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With kavod (honor) to “all whose hearts were stirred to share” (kol asher nasa libam, cf. Exodus 36:2-3), this is a searchable index of all liturgists, translators, transcribers, etc. whose work on Jewish prayer, on prayer books, and on public readings is being shared through the Open Siddur Project. After ten years, the total number of project contributors is nearly 800. A little over half have shared their work either directly with the project with an Open Content license, or indirectly by contributing their work into the Public Domain as a contributor to a government publication. Nearly fifty are institutional copyright stewards (operating or defunct for-profit and non-profit entities). The remaining contributors have had their works transcribed from material that has passed into the Public Domain after their deaths. Some transcribed works shared through the Open Siddur project remain unattributed due to unknown authorship. If you find an uncredited or improperly attributed work, please contact us.
To join this community of contributors, please share your work. Making prayers and related religious works available for creative reuse and republication through Open Content licenses is crucial for keeping Jewish culture cross-pollinating, vital, and relevant under the current climate of denominationally identified silos and proprietary-by-default copyright strictures. Prospective contributors should read our Mission Statement, Terms of Use, and Copyleft Policy. The Open Siddur is a non-prescriptive, non-denominational project and invites participation without prejudice towards ethnic heritage, skin color, nationality, belief or non-belief, sex, gender, sexuality or any other consideration.
Prof. Menachem Zevi Kaddari (1925-2011), scholars in Hebrew Linguistics, specialized in the study of the Hebrew language for close to 50 years. His research encompassed all periods from biblical to modern Hebrew, and dealt with most aspects of linguistic study: syntax, semantics, diction and stylistics, lexicography and stylistics. (One of his special interests was in defining the principles underlying the process of the internal organization of modern Hebrew.) Prof. Kaddari was awarded the Israel Prize for Hebrew Linguistics in 1999.
Rabbi Dr. Seth (Avi) Kadish teaches medieval Jewish philosophy, history and Bible at Oranim Academic College of Education and in the Overseas School at the University of Haifa. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Haifa (2006), and previously studied at Yeshiva University (where he earned rabbinic ordination and master’s degrees in Bible and Jewish Education). For many years he also taught immigrant soldiers in the Nativ program of the IDF education corps, and adult Israeli Jewish education for the Hebrew University’s Melton School. He lives in Kiryat Motzkin, Israel with his wife and children. He has helped build modern Orthodox Israeli communities that are meant to be open and welcoming to the entire public. Rabbi Kadish is the author of Kavvana: Directing the Heart in Jewish Prayer and The Book of Abraham: Rabbi Shimon ben Zemah Duran and the School of Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi.
Ḳahal Ḳadosh Beth Elohim (Hebrew: קהל קדוש בית אלהים, also known as Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim, or more simply Congregation Beth Elohim), founded in 1749 in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the United States. The founding members of the synagogue were Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent (Sepharadim), who arrived into Charleston via London, England. Before 1830 Ḳahal Ḳadosh Beth Elohim was a place of worship for Spanish and Portuguese Jews using Portuguese rituals as done in Portugal before the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions. A splinter group animated by the European Reform movement, the Reformed Society of Israelites, formed in 1824. While at first this group did not succeed in reforming Beth Elohim, by the mid 1830s Beth Elohim had reabsorbed its members and its ḥazzan, Gustavus Poznanski (1804–1879), joined the Reform camp in 1840. After the first synagogue building was destroyed by fire in 1838, it was rebuilt two years afterward (in a Greek Revival style designed by Cyrus L. Warner) with an organ to the chagrin of the traditionalists. Ḳahal Ḳadosh Beth Elohim is recognized as the oldest Reform Jewish congregation in the Americas.
Abraham Kahana (Hebrew: אברהם כהנא, Russian: Авраам Маркович Каган Avraam Markovich Kagan; 19 December 1874 - 20 February 1946) was a scholar of Judaism, best known for its Hebrew edition of the Jewish Apocrypha.
Daniel Kahn is a Berlin-based Yiddish singer and songwriter.
Ze'ev Kainan is the CEO of Mosad Bialik Publishing House. Ze'ev was the CEO of Keren Malki - an Israeli nonprofit organization that assists families of children with special needs, and the director of education and special projects at Tikvatenu Centers network. Ze'ev worked for years with youth and was a delegate to the Ramah camps (California, Canada, Poconos, and the Ramah Seminar in Israel) as well as other JCC camps. From 1997 to 2000, he served as a central emissary for the USY movement in North America, on behalf of the Jewish Agency. He later served as the director of the youth movement of the Masorti Movement in Israel for seven years and is also the editor of the siddur va'Ani Tefillati - Siddur Yisraeli and the Poteach Sha'ar Machzor for the High Holidays of the Masorti Movement. Ze'ev was born and raised in the religious kibbutz of Sa'ad in the northern Negev, three kilometers east of Gaza City and now lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Dr. Lisa Kainan and their three children - all graduates of Noam.
Isidor Kalisch (15 November 1816 – 11 May 1886), born in Krotoschin, Prussia, was a prominent Reform movement rabbi and writer in the United States. He was educated at Berlin, Breslau (Wrocław) and Prague. While pursuing his studies in theology and philosophy, he contributed to German periodicals. In 1842 he wrote a patriotic poem, entitled "Schlacht-Gesang der Deutschen" (Battle song of the Germans) which was set to music and became one of the popular songs of the day. In 1843, he preached the first German sermon ever delivered in his native town. During the Revolutions of 1848, he first came to London, and in 1849 to the United States. In 1850, was came the Tifereth Israel congregation in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1855, the first conference of rabbis was held in Cleveland, and a ritual and common prayer-book was agreed upon, entitled Minhag America, which he edited together with Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise and found use in many synagogues. In 1855, he was requested by Prof. Josiah W. Gibbs, of Yale University, to decipher a Phoenician inscription that had been found in Sidon, Asia. His rendering of it was read before the Syro-Egyptian Society of London, 13 November 1855. From 1856 to 1860, he took a pulpit in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he united two factions and organized Die treue Schwestern (the true Sisters), a benevolent society of Jewish women. Afterward, he held pulpits in Indianapolis; Detroit; Leavenworth, Kansas; Newark, New Jersey; and Nashville, Tennessee where he erected a synagogue.
