Kohenet Elana (Nahar Dinur: River of Fire) is a songwriter, musician, prayer leader, ritualist, and earth educator with roots in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia and North Carolina. She is currently in the process of recording and releasing her catalogue of original music, with music available on all streaming platforms and for purchase on Bandcamp. Elana is available to hire for embodied and earth-based prayer services, shabbatons, concerts, community songcircles, and even voice lessons. Follow her on Instagram @elanatreestar and @river.of.fire and on Spotify for her music.
Alma
she/her
Philadelphia ~ Lenapehoking
Alma knows herself to be a human being born from the Source of Life. Alma is a child, parent, descendant, ancestor. Understanding is her kavannah. Simplicity is also her intention. What is the priority? How can she best serve life? Alma has chosen to become a stay-at-home mother. Alma understands interdependence. As a dear rabbi friend said to her years ago, “when in doubt, do the thing that is harder not to do.” May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields, & until we meet again, until we meet again, May God/dess hold you in the palm of their hand.
Rae Abileah
she/they
Kohenet Rae Abileah offers life cycle ceremonies from baby naming to weddings to rituals to mark significant but often under-recognized transitions. She facilitates ritual live and online. Rae is a trainer at Beautiful Trouble, and co-creator of the global Climate Ribbon art ritual, which emerged during her studies at Kohenet, as a way to weave her spiritual practice and climate activism together. She is a facilitator with The Nature Conservancy’s Agility Lab, and founded CreateWell consultancy, where she serves as a project midwife and book doula for visionary leaders at the intersection of spirituality and social change. She is a contributing author to books including Beyond Tribal Loyalties: Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists, and the Olam haBa Hebrew Planner (5782). Rae graduated from Barnard College at Columbia University, was certified as a Full Spectrum Doula by Birth Advocacy Doula Training, and received ordination by the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, when she received the priestess name Oreget haNevuot (Weaver of Prophesies). She’s a first-generation American, and her Dutch and Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry informs her work toward dismantling white supremacy. She’s based on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land, also known as the coast side of the SF Bay Area in California.
Socials: @raeabileah
Cara Rock-Singer
Cara is in the final months of a Ph.D. in Religion at Columbia University. Her dissertation, Prophetesses of the Body: American Jewish Women and the Politics of Embodied Knowledge, focuses on how women are using embodied spiritual practices to transform American Jewish life. As a participant and observer in Kohenet, Cara has spent the past three years researching, teaching, and writing about its innovative ritual, theological, and textual work. She lives in Philadelphia, PA, with her husband and daughter.
Batya Diamond
she/her
I am a singer/songwriter, spiritual leader, educator and activist based in Vineyard Haven, MA. The songs I write are evocative and uplifting, with themes touching on loss, survival and connecting with the Divine. I work with organizations in my community and beyond to alleviate food insecurity, protect voting and reproductive rights, and to support local musicians. You can find my latest CD, “Infinite Wisdom: Chants of the Divine Feminine” at batyadiamond.bandcamp.com and my music videos on YouTube at Batya Diamond Music.
Socials: @batya_diamond
Bekah Starr
she/her
Kohenet Bekah Starr is a multimedia Sacred Artist exploring ancient & weaving new connections between Jewish Mysticism and the Divine Feminine. Through her artistry she is a witness to the sacredness that is life, source, and creation. As a Kohenet, Bekah offers spiritual support through inspirational artwork and embodied ritual. Bekah’s artwork has been featured by the Jewish Arts Salon, the Every Woman Biennial, WomansWork.Art, Haggadot.com, the Parliament of World Religions, LabShul, and is held in private collections. She is the illustrator of Hamsas for the Divine Feminine, Illuminating the Moon, The Book of Becoming, Wonderful Whimsical Winter, & Divining Pleasure: an oracle for SephErotic liberation with Rav Kohenet Taya Mâ Shere. She lives with her amazingly supportive husband and their two inspiring children on the lands of the Lenapehoking First Nation people, also known as Phoenixville, PA.
Socials: @bekahstarrart
Devorah Ross
I started as a social worker, earned an MSW. After the death of my sister I became a chaplain and immersed myself in the study of suffering, earning Masters degrees in Jewish Studies and Bioethics. When my mother could no longer live alone I moved back home and lived with her for five years as she lived with dementia. I currently work as the chaplain and as a social worker in a Continuing Care Retirement Community. My two grown daughters are the joy of my life.
