Rabbi Misha Shulman
Rabbi
rabbimisha@newshul.org
About Rabbi Misha
Born and raised in Jerusalem to American parents, Rabbi Misha has been working as a Jewish educator since 1994. He has taught thousands of children of all ages, preparing many of them for their B'nai Mitzvah. In 2003 he founded the School for Creative Judaism (SCJ), and has been teaching Hebrew, Judaic Studies and B'nai Mitzvah preparation ever since, in addition to conducting religious ceremonies in synagogues and Hebrew schools of all Jewish denominations. At SCJ Misha has worked with the community to form a quasi-congregation that suits the needs of the families involved. He has been leading Shabbat and holiday services, life-cycle events, art and social justice events for many years with SCJ and other partnering organizations. He has worked at Congregation Rodef Shalom, The Village Temple, the Shul of New York, the Board of Jewish Education and Educational Alliance, and enjoys strong relationships with clergy in many other local synagogues and Jewish institutions. Misha is an accomplished playwright, theater director and actor, with an MFA from Brooklyn College and an extensive theatrical resume which includes performances in theatres ranging from Off Off Broadway to Lincoln Center to theaters around the globe. He plays a variety of musical instruments, which he often uses in his rabbinical work. He was ordained by an independent committee of rabbis and artists after a seven-year process that examined the overlap between Judaism, art and social activism.
Yonatan Gutfeld
Music Director
yonatangutfeld@gmail.com
About Yonatan
Yonatan Gutfeld grew up in Jerusalem, where he studied music composition. He was active in the Tel Aviv singer-songwriter scene and toured the country with his band after releasing his debut album.
Since 2012 Yonatan lives in NYC where he records his songs, teaches and writes music for theatre productions.
In 2017 he released Time’s Tyranny, an album of new compositions to Shakespeare sonnets in Hebrew translation.
In 2019 he released In Exile Even In His Own Room, a selection of songs set to lyrics by poet Ory Bernstein.
In 2020 he released Acht U Shtaim, an album of original Hebrew children songs.
Daphna Mor
Ritual LeaderAbout Daphna
Originally from Israel, Daphna Mor is an internationally renowned musician and ritual leader, hailed by the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune for her virtuosity. Daphna has performed on such prestigious stages as Summer Stage, NY, with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, and as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, and on stages all over North America and Europe. She is co leader of the ensemble East of the River.
Since moving to New York, she has established herself as a leading musician, educator prayer leader in the Jewish world, serving as a Musician in Residence at B'nai Jeshurun Synagogue, and building the Early Childhood program at Brotherhood Synagogue in Gramercy Park. In 2014 she joined Rabbi Laurie Phillips z”l as co leader of Beineinu, a New York based Initiative dedicated to connecting people to Jewish tradition and culture. Co leading dozens of musical prayer gatherings, B’mitzvah ceremonies and robust educational program, Beineinu has become a Jewish and spiritual home for many New York households.
Mor is a passionate performer and teacher of liturgical music of the Jewish diaspora (Piyutim), focusing on brining awareness to the global element of prayer and including those melodies in Jewish rituals. She was invited to Mumbai India where she gave a master class of Piyutim, while learning new local Indian ones and incorporating them in New York.
In other educational initiatives, Daphna acts as the Musician to the Education Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art connecting Art and Music Education.
Daphna lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with her husband Daniel and their two children Alona and Artie (daphnamor.com)
Susan Meyers
Executive Director
susan@newshul.org
About Susan
Susan comes to the New Shul with over three decades of professional experience as a leader in the arts community and a lifetime of involvement as a lay leader in the Jewish world. For the past eight years, Susan was Co-Executive Director of STREB, an internationally recognized dance company whose Brooklyn home, the STREB Lab for Action Mechanics (SLAM), Susan developed as a performance venue, community space and international action factory.
Prior to STREB, Susan was the founder and principal of MEA Mgmt, a consulting firm providing strategic planning, fundraising and programmatic direction to nonprofits in the performing arts, social service and philanthropic communities including Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists/UJA, New York City Ballet, the Levin Family Foundation, ComposersCollaborative, Women in Need, the New 42nd Street Redevelopment Corporation, among others. Other professional experience includes: Director of the National Dance Residency Program, a grant program of the New York Foundation for the Arts sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts; Executive Director and Development Director of the Trisha Brown Dance Company; Director of Development at The Kitchen; and Story Editor for Walt Disney Productions. Susan has served on the boards of Dance/USA and Movement Research and has been a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, NewMusic USA and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund.