He returned to Newark in 1875, and devoted himself to literary work and to lecturing, taking part in polemical discussions in behalf of the ultra-reform element in Judaism. He took issue with Isaac Leeser's English translation of the Ḥumash, and on the "Jewish Belief in a Personal Messiah." From 1853 until 1878 he edited the Guide, and contributed a great number of essays and discourses to German and English religious periodicals.
David Zvi Kalman is a Fellow in Residence at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where he is also a member of the inaugural cohort of North American David Hartman Center Fellows. David Zvi leads the Kogod Research Center’s Theology research team. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he writes on Jewish law, the history of technology, and Islamic jurisprudence. He is the owner of Print-O-Craft Press and executive director of Jewish Public Media.
Rabbi Zac Kamenetz, based in Berkeley, California, is the founder and CEO of Shefa: Jewish psychedelic support, and a co-founder of the Jewish Psychedelic Summit. He holds an MA in Biblical literature and languages from UC Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union. and received rabbinic ordination in 2012. He is a qualified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) instructor,
Jonas Kaminkowski (b. 1892 in Warsaw, Poland) was a poet and rabbi. Educated in Warsaw's public schools, after emigrating he attended the City College of New York and Columbia University, receiving his M.A. in 1924, and then in 1926 at the Jewish Theological Seminary, his Rabbinical degree (with honors). Rabbi, Cong. Agudath Achim, Taunton. Mass.; former principal, Jewish High School, Sompolno. Poland; former secy., Jewish Writers and Journalists Soc., Warsaw; mem. com. on religious observance, Rabbinical Assembly. Contributed various articles to Shul and Leben: published numerous Yiddish poems in Dos Yiddishe Folk, Dos Folk, Haint, Der Americaner, etc. Mem., Z. O. A. Res.: 34 Winthrop St. Study: 36 Winthrop St., Taunton, Mass.
Benj Kamm is a Boston-area systems analyst. His projects in the Jewish world have included working for Encounter in Jerusalem, and co-chairing and teaching at the National Havurah Committee Summer Institute, Jews in the Woods, the Kavod Jewish Social Justice house, and Hillel at Brown University. Benj plays guitar and banjo and enjoys learning piyyutim (Jewish liturgical poetry) from across Jewish history and ethnic traditions.
Rabbi Gerald M. Kane (April 29, 1944 - May 29, 2015) was born in Paterson, New Jersey. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of New York, Buffalo, and his Reform rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 1970. Rabbi Kane served The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah in greater Kansas City in the 1990s as its rabbi educator. After leaving B’nai Jehudah, he became rabbi at Temple Beth El, in Las Cruces in 1998. He retired in 2007 at which time he became rabbi emeritus. In retirement, he was the volunteer theatre and opera reviewer for the Las Cruces Bulletin as his “way of giving back to the community,” which warmly welcomed him in 1998.
Kanisse is an egalitarian and inclusive community for all who wish to celebrate the rich and diverse heritage of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry through its liturgy, traditions, and culture. We host prayer services and events for Jewish holidays and Shabbatot in New York City and worldwide via livestream. We also publish and curate inclusive liturgical texts, as well as an online directory that seeks to foster connection between like-minded leaders and organizations.
Annie Kantar Ben-Hillel is a poet, translator, and teacher of writing, language, and literature. She is the director of the English Studies Program at Shalem College. The recipient of an American Academy of Poets Prize and Fulbright Scholarship, her English translation of the poet Leah Goldberg’s book With This Night (University of Texas Press, 2011) was short-listed for the American Literary Translators Association award. Her poems and translations have appeared in venues such as The American Literary Review, Literary Imagination, Poetry Daily, Rattle, Tikkun, and many others. Along with her work in language instruction, Kantar Ben-Hillel has led creative writing and translation workshops at numerous universities, including Bar-Ilan University, the University of Maryland, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
Rabbi Morton Milford Kanter (1927-1996) was a Reform movement rabbi in the United States. He served in World War II and was a Hillel staff member at Miami University before being ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1955. He served Ohio congregations in Piqua (Anshe Emeth) and Dayton (Temple Israel), before coming to Sinai Reform Temple in Bay Shore, New York and Temple Beth El in Detroit, Michigan. (We know little else about Rabbi Kantor. If you know more and would like to honor his life and career with another pertinent detail, please contact us.
Gabriel Kanter-Webber is rabbi of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, Sussex, UK. He was born in Kingston-on-Thames. After studying Politics & International Relations at Sussex University, he spent a year as a youth worker for LJY-Netzer, the youth movement of Liberal Judaism, before entering Leo Baeck College to study for the rabbinate. He has served in many congregations as a student, including three years with the York Liberal Jewish Community. With a particular affection for Liberal Jewish communities outside the London centres, Gabriel has a special interest in connecting Jewish values to contemporary events and social justice issues (often in real-time), and is passionate about enabling people to weave Judaism – subtly but strongly – into their everyday lives.
Rabbi Louis Kaplan, born in Philadelphia, is a Conservative movement rabbi in the United States. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1949 and Gratz College in 1950. After military service in the Korean War, he was ordained at JTS in 1956. Rabbi Kaplan occupied pulpits in Bloomfield, Connecticut and Daytona Beach, Florida before coming to Ohev Shalom (Chester, Pennsylvania) in 1961. He completed his Ph.D. at Dropsie in 1971. In addition to his work as rabbi at Ohev Shalom, and from 1983 to 1992 as school principal, Rabbi Kaplan held the positions of adjunct lecturer in English and Judaica at the Delaware County Campus of Pennsylvania State University (1973-1981) and of adjunct assistant professor of Judaica at Widener University (1989-1992, 1994). He was chaplain to Jewish students at Widener University and conducted a monthly prayer-study-song session at four area nursing homes. Rabbi Kaplan served as president of the Philadelphia Region of the Rabbinical Assembly. He held the office of president in the Ministerium of Chester and Vicinity, Interfaith Council of Nether Providence Clergy, and the Swarthmore-Wallingford Interfaith Ministerium. He originated "Quest: An Experiment in Interfaith Understanding," which involves Ohev Shalom, St. John Chrysostom Roman Catholic Church, and Swarthmore Presbyterian Church, and was co-founder of the "Covenant of Faith" binding these three institutions. In 1972, Rabbi Kaplan, Monsignor Frederick Stevenson, and Reverend J. Barrie Shepherd were co-winners of the Sylvan K. Cohen Award from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia.
Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (June 11, 1881 – November 8, 1983), was a rabbi, essayist and Jewish educator and the co-founder of Reconstructionist Judaism along with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein.
Richard Neil Kaplan (1948-2021) was a musician and synagogue cantor. He served for twenty-two years at the Oakland Conservative synagogue, retiring in 2018. An emeritus member of the Spiritual Advisory Council of Aleph, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Kaplan received his cantorial smikhah (ordination) from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. He studied Ḥasidic music extensively over many years with Reb Zalman who joked that he was “downloading” his own tremendous knowledge of Eastern European spiritual music into Kaplan. His bachelor’s degree from UCLA was in ethnomusicology, which he continued to pursue for a masters degree at UC Berkeley. After working as a jazz pianist in Manhattan, Kaplan returned to California and taught music history in numerous colleges.
Chaya Kaplan-Lester is a Jerusalem-based spiritual teacher & guide, psychotherapist, and performance artist. She offers private therapy & spiritual counseling in person or via phone and Skype as well as leads spiritual journeys in Israel. As co-director of the Shalev Center for Jewish Personal Growth, Chaya trains and facilitates ongoing women's groups and teaches regular classes in the Jerusalem area and on her annual tours world-wide.
Rabbi Nathan Kapner (1949-2008), born in Brooklyn, New York, was an Orthodox movement rabbi in the United States. In 1966, he founded the Hillel Hebrew Academy and Synagogue in Massapequa, New York. He also worked for NCSY and was active in the movement to free Soviet Jewry. If you know more details about Rabbi Kapner's life and career, please contact us.
Shalom! My name is Emily Aviva Kapor-Mater. I am a radical transfeminist rabbi and activist. I am an autistic, transgender woman. My rabbinic work focuses on creating innovative yet traditional Jewish law, liturgy, and ritual, in order to celebrate and affirm trans identities and experiences. I also work for acceptance and accessibility for people with visible and invisible disabilities. I am the author of Ein Self: Early Meditations and Haggadah Shir Ge'ulah. My other projects include playing chamber music, advocating for alternative education, computer programming, and smashing systems of institutional oppression.
Retired Navy commander Rabbi Maurice S. Kaprow is a chaplain for VITAS Healthcare, a hospice organization in Central Florida. Rabbi Kaprow served the United States Navy as chaplain for twenty years with visits to some 200 ships.
Ḳaraite Jews of America is a Jewish organization that promotes the study and observance of Ḳaraite Judaism.
Having been active in congregations of 3 different Chassidic dynasties (ChaBa”D over the course of a lifetime, Twersky, and Bostoner Rebbe), Rabbi R. Karpov, Ph.D. has for 30+ years been making available traditional liturgical sources’ deep spiritual core, and since the early 1990s translating ceremonial texts of 16th-century Lurianic Kabbalists of Tzfat (Safed), including: Tikkun Leil Shavuoth (ABQ rollout 2013/5773), Tikkun Leil Hoshannah Rabbah, 7 Adar, Leil Sh’vii Shel Pesach (Mishmar—anniversary of crossing the Sea of Reeds); and Tikkun Chatzoth. Ordained by 3 Orthodox-ordained rabbis, Rabbi Karpov maintained a Shomereth Mitzvoth path while serving Conservative pulpits for 7+ years, beginning in 1989 as 1 of the first 10 woman rabbis to serve a solo United Synagogue pulpit. Having in the mid-1980s expanded the Navajo/Jewish dialogue that Dr. Avrum Organick pioneered, she continued to serve the Window Rock centered expanse between Albuquerque, Flagstaff, and the Farmington/Durango area that she helped open up with a 1997 Pesach Seder receiving front-page Durango newspaper coverage. After serving as Traditional Egalitarian synagogue rabbi, founded and served the Window Rock area based Jewish Center(s) of Indian Country, identifying and drawing together ~60+ Jewish family units for Pesach Seders, High Holidays (mechitzah down in front), Purim and Jewish/Native dialogue, while teaching at Navajo Community College/Diné College. Available to run ceremonies.
I am a lactation consultant and freelance writer living in Petach Tikva, Israel. I made aliyah from Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, in 1990. As a teen I babysat for Aharon Varady, the founder of this project, and his sister.
Abe Katz is the director of the Burei HaTefila Institute.
The Beurei Hatefila Institute was established in order to encourage the study of the words of the Siddur as a Jewish text in Jewish schools. To assist educators developing courses on Tefila, the Institute publishes a weekly e-mail newsletter in which it traces the sources for the words and structure of the prayers within the Siddur. These and other resources can be downloaded on PDF from the Burei HaTefila Institute website.
Mr. Katz is also available to teach courses on Tefila at your synagogue or Jewish Community Center and as a scholar-in-residence. He is available to meet with school administrators to assist them in establishing a course in Beurei Hatefila at their schools and to train teachers on using Hebrew-English word processing and Judaic libraries on CD-ROM.
Rabbi Harry (Yehoshua Heschel) Kaufman (1923-) was born in Tarnopol, Poland and arrived in America at age six on the Lower East Side. He studied at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath and, in 1948, received semikhah from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. Concurrently with his Yeshiva studies, the future Rabbi Kaufman earned an undergraduate degree from Columbia University. From 1948 -1969, Rabbi Kaufman served Beth Sholom Congregation in Washington, DC. As President of the Rabbinical Council of Greater Washington, Rabbi Kaufman was a member of President Nixon’s first inaugural committee. Upon being invited to the prayer service that would precede the inauguration, he declined, explaining that he could not enter a church. As a result, the service was moved to the auditorium of the State Department and Rabbi Kaufman did participate. After Beth Sholom, Rabbi Kaufman served as rabbi of the Young Israel of Montreal where he is a Dayan of the Beth Din of Montreal, a member of the Vaad Harabonim of Montreal, and a past President of the Rabbinical Council of Montreal. He holds a doctorate from London University in London Ontario. In 2015, he published Ohr Yehoshua, containing his original thoughts on the parashah and festivals.
