Our scholar in residence program this year is as exciting as ever.  Each scholar will teach three times over the course of a Shabbat.  On Friday night, the scholars speak in a more intimate setting at a the home of one of our community members, allowing for much interaction and participation from the community.  The scholar addresses the entire shul from the pulpit on Shabbat morning, and returns to shul for a special Seudah Shlisheet shiur with more time for questions and answers.

Rahel Berkovits is the new principal at Beit Rabban, a non-denominational grade school in New York City. For the past ten years she lectured in Talmud, halakhah and the status of women in Judaism at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. She has spent many years studying Talmud and Jewish texts in both traditional and academic frameworks at such institutions as Midreshet Lindenbaum, The Shalom Hartman Institute, and Hebrew University. She lectures widely in both Israel and abroad on topics concerning women and Jewish law, and has published entries in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Rahel is the editor-in-chief and halakhic editor of JOFA’s Ta Shma Halakhic Source Guide series. She is a founding member of Congregation Shirah Hadasha, a progressive halakhic minyan, which is enriched by both male and female participation in synagogue ritual. Rahel has lived in Jerusalem for the past eighteen years and is the mother of nine-year-old boy/girl twins and a five-year-old daughter.