
Peer-Led Retreat Jewish Educators Database
A list of excellent Jewish educators worldwide who are pre-approved to teach at Peer-Led Retreats.
Featured Educators
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Naomi Izen
SPECIALIZATIONS Art, Dance, Earth-Based Judaism, Embodiment, Experiential Education, Feminism, Food/Drink, Health and Wellness, Holidays, Jewish Values, Kabbalah/Mysticism, Kohenet, Meditation, Mindfulness, Ritual, ShabbatRETREATS
Entering the Temple: A Jewish Women’s Retreat; The Art of True Belonging; Vermont Chalet — Jewish Identity, Assimilation, and Resistance;
Naomi Azriel Izen is an ordained Hebrew Priestess through Kohenet and the Creative Director of her own Jewish lifestyle design business. Naomi’s biggest passion is in creating beautiful sacred space, tangible and intangible, and she teaches on how to use ritual, aesthetics and Jewish frameworks for welcoming and transformation. Naomi infuses all of her teachings with earth-based Jewish practices and Mysticism. Naomi incorporates Jewish arts practices and Jewish herbalism and loves creating spaces for in-depth and hands-on learning that are well-held and aesthetically pleasing. If you are seeking a retreat that holds participants in a gentle container with deep attention for details, thoughtful and modernized ritual that leaves your participants with a changed sense of self and Jewish Identity then feel free to reach out. Naomi has taught on numerous Moishe House retreats (virtual and in-person) as well as Camp Nai Nai Nai. She has been an educator at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center as well as Hillel Conferences, Hebrew Day Schools and her own curated Jewish retreats and workshops.
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Yoni Nadiv
SPECIALIZATIONS Ethics, Feminism, Hebrew Language, Jewish Law (Halacha), Jewish Values, Midrash, Prayer, Rabbinic Literature, Ritual, Sephardi Culture, Sexuality, Shabbat, Talmud, Tanakh/TorahRETREATS
Baraita: Outdoor Learning
Rabbi Yoni Nadiv is a passionate educator who invites discussion focused study around texts, bringing the ancient and modern world into conversation. He has a passion for making material accessible to learners of all skill levels through skills based learning and modern technological approaches.
Sample lessons include:
– Talmud Skills Crash Course
– Forgotten Holidays: What did Shavuot and Shemini Atzeret used to be?
– A Model of Modern Prayer: How Hannah’s Prayer Inspired the Development of Tefillah– Torah and Talmud 101
– Advanced Critical Methods of Torah and Talmud
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Yoshi Silverstein
Cleveland, OH
SPECIALIZATIONS Dance, Environmentalism, Jews of Color, MindfulnessRETREATS
Moishe gets Muddy; Maine Roots 2020; In Living Color: Celebrating our full selves as Jews of Color
Yoshi Silverstein facilitates connection to body, nature, and spirit through movement, design, play, exploration, & Jewish tradition. Also a 2nd degree blackbelt, CrossFit coach, and movement teacher, he holds over sixteen years of experience in both Jewish and secular outdoor, food, farming, and environmental education. Yoshi is an alumnus of the Selah Leadership Program, the Dorot Fellowship, and the PresenTense NYC Accelerator for Social Entrepreneurship. He is a member of the UpStart Alumni Advisory Council and a founding member of the Repair the World NYC Advisory Board. A Pacific Northwest native, Yoshi has resided in roughly thirteen different places since his eighteenth birthday – including the Olympic Mountains, central and northern Idaho Rockies, Berkshire Mountains, and the Arava Valley – and now lives in the Bushwick Plains of Northern Brooklyn with his wife, daughter, and pup. He makes a mean Chinese Roast Duck.
All Educators
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Abby Newburger
Potomac, MD
SPECIALIZATIONS Anti-Semitism, Community Organizing, Conflict Resolution, Entrepreneurship, Experiential Education, Food/Drink, Holidays, Holocaust, Israel, Jewish Values, Judaism in Pop Culture & Media, Kabbalah/Mysticism, Meditation, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Ritual, Shabbat, Storytelling, Theater, ZionismRETREATS
Moishe House Resident, Retreatology, Camp Nai Nai Nai
Abby Newburger is in her early 30s living in the Greater Washington DC area. When she is not running her own event-planning business, you can find Abby teaching religious school and tutoring B’nai Mitzvah students at her synagogue. Currently she is also the Program Director for the Montgomery County Teens Against Antisemitism Fellowship. Abby has a BA in Judaic Studies from The Ohio State University. She is a MoHo Resident Alum, Retreatologist and a Camp Nai Nai Nai counselor/specialist.