Rabbi Jay Kaufman (1918-1971), born in Cleveland, Ohio, was a prominent Reform movement rabbi and community leader in the United States. After graduating from Western Reserve University, in 1946 he was ordained at Hebrew Union College‐Jewish Institute of Religion, where he received the Youngerman Prize for Preaching and the Henry Morgenthau Traveling Fellowship for two years of graduate rabbinic studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Rabbi Kaufman joined the staff of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1948, and became a vice president in 1957. In 1961 he assisted in setting up institutions of liberal Judaism in Israel. In 1965, he began serving as executive vice president of the international Jewish organization, B'nai B'rith. Throughout his career Rabbi Kaufman sought to diminish the partisanship growing out of the diverse, often competing, secular and religious elements and ideologies in Jewish life. His concern, he once said, was for “the overriding unity of purpose and hope by which the Jewish people survives.” He was a strong advocate of greater community support for Jewish education and the advancement of “an authentic Jewish culture, rooted in our people's traditions, for contemporary Jews.” He served on the boards of the Synagogue Council of America, the National Jewish Welfare Board and the National Zionist Organization of America. He was also a member of the governing body of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, a founding member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and chairman of the Jewish education committee of the World Conference of Jewish Organizations.
David Kaufmann (June 7, 1852–July 6, 1899) (Hebrew: דוד קויפמן) was a Jewish-Austrian scholar born at Kojetín, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic). From 1861 to 1867 he attended the gymnasium at Kroměříž, Moravia, where he studied the Bible and Talmud with Jacob Brüll, rabbi of Kojetín, and with the latter's son Nehemiah. He was also an active member of the Meḳiẓe Nirdamim, a society for the publication of old Hebrew manuscripts. Kaufmann was the possessor of a large library, which contained many valuable manuscripts, incunabula, and first editions, and of which the Marco Mortara library, acquired by Kaufmann, formed the nucleus.
Rabbi Elie Kaunfer is co-founder, rosh yeshiva and executive director of Mechon Hadar and on the Talmud faculty at Yeshivat Hadar. A graduate of Harvard College, he was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he also completed an MA and is pursuing a doctorate in liturgy. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, Elie is a co-founder of Kehilat Hadar and in 2009 Newsweek named him one of the top 50 rabbis in America. He was selected as an inaugural AVI CHAI Fellow, and is the author of Empowered Judaism: What Independent Minyanim Can Teach Us About Building Vibrant Jewish Communities (Jewish Lights, 2010).
John Keble (25 April 1792 – 29 March 1866) was an English Anglican priest and poet who was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Keble College, Oxford, was named after him.
Mim Kelber (1922-2004) was a writer, editor, and feminist -- a lifelong activist on behalf of women's rights. She served as policy adviser and speechwriter for Congresswoman Bella Abzug and as policy director for President Carter's National Advisory Committee for Women. She was a co-founder with Bella Abzug of Women USA Fund, Inc. and served as editorial director of the Fund's Women's Environment and Development Organization in New York City. She coauthored Gender Gap: Bella Abzug's Guide to Political Power for Women (1984).
Rabbi Haim Kemelman was rabbi of the East Brunswick Jewish Center and later on, Beth Shalom synagogue in Edmonton, Alberta. In New Brunswick, he authored a regular column, "Lines on Living," in a local newspaper, Home News. He also wrote at least two books, How to Live in the Present Tense (1970), and with Abraham Resnick, Come Along to Israel (1973). We know very little else about Rabbi Kemelman. If you know more and would like to add to this bio, please contact us.
Rabbi Michal Ratner Ken-Tor serves as the Rabbi of the Megiddo Regional Council and the founder of MEGIDO HARUACH, a new nonprofit organization in Megiddo. She was born in Kibbutz Geva and grew up on Moshav Kfar Yehezkel in the Jezreel Valley, and is the fifth child from a Zionist family who made Aliyah in 1968 from the USA. After her military service as an officer, Michal attended Bar Ilan University where she restudied Education, Political Science and Communications. She continued her education in Jewish Studies at the Schechter Institute where she received her MA. Michal is a graduate of the rabbinical school HUC.
Emily Kesselman (pen name, Emily K) is a cartoonist and illustrator based in Philadelphia, PA, whose work puts a spotlight on marginalized communities, courageous (often unsung) historical figures, and nerdy pop culture. Projects include webcomics “sad/funny/true” and “places you find cats,” as well as contributions to the anthologies Dirty Diamonds and Votes For Women: The Battle for the 19th Amendment. In addition to updating her online comics, Emily continues working on her original Jewish fantasy graphic novel, The Gathering of Sparks.
Ḥazzan Jack Kessler is the dean of the Cantorial department of the professional training program of Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, and teaches a number of cantorial students. His current performance projects are directing, composing for, and being the vocal lead of the two touring ensembles Atzilut, a duet format of Arab and Jewish musicians performing together, and Klingon Klezmer, which does ‘Jewish music from other planets.Ḥazzan Kessler was ordained as a Cantor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and went on to have a twenty-year career serving Conservative congregations. During that time he received a Master’s degree in voice from Boston Conservatory and pursued studies in composition in the graduate department of Brandeis University, where he worked with Arthur Berger and Harold Shapero, and Bethany Beardslee at Harvard. A lyric baritone, he has performed opera, oratorio, and premiered new works, in addition to his ongoing career as a singer of Ḥazzanut, the sacred cantorial art. Originally trained as an Ashkenazi Ḥazzan, his performance style and original compositions also embrace Sephardi and Mizrachi styles. Ḥazzan Kessler has lectured and taught master classes in Jewish music at New England Conservatory in Boston, the Academy for Jewish Religion in New York, and presented many concerts in an educational format.
