Rabbi Melissa Weintraub

Rabbi Miriam Margles is the Associate Rabbi at Kehillat Lev Shalem, the Woodstock Jewish Congregation in Woodstock, NY, having graduated from RRC in June 2006 as a Wexner Fellow. Integrating Jewish learning, social justice and creative exploration in music, movement and writing, Miriam facilitates workshops with various populations, including hospital patients, women in prison, Israeli agunot (Jewish women whose husbands refuse to grant then a religious divorce) and adults and young people of all ages. She worked as Director of National Programs at the Nesiya Institute, a trans-denominational Jewish organization dedicated to using the arts to deepen Jewish teenagers' and young adults' Jewish identity and relationship to Israel. In this capacity Miriam led trips to Israel, developed curricula and directed International Arts and Culture retreats. She has also worked with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and the TOVA-Artistic Projects for Social Change. Miriam earned a Master's degree in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in creative writing from York University in Toronto. She is an accomplished poet, a composer of original liturgical music and a singer and a dancer with an abiding interest in integrating our physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional faculties.

Ilana has been living in Jerusalem since 2004, first as a recipient of a Dorot Fellowship and then as a Pardes Fellow. Ilana spent the past two years immersed in Jewish studies and the exploration of Israeli and Palestinian society while also facilitating Jewish spiritual workshops and consulting with the Hotline for Migrant Workers in the field of board development and nonprofit fundraising. Prior to her time in Israel, Ilana worked in the field of international development as a Technical Assistance Officer with American Jewish World Service (AJWS). During her work with AJWS, Ilana managed a program of professional volunteers who provide capacity building assistance to NGOs in the developing world. Ilana's initial professional background is in political organizing, spending nearly five years with a New York-based progressive political organization, the Working Families Party, a coalition of labor and community groups. In this capacity, Ilana served as the Legislative Director, managed electoral and legislative campaigns, fundraised and was a community organizer. Ilana has also served as a nonpartisan international election monitor in Bosnia and Albania under the auspices of OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Currently, Shana is a Public Interest Law Scholar at Georgetown Law School, where she is involved in a number of human rights projects. Previously, Shana spent three years living and working in Israel. She began her time in Israel working at the Jerusalem office of the New Israel Fund. In 2002, as a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, she traveled to Bolivia where she studied grassroots participation in international development aid projects. In 2004 Shana returned to Israel with a Dorot Fellowship, during which time she studied Talmud and Arabic, and worked for Gisha, an Israeli human rights NGO that protects Palestinian freedom of movement. Shana's other professional experience includes work as a union organizer with the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) and as a labor & immigration advocate for US Senator Paul Wellstone's office. She has also worked in the NY offices of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and at AVODAH: the Jewish Service Corps.

Rabbi Melissa Weintraub was ordained as a Conservative Rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary and currently represents the Seminary as a Rabbinic Fellow in Conservative communities throughout North America. Melissa also serves as Director of Education and Outreach at Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, and is the author of several articles treating the subjects of human dignity, war ethics, and human rights in Jewish sources. A noted speaker and educator, she has lectured and taught on Jewish theology, mysticism, and ethics in an array of conferences, synagogues, and adult education settings, including the Princeton Theological Seminary, the New York Kollel, and the Elat Chayyim Jewish Retreat Center. Melissa has also designed curricula for a number of Jewish organizations, including the Panim Institute and the Conservative Movement's United Synagogue Youth (USY). An alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program, Melissa lived in Israel for six years and is a veteran of Jewish-Muslim and Israeli-Palestinian people-to-people initiatives. Recipient of a grant from the Samuel Ruben Foundation, Melissa is currently working on a book exploring Jewish religious responses to terror.