominated documentary, A Place for All: Faith and Community for Persons with Disabilities. Leigh also served as a consultant for the Oscar-nominated documentary film Sound and Fury and for "Hands On," an organization that provides sign-language interpreting services for Broadway and off-Broadway productions. Rabbi Leigh has also been a speaker for the New York City Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities, and other organizations where he has taught on issues related to deafness and disability access. Rabbi Leigh has been published at MyJewishLearning.com, as well as in the Jewish Center for Ethics guide to Ethics of Speech.

Rabbi Leigh was selected to be one of the first fellows of "Rabbis Without Borders," an initiative of CLAL (National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.) Recently, Rabbi Leigh worked with colleagues in NJ to create the first ever, inter-synagogue/inter-denominational, GLBTQ-Pride service and seder in Essex County. Leigh has also served LGBTQ Jews, their friends and families in NYC, where he spent two years as a rabbinical intern at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah.

Currently the Associate/Sabbatical Rabbi at Bnai Keshet in Montclair NJ, Rabbi Leigh formerly served as the student rabbi of Or HaNeshamah in Ottawa Canada and as a rabbinic educator with Hillel at Temple and Drexel Universities in Philadelphia, PA.

Leigh received his bachelor of arts in religion from the University of Rochester where he graduated summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate, Leigh also spent a year at Gallaudet University where he received the President's Scholar Award. After touring with NTD and serving as a social worker and counselor at the New York Society for the Deaf in NYC, Leigh went on to earn a master of arts in religion from Columbia University. He then went on to receive his rabbinic ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He is committed to finding creative ways to engage Jews of all ages and backgrounds, and to creating caring, welcoming communities.

Musical Director Ellen Gould's mission has been to make The New Shul a singing community. "We don't have a choir, we are the choir." Says Ellen, "I don't need the attention of a solo singer—I've been a performing professional for most of my life. My goal is to share with the community the joy of full-throated and full-hearted expression of the spirit that can only come through the use of its own voice."

In the world of theater, Ellen is best known for her double Emmy award-winning musical "Bubbe Meises, Bubbe Stories." Her many other performance credits include leading roles in productions from Lincoln Center to The Public Theatre, as well as featured roles on HBO, PBS-TV, and NPR. Her writing credits include Confessions of a Reformed Romantic, Seeing Stars, The Glass House, and Blessed is the Match—all of which received New York productions.

Following the Off-Broadway run and national tour of Bubbe Meises, Ellen continued to perform the show for Jewish organizations and synagogues throughout the U.S. This experience renewed her interest in Jewish communal life. It also raised the question—"why can't modern ritual be as transformative as theatre?" In 1999, Ellen co-founded The New Shul (with long-time friend and musical collaborator Holly Gewandter) where she continues to work on the answer.

A native of Worcester, Massachusetts, Ellen is a graduate of Brandeis University, has an MFA in Acting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and was the recipient of a Fulbright-Hayes fellowship in ethnomusicology.

Rabbi Dan Ain. Teaching, preaching and pastoring in various locations throughout New York, Rabbi Dan is the Rabbi-in-Residence at 92YTribeca and has most recently served as the Rabbi of The New Shul in Greenwich Village. He continues to host The New Shul's "Rebbe's Table" at City Winery in Tribeca, a monthly program which has included provocative interactions with, among others, Cosmologist David Hogg of NYU and Microbiologist Arturo Casadevall of Albert Einstein School of Medicine. He also serves as an adjunct professor at the Academy for Jewish Religion, where he lectures on "Faith, Technology and Halackha" and grapples with the present (and future) ideological clash between our burgeoning technological beliefs and traditional Jewish faith.

Rabbi Dan's High Holy Day soapbox preaching on how we can disconnect from technology and reinvent our spiritual selves drew crowds in Washington Square Park and was featured on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. At The House of Awe & Repentance Cafe´, he tended bar and served up coffee and conversation for the hundreds who came through The New Shul's experiential art exhibit which featured video, sculpture, music and multi-media displays that explored, reinterpreted and reinvented ways to experience the period of time from Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Also an attorney and a writer, Rabbi Dan received a B.A. in Philosophy from Brandeis University and a J.D. from Boston College Law School. As a freelance journalist, he has explored the interplay between religion and politics both in America and Israel. His writing has appeared in The New York Jewish Week, Sh'ma, The New York Blueprint, Conservative Judaism, and the Boston College Law Magazine.