Francis Scott Key (August 1, 1779 – January 11, 1843) was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet from Frederick, Maryland, who is best known for writing the lyrics for the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner". Key was a lawyer in Maryland and Washington D.C. for four decades and worked on important cases, including the Burr conspiracy trial, and he argued numerous times before the Supreme Court. He was nominated for District Attorney for the District of Columbia by President Andrew Jackson, where he served from 1833 to 1841. Key was a devout Episcopalian. Key owned slaves from 1800, during which time abolitionists ridiculed his words, claiming that America was more like the "Land of the Free and Home of the Oppressed". He freed his slaves in the 1830s, paying one ex-slave as his farm foreman. He publicly criticized slavery and gave free legal representation to some slaves seeking freedom, but he also represented owners of runaway slaves. As District Attorney, he suppressed abolitionists and did not support an immediate end to slavery. He was also a leader of the American Colonization Society which sent freed slaves to Africa.
Avraham ben Refael Khalfon (1741–1819) was a Sephardi Jewish community leader, historian, scholar, and paytan in Tripoli, Libya. He researched an extensive history of the Jews of Tripoli that served as a resource for later historians such as Abraham Hayyim Adadi, Mordechai Ha-Cohen, and Nahum Slouschz, and also composed piyyutim (liturgical poems), and qinnot (elegies).
Daniel Kieval works with children and families of all ages and trains educators in the curriculum and pedagogy of experiential Jewish environmental education. He joined Teva Learning Center in 2011, having previously taught at the Pearlstone Center's Jewish educational farm and at Glen Helen Outdoor Education Center. Daniel studied Biology at Wesleyan University and Permaculture and Ecovillage Design at Kibbutz Lotan in Israel.
Rabbi Reuven Kimelman is a professor of Classical Judaica at Brandeis University and rabbi of Beth Abraham New England Sephardic Congregation of New England. His forthcoming book is The Rhetoric of Jewish Prayer: A Historical and Literary Commentary on the Daily Prayer Book. His other book is The Mystical Meaning of ‘Lekhah Dodi’ and ‘Kabbalat Shabbat’.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr., January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs and inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.
Rachel Kirsch Holtman (b. 4 Oct 1885 - d. 20 Jun 1962) was a Yiddish author and journalist. She translated works by Lenin and Bukharin into Yiddish and wrote her autobiography in Mayn Lebens-veg (1948).
Rabbi Irving Usher Kirshblum (1911-1983), born in Biaylstok, Poland, served as rabbi for the Jewish Center of Kew Gardens Hills in Queens. He came to this country as a child, attended New Utrecht High School and was a graduate of Brooklyn College. He studied at the Jewish Institute of Religion and was ordained a rabbi in 1944. He was membership chairman of the Zionist Organization of America and was a member of the Rabbinical Assembly of America. He had been associated with the Jewish Center of Kew Gardens Hills since 1946. In 1971, he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He was a member of the board of directors of the Queens Legion of the National Conference of Christians and Jews and president of the Queens Interfaith Clergy Council. Rabbi Kirshblum was a member of the American Bicentennial Committee, and also was a member of the New York State Advisory Committee for the Aging.
David-Seth Kirshner (born 1973), is the Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, in Closter, New Jersey. Prior to becoming a congregational rabbi, he worked at the Jewish Theological Seminary, which he joined in 1999, serving as Senior Director of Institutional Advancement, overseeing the Seminary's development and outreach efforts. For five years, Kirshner also served as spiritual leader for the Hebrew Congregation of Fitzgerald, in Southern Georgia. (via his entry in Wikipedia).
Rabbi Arnold (Ḥayyim Tsvi) Kiss, née Arnold Klein (Uzhgorod, 2 November 1869 - Budapest, 14 November 1940) was chief rabbi of Buda, a translator, poet and writer.
Dr. Samuel Klausner is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He has continued his lines of research in the Sociology of Religion and in Methodology-Philosophy of Science, applying sociological thought to the clarification of classic documents. Currently, his long range project is a comparison of Hebrew and Muslim dietary systems as a window to their theological presuppositions. He is completing a methodological critique of wissenschaft Bible scholar’s work on interpreting a verse in the Books of Exodus and Deuteronomy.
Minna Cohen Kleeberg (born in Elmshorn, Holstein, Germany, July 21, 1841; died in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, December 31, 1878) was a German and Jewish American poet.
Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein has served as Executive Director of the Tannenbaum Chabad House – Northwestern Jewish Center.
Fred Klein is Director of Mishkan Miami: The Jewish Connection for Spiritual Support, and serves as Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Association of Greater Miami. As director of the interdenominational Rabbinical Association of Greater Miami, he provides local spiritual leadership with a voice in communal affairs. Klein is a Miami native and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brown University with a BA in Religious Studies. He was ordained as a rabbi and holds an MA in Bible from Yeshiva University and an MPhil in Jewish history from Columbia University and was a Wexner Fellow. He is a Board Certified Chaplain and has done clinical rotations at New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens, NY, Jackson Memorial Hospital and VITAS hospice. He is Vice President for the Rabbinic Cabinet of the Jewish Federations of North America, and serves on the Board of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains.
Rabbi Gary Klein is spiritual leader of Temple Ahavat Shalom, Palm Harbor, Florida, a position he has held since July, 1987. Prior to assuming the pulpit of there, he served for nine years as spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel, Altoona, Pennsylvania. Before moving to Altoona, Rabbi Klein served for three years as Assistant Rabbi and Director of Education and Youth Programming at Temple Anshe Sholom, Olympia Fields, Illinois.
Julius Klein (1901–1984) was an American journalist, spy, business executive and brigadier general in the United States Army.
Rabbi Max Klein was born in New York City in 1885 and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1911. Soon afterward, he began serving as rabbi for Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Philadelphia. Formerly a Reform synagogue, under Rabbi Klein's leadership it became one of the initial congregations affiliated with the United Synagogue of America (now called the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism). In addition to serving as rabbi at Adath Jeshurun in Philadelphia until 1960, Rabbi Klein wrote, edited, and translated two prayer books: Seder Avodah for Sabbath, Festivals, and Weekdays (1951) and Seder Avodah for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (1960). He died in 1973.
