sofia.zway@memglobal.org

Sofia was born in Ecuador to two South African parents, but spent most of her life in South Africa. She spent her formative years as a camper and counselor at Netzer South Africa, the Reform Zionist Youth Movement, where she first discovered her love for Jewish Education. A lifelong learner, she has also been an avid Limmudnik at conferences across the world.

She’s had the privilege of serving diverse communities in Cape Town, New York, Los Angeles and Las Cruces, NM. She is also a DONA-trained birth doula. A lover of bad puns and good romcoms, Sofia and her husband, Rabbi Brett Kopin, are thrilled to be building sacred community in Los Angeles together.

She received her Honors degree in Applied Theatre from the University of Cape Town and her Master of Arts and Rabbinic Ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.

Sofia is passionate about the intersection of Judaism and birth and hopes to incorporate birth work into her rabbinate. In her spare time you can find her belly-laughing with Brett, eating ice-cream, coloring mandalas, creating new rituals, and watching trashy RomComs.

brett.kopin@memglobal.org

Brett was born and raised in Chicago, IL and graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2013, where he majored in English Literature and Creative Writing. He received Rabbinic Ordination from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University in Los Angeles in 2021.

He spent a large part of his early 20’s hiking and camping in national parks, exploring the United States, and learning in diverse communities throughout the Jewish world, including ultra-orthodox yeshivot, Tzfat, and SVARA. When it comes to Jewish learning, he has an affinity for finding numerological and structural patterns in Torah. He currently serves as the Middle School Division Rabbi at Milken Community School in Los Angeles.

He is the co-screenwriter of the animated film, The Tattooed Torah, and the feature-length documentary, For The Living. In January 2022, he co-authored a book with Dr. Ron Wolfson called Creating Sacred Communities, selected as the USCJ’s 2022 “Big Read.” His passions include road tripping, hiking, writing, cooking, ice cream making, discovering new faces of Torah, personal finance and taking long walks up hills.