Directors

Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD is an author, educator, midrashist, myth-weaver and ritualist. She is the co-founder of Kohenet: The Hebrew Priestess Institute. She is also the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic Jewish seminary. Rabbi Hammer is the author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons, and the co-author of The Hebrew Priestess and Siddur HaKohanot: A Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook. Rabbi Hammer conducts workshops on ancient and contemporary midrash, bibliodrama, creative ritual, kabbalah, Jewish dreamwork, and Jewish cycles of time. She was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary and holds a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut.

Holly Taya Shere plays passionately in the realms of transformative ritual, mystical movement and embodied vocalization. She co-founded the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute and serves as rabbi/spiritual leader at Olney Kehila Congregation in Olney, MD. Her chant albums Halleluyah All Night and Wild Earth Shebrew have been heralded as "cutting-edge mystical medicine music" and rock devotional tribe world-wide. Her record label BlissRoot serves emerging devotional artists who create goddess vibes for conscious tribe. Taya is a practitioner of the body-awareness-based healing art Somatic Experiencing. She teaches ChantDanceBeFree and JourneyDance, merging inspired, organic undulation with dynamic vocal co-creation. Home is lush, rustic land-based community between Washington, DC and Baltimore. She looks for yeses everywhere. holytaya.com