Rabbi Dr. Hillel haKohen (Philip) Klein (1849 – 1926), born in Baracska, Hungary, was a prominent Orthodox rabbi in Prussia, the Russian Empire, and the United States. He began studying at the Pressburg Yeshiva when he was twelve after which, when he was 16, he attended Azriel Hildesheimer's Yeshiva in Halberstadt. He was appointed dean of a department in the Yeshiva shortly afterwards and spent two years there. He then went to Vienna, and in 1868 he entered the gymnasium there whereafter he studied at the University of Vienna. With the encouragement of Hildesheimer (who by then became Chief Rabbi of Berlin), he moved to Berlin, Germany and enrolled in the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary and the University of Berlin. He received his rabbinical ordination in 1871 and a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1873. He spent some time as an instructor at the University of Berlin, and then accepted a position as tutor for the son of Israel Brodsky in Kyiv, Russia. His rabbinical diploma was conferred by Rabbi Benjamin Hirsch Auerbach of Halberstadt. From 1874 to 1880, he lived in Kyiv. He then served as Rabbi of Libau, Courland from 1880 to 1890. In 1890, he immigrated to America and lived in New York City. There, he was appointed rabbi of Congregation Ohab Zedek, an important Hungarian congregation in the Lower East Side. He was a founder of the war relief movement in the United States when World War Ⅰ began in 1914. He was a leader of Agudath Israel and president of Agudath Israel of America, although he remained partially connected to Mizrachi Zionism. He was also honorary president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada and president of Kollel Shomrei HaChomos.
Rabbi Yaakov Klein is an author, musician, and lecturer devoted to sharing the inner light of Torah through his books, music and lectures. Over the last 10 years, R' Yaakov has shared his passion for the Chassidic wisdom and the inner light of Torah in a plethora of educational capacities including as teacher for the Illinois Center for Jewish Studies and Yeshivat Mevaseret Tzion, as the founding director of the Lost Princess Initiative (LPI), and as a freelance content creator and educator for many organizations including Chabad.org, the Breslov Research Center, Meaningful Minute, TYH Nation, and the Chizuk Mission. Along with his wife Shira and their two beautiful children, R' Yaakov has moved to the UK to join Jewish Futures as the founding director of Eilecha, a new organization focused on creating opportunities for spiritual growth and experiential education in the local community and beyond.
Eduard Israel Kley (June 10, 1789 - October 4, 1867) was a German-Jewish educator and one of the early pioneers of Reform Judaism.
Miriam Klimova is student-rabbi of Shirat Ha-Yam congregation in Haifa. She grew up in Lviv, studied Judaism in Poland and moved to Israel in 2018. She is currently a rabbinic student at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem.
Reena Kling was a beloved member of Havurat Shalom and contributing liturgist in its Siddur Project.
Rabbi Tracy Guren Klirs received her B.A. in Yiddish literature at the University of Chicago and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1977. She was ordained as a rabbi from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 1984. Her book, The Merit of Our Mothers: A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers, was published by HUC Press in 1992. She serves as the rabbi of Temple Kol Tikvah in Davidson, North Carolina.
The Knesset haRabanim b'Yisrael (Rabbinical Assembly in Israel) is the central body of Masorti-affiliated rabbis in the State of Israel. It is closely associated with the Masorti Movement for Conservative Judaism in Israel, and the international Rabbinical Assembly.
Rabbi Chaplain Simeon Kobrinetz (1928-2011), born in Brooklyn, New York, was the first rabbi to attain general officer rank in the United States military. He graduated from Columbia University, studied at Yeshiva University, and earned a Ph.D. from the Jewish Technological Seminary. In 1970, after serving as Hillel Director at the University of Florida and the University of Miami, he served as national chaplain of the Department of Veterans' Affairs, including rising to president from 1976-1978. At the time of his death, He was also president of the Jewish War Veterans. Rabbi Kobrinetz led the campaign to establish Chaplain's Hill as a memorial to fallen Jewish chaplains.
Sandra Kochmann is the first female rabbi to serve in Brazil, although she was born in Paraguay. She was ordained by the Conservative rabbinical school Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano in 2000. In 2003 she began work as a rabbi in Brazil, specifically as an assistant rabbi at the largest synagogue in Rio de Janeiro, called Associação Religiosa Israelita. In 2004 she became the first female rabbi invited to the bimah at the Congregação Israelita Paulista, Brazil’s largest synagogue, when she attended the Conference of the Jewish Communities of the Americas in São Paulo, where she was the only woman among 25 rabbis. In 2005 she moved to Israel, where she became the coordinator of the Kehillah "Masortit Mishpachtit beBeit HaKerem" in Jerusalem. In 2008 she was appointed as Masorti Olami's coordinator for weddings and giyur.
Claudio Kogan is rabbi of Temple Emanuel, McAllen, Texas. Born in Argentina, he graduated from the medical school of the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina . He holds a Masters in Education from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio and a Masters Degree in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania, Medical School, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Kaufmann Kohler (May 10, 1843 – January 28, 1926) was a German-born Jewish American biblical scholar and critic, theologian, Reform movement rabbi, and contributing editor to numerous articles of The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906).
Eugene Kohn (January 26, 1887 - April 1, 1977) was an American Reconstructionist rabbi, writer and editor. Born in Newark, New Jersey he attended the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and in 1912 received ordination. It was here that he met Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan who taught him homiletics. Between 1912 and 1939 he served as a congregational rabbi in Conservative synagogues in the U.S. states of Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin and Ohio. He also served as the president of the Rabbinical Assembly 1936-1937. He played a central role in the Reconstructionist movement. He edited its journal The Reconstructionist and, alongside Kaplan and Ira Eisenstein, edited The New Haggadah (1941), The Sabbath Prayer Book (1945) and The Reconstructionist Prayer Book (1948). Alongside Jack Cohen, Eisenstein and Milton Steinberg he was one of Kaplan's main disciples.
