Sydney Switzer is a Jewish educator and artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. She is the founder and lead educator of Torah B’Teva, which creates opportunities for nature-based and experiential Jewish learning and community building, making use of land-based skills such as foraging, woodland management, fermenting, textile traditions and more to enhance Jewish ritual and tradition.

Her artwork revolves around traditional materials and methods of making, as well as how Jewish identity can be influenced by and adapted to the diasporic places where it’s practiced. Much of her interest lies in land-based traditions, particularly relating to wool and plants. She is a prolific knitter and spinner, specializing in creating land-to-garment pieces. She brings this same approach to Jewish ritual and tradition, seeking to guide groups through every stage of the process. Want to handcraft your own ritual objects using natural or foraged materials? Go for a Shabbat walk in nature and learn Jewish traditions around the plants you encounter? Morning prayers while swimming in the sea? Here for it!

Originally from Calgary, Canada, she has lived and worked in many Jewish communities around the world, including two years in Mumbai, India, and time spent working in Poland, Hungary and Israel. She loves connecting with different Jewish stories, and connecting with local Jewish tradition wherever she travels. She’d love to connect with your community, wherever you are, and to help create a retreat which is focused around your community and its needs.

She received her BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada in 2017, with a Major in Photography and a Minor in Social Practice & Community Engagement. She has studied at a variety of different Jewish learning programmes, most extensively at Machon Alte in Tzfat. She has worked with communities across the spectrum of denominations and levels of practice.

She is involved in a number of Jewish community and educational projects. You can often find her knitting in a cafe or swimming in a cold loch.