Ryn Silverstein
they/them
Ryn is a writer, priestess, and facilitator with a creative living practice that's embodied, queer, and ancestrally-rooted. Ryn cultivates longing as devotional practice, creating space in the everyday for dreaming and enchantment. Ryn roots in ancient Jewish understandings of embodiment as inseparable from both temporality and Divinity throughout the creation process, which allows for the flourishing of new creative possibilities, rhythms, and ways of being. Honoring the moon as their ancestral home, Ryn tends to the connection the moon enables between our bodies, land bodies, and water bodies.
Liviah Wessely
s/he/r
Kohenet Sho'eret Liviah Oreget Shirim, ordained in the seventh class of Kohanot, is known as Guardian and Song Weaver. She regularly held ritual space for the Kohenet community, as well as leading, co-leading, and acting as Cyber-Gabbai. K'Liviah has co-led for Yelala, Kesher Pittsburgh, the Nechama Minyon, and for rituals designed for individuals around both traditional and created life events: weddings, funerals, memorials, shiva minyanim, baby namings, passages, beginnings, and endings. She teaches Theatre and English at Northern Virginia Community College, and is a theatre director, producer, designer and dramaturg. Liviah is the mother of three adults, a painter and poet, an opera singer, and an engineer, plus two cats--Cary Grant and Grace Kelly--and spends a great deal of her time in the kitchen.
Leah Kiser
she/her
Ordained in October of 2021, Leah is building out her Kohenet Priesting paths and creating classes, rituals, and prayer services for women looking for a deeper Jewish spiritual path - as well as coordinating and officiating tradition & non-traditional lifecycle events. Leah is a small business owner by day, a creator of sacred Jewish space-time, and a fledgling artist and herbalist. Leah has a Degree Magna Cum Laude in Philosophy with minors in Linguistics and Judaic Studies, as well as an AAS in Architecture and a long interest in urban design & sustainability, climate crisis mitigation, and economically just social democracy. Leah hopes to intertwine all these threads with Kohenet Priestessing to serve a new & vibrant eco-feminist mystically connected communal interpretation of Jewish life and spirituality.
Jennifer Ruth Bean
Aliza Rivka Schechter
Ruach El Reid
Zohar Lev
Zohar Lev Cunningham is a water baby, collaborative artist, ritual leader, healer, and friend. A lover of love, Zoh expresses holy devotion through acts of service to beloved community.
A licensed social worker with over a decade of experience in public health and community-based harm reduction, Zoh is currently the Acting Director of the Q Center at University of Washington.
Zoh cut their teeth in community ritual leadership with the Jewish Voice for Peace Seattle chapter, where they continue to lead Jewish holiday celebrations and bring politically rooted, accessible ritual moments to public spaces.
Zoh is a student of sacred touch, a steward of sacred silence, and a guardian of flames of possibility. They practice intuitive stone-sensing, boxing, and homemaking on Duwamish Land. At the water’s edge, Zoh is usually first to get naked and jump in.
Traci Marx
Traci Marx is a musical prayer leader who prays and plays with great joy and deep reverence. Traci serves as the Spiritual and Musical Director for The Kavana Cooperative in Seattle, Washington, where she leads prayer services, Hebrew chanting sessions, and spirituality retreats. With heartfelt prayer and embodied song, Traci raises vibrations and offers invitations to increased presence and deeper alignment.
As an independent ritual leader, Traci officiates weddings, B’nai mitzvah, memorials, and other life cycle events. Drawing forth personal meaning, she elevates as sacred all of life’s experiences. Traci brings music and Jewish ritual to political actions, uplifting community and offering spiritual focus to political work.
Traci’s leadership style draws heavily from her life experiences, academic and artistic. Traci earned a PhD in Clinical Psychology, and brings warmth, sensitivity, and attunement to all of her work. Her background in the performing arts allows her to infuse her prayer-leading style with confidence and creativity.
Traci parents two children with radical respect and a deep commitment to peaceful communication, free expression, and personal responsibility. Traci finds balance and soul-soothing happiness collaborating with other musicians in her role as organizer of the Pacific Northwest Deadheads.
shoshi rosenzweig
shoshi embraces paradox, recognizing the definite and the mystery. she is a priestess of plants, curator of sacred adornments, dedicated student of life and hedonist. she is currently reviving a tiny 1911 bungalow and tending land and garden in occupied Kalapuyan territory (commonly known as eugene Oregon) with her two soulmates, duke & elliott
Sarah Salem
Sarah is a teacher, priestess, and student. She has worked with youth of all ages, particularly in Jewish and outdoor education contexts. She has been an educator at Camp Tawonga, the Teva Nature Program, and Mishkan Chicago. In her roles as a teacher and facilitator, she weaves experiences that invite play, curiosity, inner knowing, and the remembering and re-configuring of our connections with each other and the larger wonders of the world. She is grateful for the teachers, communities, and more-than-human web of life who have taught her reverence, integrity, dynamic joy, and emotional bravery. These are qualities she hopes to imbue in all she offers.