For fun, you can find Abby dancing salsa and bachata, singing karaoke, running her own book club or cooking new recipes.
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Abraham Silver
Tel Aviv, Israel
SPECIALIZATIONS Agriculture/Farming, Jewish Values, Outdoor Education, ZionismRETREATS
The Holy City of Tel Aviv
Abraham Silver was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. After receiving a B.A. in History and Philosophy from S.U.N.Y. Binghamton, Abraham moved to Kibbutz Ketura, a socialist pioneering settlement in Israel’s Negev desert, where he spent nineteen years as a date farmer. He received his army training in the Israel Nachal Paratrooper Corps and continued to serve in a front-line combat unit as a reservist in the IDF until retirement in 2003, serving in Lebanon and during both Intifadas. Abraham completed an M.A. in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. His architectural emphasis is on the design of Jewish Space in Israeli and modern American Jewish architecture. As Project Manager at the firm of Butler, Rogers, Baskett in New York, he was responsible for the design and construction of high-end office projects including the offices of Dewey Ballantine. In addition to practicing architecture, he is a licensed tour guide and senior Jewish/Israel educator. He has devoted the last thirty years to creating and implementing innovative informal Jewish and Israel education. In his role as educator, he has helped people of all ages and backgrounds understand their connection to the land of Israel and the Jewish people. As Educational Director of the Dorot Fellowship in Israel, he was part of a team that designed new concepts of peer-led education. In his role as Educational Director of Israel Interactive, he provided educators with inventive, attractive, DVD and Internet based instructional programs for Israel education. Abraham is co-founder of the Israel informational website, Access Israel. Abraham’s background has led him to a unique understanding of Tel Aviv as the most Jewish city in the world: its development, its architecture, its impact on the Jewish world and Jewish Identity and the implications for the global family of nations. He provides specialty tours of Tel Aviv. Abraham is also a lecturer on the Architecture of Jerusalem at Hebrew University. He is co-author of the book “Living the Dream: Israel at 50” as well as “Israel at 60: People, Places and History”, a three-volume set of DVDs. Abraham and his wife Elissa live in Tel Aviv with their two thirteen-year-old daughters, Shiri and Libi. -
Andrew Davies
SPECIALIZATIONS Art, Ethics, Experiential Education, Improv, Israel, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Rabbinic Literature, Storytelling, Tanakh/Torah, Theater, WritingRETREATS
Camp Nai Nai Nai Co-MC; Retreatology
Andrew Davies is an improviser and facilitator based in South Philly where he lives with his wife Molly Wernick and tiny dog Ducky. Andrew received a B.A. in English Literature from Brandeis University, went on to study Improvisation at The Magnet Theater, and received a certificate of Facilitation from Georgetown University. In 2011 Andrew Co-Founded The Bible Players, a comedy team which is Improv-ing Jewish Lives. The Bible Players have toured to 25 states, visiting hundreds of camps, schools, and synagogues teaching Jewish Values with a sense of humor. He walks softly and carries a big Shtick! In 2016 Andrew Co-Founded the Non-profit CharacTours, an interactive theatrical walking experience where the past visits you. He is the Executive Director of both The Bible Players and CharacTours. Andrew can be reached at Andrew@TheBiblePlayers.com
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Ariela Yomtovian
Cleveland, OH
SPECIALIZATIONS Earth-Based Judaism, Embodiment, Feminism, Health and Wellness, Jewish Values, Kabbalah/Mysticism, Mikveh, Mindfulness, Prayer, Ritual, Sexuality, Shabbat, YogaAriela Sharon is passionate about elevating the Divine Feminine Energy of this world so that we can live in a world of peace, love and higher consciousness. Through building a relationship with God (which looks different for everyone), she believes that we can live more meaningful lives.
She is a creative, with a particular passion for writing. She views art as medicine, meditation and metamorphosis and as a vehicle to explore our relationship to the deepest parts of ourselves (a network of ancestry, faith, trauma etc.).
When I’m not teaching for the Jewish Learning Collaborative or facilitating classes for other various organizations (At the Well, Moishe House, JSP etc), I am working with women as a spiritual mentor to help cultivate a sense of power in birth, in motherhood and in life!
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