Jacob Kohn (1881–1968) was an U.S. Conservative rabbi, scholar, and educator. Kohn was born in Newark, New Jersey, and was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary (1907). He earned a doctor of Hebrew letters at the Seminary in 1917. After leading the Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Syracuse, New York (1908), Rabbi Kohn served Ansche Chesed Congregation in Manhattan, New York (1911–31). Located on the West Side, his congregation introduced decorum, mixed seating, and a choir. Many a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary would attend these services as part of their rabbinic experience, contrasting Kohn with Mordecai *Kaplan. Among those, whose career in the rabbinate Kohn guided, was Milton *Steinberg. In 1931 he moved to Los Angeles, which was then growing into a Jewish community of substance, to begin at the ripe age of 50 a long career as rabbi of Sinai Temple. Learned and scholarly, Kohn became associated with the newly founded *University of Judaism (1947), where he was dean of the graduate school and professor of theology until his death. He was president of the Alumni Association of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the precursor of the Rabbinical Assembly. He helped edit the Conservative Movement's Festival Prayer Book and was a member of the commission that prepared its Sabbath and Festival Prayerbook in 1946. Kohn wrote Modern Problems of Jewish Parents (1932), and later in his career he wrote Moral Life of Man – Its Philosophical Foundations (1956) and Evolution as Revelation (1963). Kohn also contributed many articles to philosophical journals and to periodicals dealing with Jewish life and thought. In addition to his scholarly interests, he was active in the affairs of the Jewish community, serving on the Overseas Committee of the Jewish Welfare Board in leadership positions during World War i, and in the Rabbinical Assembly, the Los Angeles Zionist District, and the Jewish Community Council and its affiliated organizations. He was a leading voice of Conservative Judaism in Los Angeles when the modern day Los Angeles Jewish community was being formed in the prewar and immediate postwar years. (via his entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica)
Alexander (Ḥanokh Yehudah) Kohut (April 22, 1842 – May 25, 1894) was a rabbi and orientalist from a distinguished family of rabbis. After finishing the gymnasium course in Kecskemét, he removed to Budapest. Anxious to continue his rabbinical studies, he went to Breslau. In 1865, he received a call to the rabbinate of Tarnowitz, Upper Silesia. He then spent another year in Breslau, devoting his time to Oriental philology and Semitics. During the previous year he received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Leipzig, his dissertation being "Ueber die Jüdische Angelogie und Daemonologie in Ihrer Abhängigkeit vom Parsismus." The essay was published by the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft in 1866, it being the first Jewish work issued under the auspices of that society. He obtained his rabbinical diploma in 1867. It was in 1864 that he began to collect materials for a critical edition of the 'Aruk of Nathan ben Jehiel. In 1880 Kohut was called to Oradea, Hungary, where he remained until 1884. At Oradea he became acquainted with Kálmán Tisza, prime minister of Hungary, who, hearing him speak at a national gathering of notables, was so carried away by his eloquence that he caused him to be called to the Hungarian parliament as representative of the Jews. In 1885 Kohut was elected rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Chesed in New York. Kohut was associated with Rabbi Sabato Morais in founding the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York, becoming one of its advisory board, and being active as professor of Talmudic methodology up to the time of his death. In 1889, on the occasion of his finishing the Aruch Completum, he was the recipient of many honors, notably at the hands of various learned bodies in Europe.
Yedidah Koren is a fellow in the fourth cohort of Maskilot. She is a PhD student in Talmud at Tel Aviv University and is writing her dissertation on lineage and bastards in rabbinic literature. Yedidah holds a BA in Talmud and Classics from Hebrew University and an MA in Talmud from Tel Aviv University. She has also studied at Matan, Migdal Oz and Midreshet Lindenbaum, and at the advanced Beit Midrash at the Hartman Institute. In 2016-2017, Yedidah was a research fellow at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. Yedidah has taught at Bar Ilan University, Yeshivat Hadar, and the Drisha Institute in New York and at the Paideia Institute in Stockholm. (via the Shalom Hartman Institute; photo credit: Yoray Liberman)
Rabbi Dr. Ari Korenblit is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, a graphologist/handwriting expert and a Supreme Court-certified document examiner.
A musmaḥ of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) of Yeshiva University, Kornblau served for a dozen years as a senior member of the rabbinic staff of the Rabbinical Council of America. He has been a member of the Rabbinic Advisory Board of Canfei Nesharim for more than a decade and has spoken and written on its behalf for years, mostly recently at a conference of scientists and religious leaders at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. He also serves as rabbi of Young Israel of Hollis Hills – Windsor Park in Queens, New York. A graduate of Yale, he was a fixed income computer programming analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co. before entering the rabbinate. He also studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shvut, Israel.
Rabbi Raquel S. (Riqi) Kosovske is the rabbi of Beit Ahavah ~ The Reform Synagogue of Greater Northampton in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Rabbi Shamayah Ḳosson (שמעיה קוסון; fl. 16th c.) was a Moroccan payetan of whom little is know. If you know more, please contact us.
Roy D. Kotansky is a scholar and notable author of works in the Classics and in Biblical Studies. He was the recipient of the Noyes-Cutter Greek prize University of Chicago in 1980, and a fellow in Antiquities at the Jean Paul Getty Museum, 1983-1984.
Rabbi Laurence A. Kotok, DD, from West Orange, New Jersey, is a Reform movement rabbi in the United States. After graduating Rutgers University in 1967, he was ordained at Hebrew Union College (HUC) in 1972. He served as an assistant rabbi in Temple Sinai in Roslyn Heights, New York, before coming to the North Country Reform Temple (Ner Tamid of Glen Cove) in 1974. In 1996, he began serving Temple B'rith Kodesh in Rochester, New York. He was National Chair of the ARZA Rabbinic Cabinet and helped to found the Rochester Kollel.
Nir Krakauer is a civil engineering professor at City College of New York.
Dr. Dani Kranz studies Social Pedagogics and Social Policy at Bergische University Wuppertal (Germany) and is the director of Two Foxes Consulting. Kranz research areas covers ethnicity, migration, law, politics and state/stateliness as well as organisation anthropology in Germany and Israel/Palestine.
Rabbi Miles Krassen, PhD., is a teacher, author, scholar in the fields of comparative mysticism and the World’s Wisdom Traditions, and musician. He completed his doctorate in Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and received rabbinic ordination from the P’nai Or Fellowship. Currently located in Albuquerque, NM, he serves as Rabbi of Planetary Judaism, an organization for disseminating progressive mystical Jewish teachings based on the spiritual insights of early Hasidism and Kabbalah. He devotes himself to mystical studies and practice, and the teaching and training of teachers and practitioners of a new paradigm for inner development and self-transformation within the Jewish tradition. In addition to his academic career, Reb Miles has been teaching inner Judaism for many years to private students and at summer retreats including Elat Chayyim, the Aleph Kallah, and Ruach Haaretz. His classes and workshops are based on a deep love for traditional sources, familiarity with many non-Jewish wisdom traditions, and respect for the latest findings of contemporary scholarship and science.