Sarah is currently training in the healing art of shiatsu, at Zen Shiatsu Chicago. She was raised on Ohlone and Miwok Land, in California. She graduated from UC Davis in 2014 with a BA in Theatre Arts and a minor in Education. In 2015 she spent three months walking a pilgrimage in Northern Spain, which strongly influences her path as a priestess. She is the descendent of Irish and Sephardi & Mizrahi Jewish immigrants.
Mikala Raver
Miki, known for her enthusiasm and passion for revealing and celebrating the feminine within Judaism, is author of the Jewish bestseller, Listen to Her Voice: Women of the Hebrew Bible and She is Wisdom: A Celebration of the Feminine Divine. Miki Raver created and facilitates Shekinah Circles, a gentle, powerful group process that uses dance, guided meditation and writing to facilitate connection with Divine Presence. Miki has lectured about the women of the Hebrew Bible and led Shekinah Circles nationally and internationally since 1997. She has also created Kabbalage, an expressive art workshop using collage to explore Kabbalah.
In a varied, vibrant and venerable career that spans 50 years, Miki Raver has been a video producer, human sexuality instructor, counselor and Jewish communal professional. She is currently the Director of Camp Isabella Freedman, Jewish summer camp for active older adults.
Miki graduated from Emerson College with a BS in Theatre Arts. She completed advanced training with Jalaja Bonheim at the Institute for Circlework. She is a Bibliodrama and SoulCollage facilitator. Miki lives in Burbank, California, with her husband, Marty Perlmutter.
Maura Rafael Pellettieri
Maura Pellettieri is a poet, prose writer, artist, editor, and culture-maker. She received her BA in English from SUNY Buffalo and her MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis. She is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Crystal and Flame, an experimental art writing journal and social forum that bridges gaps in the cultural community and instigates the reestablishment of the fine arts as a sacred space.
She has taught and given talks at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Washington University in St. Louis, the Contemporary Art Museum-Saint Louis, and elsewhere. She has collaborated with visual artists, composers, and other writers, throughout North America and internationally, contributing to numerous social practice projects, performance works, and musical scores. They have taught creative writing, literature, and art writing at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Hartford, and the University of Missouri-Saint Louis, and continue to teach in a variety of community contexts.
Maura Rafael understands all space as sacred space, including many spaces named secular, and is particularly called to priestess in these contexts, where sacred space-holding is often deeply needed yet must be delivered with nuance and care for cultural difference and difference of belief. They weave site-specific meditation and ritual in art galleries, public parks and gardens, and other sites of the commons. They’re teaching practice includes offering unique meditations, earth-based embodiment practices, creative writing, and ritual craft to children, teenagers, and multigenerational groups. They support artists and healers as a creative coach and editor, editing book manuscripts and other projects, guiding clients to unblock their creative processes, and consulting in a variety of fine arts contexts.
Their current writing focuses on ecopoetics, gender, architecture, and power. They utilize ritual, place-based ekphrasis, and deep listening practices to write about the human relationship to Earth. As a writer and artist, they engage conceptual and ritual-based research around how we express, discharge, and experience the grief of Anthropocene extinctions. In her current practice, she performs land and elemental transmissions to invite participants into a deeper experience of connectivity and conversation with earth.
Lois Gaylord
Lois Gaylord, a weaver, dyer and seamstress, is a maker of connections. Her passion for textiles and deeply spiritual outlook inform her art and life’s work. On this path, her goal is to help others to see the connectedness of all life and recognize the Divine Essence in everyone and everything. She seeks to integrate and restore balance in binary energy systems: female and male, the receptive and the active, or yin and yang. Weaving these seeming opposites (that can’t exist without the other) into a new cloth of balance and wholeness is her way of practicing tikkun olam, Hebrew for the healing of the world.
Along with her art she creates spiritual cloths with the intention to help people connect to Source within themselves and the world. Lois teaches beginning weaving as well as classes that utilize art as a practice for spiritual discovery. She sells her work at fairs and through her online shops and works on commission.
Lois has been a life long seeker on her spiritual path, exploring several diverse traditions and returning home to her Jewish roots through Kohenet. She has a bachelor’s degree in textile design and a certificate in fiber arts. She lives in Seattle, WA with her husband Kevin Cain.