jackson.mercer@memglobal.org

Jackson was Ordained at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in Newton, MA with a Specialization in Spirituality and Social Justice and a Masters in Jewish Education with a concentration in Israel Education in conjunction with the iCenter. Jackson was a part of the inaugural cohort of The Nachshon Project’s undergraduate fellowship as well as the first cohort of Graduate School Fellows as well as being a Hartman Limmud Rabbinic Fellow and one of the inaugural Learning Fellow’s at Lehrhaus: Jewish Tavern and House of Learning in Boston.

Collaboration and creativity are at the core of his desire to cultivate meaningful Jewish experiences. Through his work, Jackson built singing prayer communities across the country in California (Congregation Rodef Sholom, URJ Camp Newman, Hillel at UCLA, University Synagogue, and NFTY) and New York (Kehilat Romemu) as well as here in Boston (Asiyah Jewish Community, Temple Beth Sholom of Framingham, and Mishkan Tefilah). He also founded and built a Judaica brand, Hiddur Mitzvah, with his partner and fellow artist Rachel Jackson and sings with R’ Josh Warshawsky in the Chaverai Nevarech Band.

Cultivated by summers split between Guam and Texas visiting family, Jackson holds by the power and importance of the 3 B’s: Baseball, bourbon, and barbecue.

rachel.jackson@memglobal.org

Rachel Jackson, owner of Binah Design, is a scribe, artist, graphic designer, and bookbinder. Rachel’s first art commission was the design of a bar mitzvah invitation, when she was 11 (before her own bat mitzvah).

Since then, Rachel pursued her love of making things by hand, intertwined with Jewish tradition in a number of ways. She spent two years at the Migdal Oz seminary in Israel, deeply immersed in Talmud, and in her second year, silk screening at the Jerusalem Print Workshop. She studied Visual Art and Humanities where she wrote her BA thesis on modern philosophical understandings of the physical form of the book at the University of Chicago. She completed a certificate in bookbinding at the North Bennet Street School in Boston where she studied traditional methods of gold tooling and leatherwork, tool making, and metalworking, among a wide variety of skills and disciplines.

Rachel studied sofrut (sacred Hebrew calligraphy) from renowned teacher Jen Taylor Friedman, and has been working and teaching as a soferet since 2015. She has written two English language megillot that abide by all the rules of sofrut, which are the only two known kosher English megillot in existence. Her teaching has focused on providing accessible opportunities for traditionally marginalized communities to access the texts and profession of sofrut including the first class accessible to deaf and hard of hearing participants.