Ordained by The Jewish Theological Seminary, he was a member of the first class of CLAL's "Rabbis Without Borders," and is currently a CLAL Associate. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, writer and poet, Alana Joblin Ain.

Amichai Lau-Lavie, Founding Director of StorahTelling, is an Israeli-born teacher of Judaic Literature, described as "one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world" by the NY Jewish Week. Amichai studied at various yeshivot, including the Shalom Hartman Institute and the Elul Center in Jerusalem. Between 1992 and 1996 he directed the summer programs at Melitz: the Jewish Zionist Centers in Jerusalem, focusing on the integration of Jewish education via the arts. His theatrical experience as a writer and performer includes the Theatre Company Jerusalem, The Acco Theatre Group in Israel and the Avodah Dance Ensemble in the U.S. Between 1997-2000 he served as Artist-in-Residence at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in New York City.

Amichai was a Jerusalem Fellow at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Israel (2008-2009) and is a consultant to the Reboot Network, a member of the Synagogue 3000 Leadership Network, serves on the Advisory Council for the Six Points Fellowship, the Advisory Board for Faithhouse Manhattan, and the Board of Directors of Nehirim.

Rabbi Joyce Reinitz, ACSW, serves as rabbi and spiritual leader of the Society of Jewish Science in Manhattan and has worked as a psychotherapist and workshop leader for more than 30 years. As a rabbinic student at the Academy for Jewish Religion she served as The New Shul's first rabbinic intern and for five years has led The New Shul's Rosh Chodesh group as well as a number of other programs including Spa Shabbat. Rabbi Joyce skillfully draws from traditional Jewish wisdom to promote health and healing in our contemporary world.

Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein is Rabbi Emeritus of The New Shul, where he served as its spiritual leader from its founding in 1999 until 2009. Prior to The New Shul, Niles was a senior fellow at CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a program officer at The Steinhardt Foundation, and the assistant rabbi at Temple Israel in New Rochelle. He is a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the New York Board of Rabbis.

Niles is the author or editor of nine books, including the award-winning Gonzo Judaism: A Bold Path for Renewing an Ancient Faith, and his writing has appeared in many publications, including Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The Forward, and Moment. He has been featured and interviewed in Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The Jerusalem Report, The New York Observer, New York Magazine, The Jewish Week, and Beliefnet, as well as on domestic and international television and radio.

Niles served as the voice behind "Ask the Rabbi" on the Microsoft Network. He is the national Jewish chaplain for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. Niles holds an honors B.A. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and received an M.A. and his Ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Niles teaches across the country and abroad on issues in mysticism and spirituality, values and leadership, the environment, and on new models for religious life in the 21st century.

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Success for The Mayim Project

In the fall of 2010, members gathered in the home of Musical Director Ellen Gould to discuss how to make a difference as a community. Members pitched ideas to one another, and a few hours later, the Mayim Project was born. Our Mayim Project partnered with CONAPAC, a Peruvian non-profit organization, whose mission is to promote conservation of the rainforest by collaborating with the people who live along the Amazon and Napo Rivers. Our goal was to raise $4,000 to build a water treatment plant that residents of an Amazon River village will install, run and maintain on their own.

We officially launched our drive at Tu B'shevat where we took recycled water bottles and turned them into tzedakah boxes. We placed a huge empty water jug at the entrance of the shul during special events and holiday celebrations. We collected change to make a change. Yet, we still had not reached our $4,000 goal.

In March 2011, Noah Levy, as part of his Bar Mitzvah decided to piggyback onto our effort and helps us reach our goal. He took his unicycle act "on the road" and donated any contributions he received to this clean water project. In addition, instead of asking for presents, he asked his guests to help give the gift of clean water to these children by making a donation to this project.

After all this, we reached our goal!

The check is in the mail and Noah (and his family) are now planning a trip to Peru to see the water treatment plan installed in the Amazon. We promise to post pictures. Thank you to all those that helped make this water treatment possible!

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