Susan holds an MFA in Arts Management from Brooklyn College and a BA in English Literature and Dramatic Arts from the University of California, Berkeley. Susan is a member of the Hollis Hills Bayside Jewish Center in Northeast Queens and has served on the synagogue's Board of Trustees and as Chair of its Education Committee. Having held leadership roles in both United Synagogue Youth and B'nai Brith Youth Organization as a young adult, Susan is the proud mother of four sons who have all been involved in USY - l'dor v'dor.
Itamar Dotan Katz
Director of Operations
itamar@newshul.org
About Itamar
Itamar Dotan Katz was born in 1990 in Jerusalem, Israel and is a photographer focusing on communities and landscapes affected by conflict.
He began his journey with the visual arts, studying filmmaking and directing short films in High School. He continued his education in filmmaking and philosophy at the Tel-Aviv University while developing his career as a bartender and hospitality expert which allowed him to travel all over the world.
He graduated from the International Center of Photography's Creative Practices Program and the Photojournalism and Documentary Program in 2020.
The Rabbinic Chavurah
The Rabbinic Chavurah is a model for synagogue leadership with this principle at its core: that our community will flourish by the wisdom(s) of a plurality of voices rather than one. We believe that a multiplicity in perspective gives rise to the abundance of discourse and more holistic learning.
Coordinated by our Core Rabbi, Misha Shulman, the Rabbinic Chavurah brings rabbis and wisdom teachers from diverse fields with various arena of expertise to share their approach within the vision of The New Shul.
Ellen Gould
About Ellen
From the beginning, Ellen Gould's mission as Musical Director/Cantor 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.
Abby Stein
About Abby
Abby Stein, our 5784 scholar in residence, is a Jewish educator & rabbi, award winning author, speaker, and activist. She was born and raised in a Hasidic family of rabbinic descent, and is a direct descendant of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism. Abby attended Yeshiva, completing a rabbinical degree in 2011. In 2012, she left the Hasidic world to explore a self-determined life. In 2015 Abby came out as a woman of trans experience. Since coming out, she has been working to raise support and awareness for trans rights and those leaving Ultra-Orthodoxy. Her story has been covered in the New York Times, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Jewish Daily Forward, Daily Mail, NBC, Vogue, InStyle, and more, as well as live appearances on CNN, Fox News, HuffPost Live, ShowTime, NowThis, PopSugar and internationally. In 2016, Abby was named by The Jewish Week as one of the “36 Under 36” young Jews who are inspiring change in the world, and in 2019 she was named by The Forward as one of the “Forward 50” most influential American Jews. In 2018 she was awarded the Pride Award by the Brooklyn Borough President. She studied gender studies and political science at Columbia University in New York City. She currently serves on the National Council for Jewish Women’s “Rabbis For Repro” Advisory Board, as well as several other rabbinical boards. Her memoir Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman was published by Seal Press in November 2019. Her second book, Sources of Pride, will be published by Ben Yehudah Press in 2023. She speaks regularly at universities, synagogues, and Jewish organizations across the globe, including the 92nd Street Y, Koffler Center for the Arts in Toronto, OUT@NBC Universal, and at the 2019 Women’s March in Washington, DC.
Frank London
About Frank
Trumpeter/composer Frank London is a member of the Klezmatics, Hasidic New Wave, has performed with John Zorn, LL Cool J, Mel Torme, Lester Bowieπs Brass Fantasy, LaMonte Young, They Might Be Giants, David Byrne, Jane Siberry, Ben Folds 5, Mark Ribot, Maurice El Medioni and Gal Costa, and is featured on over 100 cds. His own recordings include INVOCATIONS (cantorial music); Frank Londonπs Klezmer Brass Allstarsπ DI SHIKERE KAPELYE and BROTHERHOOD OF BRASS; NIGUNIM and THE ZMIROS PROJECT (Jewish mystical songs, with Klezmatics vocalist Lorin Sklamberg); THE DEBT (film and theater music); THE SHEKHINA BIG BAND; the soundtrack to THE SHVITZ; the soundtrack to Perl Gluck's THE DIVAHN and four releases with the Hasidic New Wave.
Elana Ponet
About Elana
A student of the way of life as an Art, a seeker, supplicant, and quester, Elana Ponet teaches what she does not yet know. How else to learn? She trained home daycare workers in Jerusalem, has run nursery school programs, and directed the Hillel Children’s School at Yale for more than 20 years, an alternative Sunday school for elementary school children and adolescents. She has supported generations of college students as they face and begin to live into big unanswerable questions. Elana, who has a B.A. in Literature (English) from Boston University, a Masters in Child Development from the University of Cincinnati and an M.S.W. from Wurzweiler of Yeshiva University, has spent years studying Jewish subjects - Bible studies, Jewish Philosophy, Jewish Music, Talmud, Hebrew - and is currently studying Yiddish. Elana and Rabbi Jim LOVE SPENDING time with their 4 children and their AMAZING FAMILIES.