Rabbi Dr. Henry Emery (Imre) Kraus (August 27, 1914-March 4, 2008), born in Pápa, Hungary, was a the chief rabbi of western Hungary after World War II and, after fleeing Hungary in 1957, a Conservative movement rabbi in the United States. He was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary at Budapest, Hungary, and received his Ph.D. at the University of Budapest. While he was still a rabbinical student, the Siklós community elected him to be their rabbi. He served there as the chief rabbi of three and a half districts in Baranya County until the deportation. Along with his congregation, he was deported to Auschwitz and later, Buchenwald, Magdeburg, and Flossenburg. The American 3d Army liberated him in 1945. He returned to Hungary where he was elected to be the chief rabbi of Kaposvár (town and district). Rabbi Kraus was one of the 5-member Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Seminary and one of the 12-member governing body of the Hungarian Jews. He was one of the 7 members of the board of governors of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Budapest, where he lectured on the “practical rabbinate.” He also lectured at the universities on philosophy and ancient history and was a frequent speaker on Radio Budapest. In the United States, he served as rabbi for the Beth Torah community of Gardena, Los Angeles and received an MA in Hebrew literature. In 1968, he began as rabbi for Temple Beth Ami, West Covina, California. A member of the Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Kraus served as one of the vice presidents of the assembly's western region and as president of the Los Angeles Eastern Area Board of Rabbis. In 1975 the State of Israel honored him with the Ben Gurion Award—he was the first recipient of this award in California—and in June 1976 the Jewish Theological Seminary of America awarded him a doctor of divinity, honoris causa.
Rabbi Harold J. Kravitz holds the Max Newman Family Chair in Rabbinics at the Adath Jeshurun Congregation, Minnetonka, Minnesota. He has served the congregation since 1987 when he was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is Past Board Chair of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger and serves on the rabbinic advisory committee of the Masorti Foundation. He serves as an officer of the Rabbinical Assembly. He serves also on the RA's Va’ad Hakavod (Professional Ethics Committee), which he chaired for six years.
Rabbi Gabe Kretzmer Seed has served as a Jewish chaplain in the New York City Department of Correction since 2018 where he provides religious services, classes and spiritual support primarily for Jewish incarcerated individuals along with providing general spiritual care for the incarcerated and staff of all faiths and none. He was recently named one of the New York Jewish Week 36 Under 36, a list of individuals making a difference in the New York Jewish Community for his work in the jails during the pandemic. Gabe received semikhah from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in 2017, and is a graduate of Columbia University where he majored in United States History. He also received BA and MA degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary – JTS where he focused on Talmud and Midrash, and Jewish education. He is the co-founder of the Zemirot Database, an editable online database for zemirot, liturgy, and other Jewish songs. Gabe is an avid Baal tefillah and Baal qriyah, and leads davening regularly in both his home community of Riverdale, NY, and has served as the High Holiday Ḥazzan Sheni at Congregation Tiferet Israel in Austin, TX since 2014. He also loves studying Jewish liturgy, especially comparing siddurim of different nusḥaot and minhagim.
Rabbi Aaron Krupnick was born and raised in Philadelphia. He was ordained by the Conservative Movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary in 1988. Upon ordination, Rabbi Krupnick and his wife Helene moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where he served as spiritual leader of Agudath Israel Synagogue for six years. In 1994, Rabbi Krupnick became Associate Rabbi at Congregation Beth El and was named Senior Rabbi in 2000. He holds a Bachelors Degree from Columbia University in Comparative Religion, a Bachelors Degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary in Philosophies of Judaism, and a Bachelors Degree in Hebrew Literature from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, California. Other degrees include a Masters in Counseling and Human Development, as well as a Masters in Rabbinics.
Rabbi Elliot Kukla (he/they) is a rabbi, chaplain, author, artist, and activist. Elliot has been tending to the spiritual needs of grief, dying, and becoming (more) ill or disabled since 2007 and he has been engaged in justice work since 1996. He is currently faculty at Svara: A traditionally radical yeshiva where he is also the founder and director of the Communal Loss and Adaptation Project (CLAP). He was a rabbi at the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center from 2008 to 2021 where he co-directed Kol Hanshama, the multiple award-winning volunteer spiritual care hospice program. Elliot’s essays on disability and spirituality have been featured numerous times in the New York Times, as well as many other anthologies and magazines. In 2006, he was the first openly transgender rabbi to be ordained by a mainstream denomination (the Reform seminary, Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles) and in 2007 he trained as a chaplain at UCSF medical center. He currently lives on Oholone Land (Oakland, California) with his partner, their kid, queer chosen family, two Boston Terriers, and a cat named Turkey.
Sveta Kundish was born in Ukraine in 1982 and began studying music at age seven. After settling in Israel with her family in 1995, she continued her music studies at the Tel Aviv Municipal Arts High School, focusing on voice and piano. Following her graduation, she studied voice with Ella Akritova, a prominent singer and former professor at the Kiev Conservatory and, in 2001, began attending the Yiddish music master class of Nechama Lifshitz. In 2003, she enrolled in the musicology program at Tel Aviv University, earning a B.A. in 2007; that same year, she was invited by Prof. Yuri Kokozey to study voice at the Prayner Konservatorium in Vienna. During her studies in Vienna, Sveta won first prize at the 2008 Golden Hanukkia international vocal competition in Berlin. Following her graduation in 2011, Sveta began a master studies program at the Cantorial Department of the Abraham Geiger Kolleg in Berlin, which she completed in 2018.
Chana Kupetz is the Children’s and Families Program Manager at Hadar. Prior to her work at Hadar, Chana taught Hebrew and Judaic Studies at Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School in Washington, DC and at Heilicher Jewish Day School in Minneapolis. Originally from Israel, Chana was a fellow in Hadar’s first full-year Beit Midrash where she met her wife. She received her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Northeastern University in Boston. Chana lives in Washington, DC with her wife Avi Strausberg and their two young children.
Ron Kuzar is Professor Emeritus at the Department of English, University of Haifa. His main interests are English and Hebrew syntax and language and ideology.
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