Rabbi Burt Siegel
About Rabbi Burt
Rabbi Burt Siegel was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion through the Rabbinic Honors Program. His first position was at Riverdale Temple, where he rose from Assistant Rabbi to Senior Rabbi in one year. After leaving Riverdale Temple , he was the Founding Rabbi of the Shul of New York and remained the Rabbi for about 25 years. Deeply immersed in spiritual seeking and attracted to Eastern spiritual philosophy, Rabbi Burt travelled to India 13 times, spending a month each year at various ashrams and temples. His spiritual vision is a blend of Hindu\Budddhist spirituality and a profound embracing of liberal Jewish spirituality. He is involved in many volunteer projects presently, particularly teaching English to immigrants. He is also a volunteer Senior Counselor for Identity House , a counseling center for the LGBTQ+ Community of which he is a member, hoping to inspire LGBTQ+ young people to love and live with authenticity. He hopes his example of a life lived richly and met with great respect will make it easier for young people to be who God intended them to be. Rabbi Burt is one of the greatest fans of Rabbi Misha.
Michael Posnick
About Michael
Michael Posnick is a graduate of Yeshiva University and Yale School of Drama. He has directed more than 100 plays and music-theatre pieces in venues including the Manhattan Theatre Club, Yale Repertory Theatre, Theatre for the New City and Lincoln Center. His interest in theatre celebrating Jewish themes spans decades; he worked with the Traveling Jewish Theatre and served as Artistic Director of the Mosaic Theatre at the 92nd St. Y and most recently, directed Rabbi Misha’s play, Pharoah. He co-authored Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays, published by University of Texas Press. A Professor Emeritus of Manhattanville College, he has taught at Yale, Hunter College, the National Theatre Institute at the O’Neill Theatre Center and with the National Theatre of the Deaf. For more than four decades he has served on the faculty of the School of Practical Philosophy.
Rabbi James Ponet
About Rabbi Ponet
Currently the Howard M. Holtzmann Jewish Chaplain, Emeritus, at Yale University, James Ponet served as director of Yale Hillel and Jewish Chaplain at Yale from September 1981 until July 2015. He earned his undergraduate degree from Yale in Religious Studies and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Hebrew Union College, where he was ordained in 1973. After his ordination, Rabbi Ponet and his wife Elana lived and worked in Israel for eight years during which time the couple had three children. Ponet taught at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, the Shalom Hartman Institute, pursued doctoral work in medieval Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University and served in the IDF Artillery. Rabbi Ponet currently teaches a course entitled “The Book of Job and Injustice” at Yale Law School.
Dana Hertz
About Dana
Born in Jerusalem to a family of musicians, Dana Herz began her musical studies at the age of eight with the flute, singing, playing piano, and songwriting. She performed under various frameworks at The Jerusalem Conservatory Hassadna, and became the lead performer and international ambassador of Heartbeat: Amplifying Youth Voices – an organization dedicated to musical and critical education of youth. Dana received a full scholarship at The New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in NYC. In 2017, Dana worked as a backing vocalist and keyboardist with International Superstar Shakira. Dana is currently leading her own band and is in the midst of recording her debut album. She has performed in some of the most prestigious venues and festivals in Europe, Israel, and the US.
Lizzie Berne DeGear
About Lizzie
A native New Yorker, Lizzie Berne DeGear is a writer, teacher, chaplain, filmmaker and womanist/feminist. Dr. DeGear’s scholarly training includes a PhD in theology from Union Theological Seminary with a focus on psychoanalytic theory and the Hebrew Bible; a Masters in religion and religious education from Fordham University; and a BA in comparative literature from Brown University (magna cum laude, phi beta kappa). Lizzie’s passion for facilitating group experience was sparked by her hospital chaplaincy work on the inpatient psychiatric unit and with those facing addiction. For fifteen years, as chaplain for the Center for Urban Community Services, she created and led memorial services for people who knew homelessness during their lives. For the past two decades, she has been teaching bible studies in various forms, including her 2020 award-winning animated short film (m)adam: Adam’s Rib Reframed. She continues to be amazed by the surprises buried in the ancient Hebrew texts. Excited to be living in a world that is growing out of patriarchy, she co -founded the Feminism & Faith in Union movement in 2017, works with a variety of faith-based organizations who empower women, and is looking forward to incubating her newest scholarly project, The Women Who Wrote the Bible, here at the New Shul in conversation with the whole community. Lizzie lives with her partner Tony, a social worker and downhill mountain biker, and their two teens, Daisy and Freddy, in Washington Heights. Shalom!
Yoni Kretzmer
About Yoni
Yoni Kretzmer is a teacher, cantor and perpetual student of Jewish texts. He carries deep knowledge from his Orthodox Jerusalem upbringing and ongoing studies, and a unique outlook informed by the New York Free Jazz scene. Yoni is a lauded saxophone player and band leader, the cantor at the Greenpoint Shul and the Liturgical Director of the School for Creative Judaism.
The Va’ad
Barry Adler
About Barry
Barry Adler - Professor of Law, New York University. Member of TNS since 2005.
Linda Kahn
About Linda
Linda Kahn is Assistant Professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where she studies associations between environmental exposures and reproductive health across the lifespan. Prior to her career in epidemiology, she spent 20 years as a book editor and coauthor, specializing in feminism and women's health. A native of midtown Manhattan, Linda attended the Brearley School, and received her undergraduate degree from Yale and her graduate degrees from Columbia. She and her husband, Rob, raised their three (mostly) grown children on the Upper West Side and have been members of the New Shul since 2008.
Ricky Long
About Ricky
Ricki (Rose-Carol Washton) Long has been a member of the New Shul for over 20 years and has decided that it was time for her to serve her New Shul community. She lives in Chelsea with her partner Walter Corwin and is Professor Emerita of Art History at the City University Graduate School, where she taught for 45 years after receiving a Ph. D. from Yale University. Retired for the past 4 years, she has continued to write in her field of 20 th century European art, as well as follow her passion for music (Rabbi Zach’s voice, guitar, and oud have been a joyous part of her connection to the New Shul as has been the singing of Ellen Gould), politics, and before the pandemic - tennis. She has published several books and articles, edited anthologies including one with Matthew Baigell (another member of the New Shul who is responsible for bringing her here) titled Jewish Dimensions in Modern Visual Culture. Her most recent essay, about the Russian abstract painter Vasily Kandinsky and his connection with anarchism, will be published by Manchester University Press in August in an anthology called The Blue Rider. She has never forgotten how helpful Rabbi Emerita Niles Goldstein was to her and her son Daniel when her husband Carl died in January of 2000. Throughout the years, Jewish rituals and beliefs, especially the concept of helping others, have been an important underpinning of her life.
Rob Milam
About Rob
Rob Milam grew up in the great diaspora of the Rocky Mountain West known as Idaho, before heading East for college and eventually embarking to New York City for a career in finance and investment management. Rob used to be a competitive rower but has since turned to recreational running to keep in shape and is known to occasionally run a race or two in NYC. He has however tried to give back to his original sport and has committed time and effort to rowing by joining USRowing’s High Performance Committee and the National Rowing Foundation. Rob lives in the West Village with his dear wife Shyamli, his three delightful daughters, and their black Labrador Sasha.
Judy Minor
About Judy
Judy Minor is a director, teacher, and writer. Currently she works for POPS THE CLUB, a group that supports teenagers whose family members are impacted by incarceration and deportation. She lives in the west village with her son, Conrad.
Rebecca Paley
About Rebecca
Rebecca Paley is the author of more than a dozen books that include everything from celebrity and political memoirs to self-help. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Dan, kids, Emmy and Alexander, and dog, Sage. A proud member of The New Shul, her firm belief is that there can never be enough niggunim.
Saskia Rifkin
About Saskia
A lifelong New Yorker, Saskia began her career in independent film right out of Barnard College. Having directed two feature films, she has also helped many other independent directors and artists realize their visions as a producer. For the past two decades, she has partnered with the internationally renowned artist Gregory Crewdson to produce his major photography projects. Saskia is thrilled to be a part of the New Shul, with its unique combination of creativity and tradition, and hopes to share in many community simchas alongside her husband Nader and their three children, Nava, Cyrus, and Amalia.
David Rosenberg
About David
David Rosenberg is a professor in the Law Department in the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College (CUNY) and is Director of the Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity. Prior to entering academia, David was Associate Director of Legal Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League, specializing in First Amendment issues such as separation of church and state and religious freedom. He has spent time in Israel and, according to Rabbi Misha, speaks decent Hebrew. Hailing from northern California, David lives in the West Village where he and his wife Joy Marcus raised their two kids. He is a graduate of Oberlin College (B.A. in English) and Cornell Law School.
Jessica Slote
About Jessica
Jessica Slote joined The New Shul in 2020. A native New Yorker, she is a resident of the Lower East Side since the 1980s, where she started to work as a writer and performer in experimental theatre. She and husband Martin Reckhaus are co-founders of Loretta Auditorium, a collaboration of theatre artists based in NYC, Napoli (Italy), and Cologne (Germany). She teaches writing and literature to young-adult English language learners (immigrants) in the NYC public school system. She looks forward to working with The New Shul in exploring the values of Judaism in the present, the past, and the future.