Please click a link to learn more:

- Register Now!

- Tachlis (Logistics): Cost, Transportation, Housing, etc.

- Student Scholarships and Financial Assistance

- Tentative Schedule

- Presenters and Educators

- Sponsors

Tachlis (Logistics): Cost, Transportation, Housing, etc.

We are committed to enabling everyone to attend the Shabbaton, and look forward to a wide range of sexual, gender, economic, religious, and ethnic diversity. Thus, we offer sliding scale rates. If your wallet will allow, please consider registering at the regular or the supporter rate. Your generosity supports our current and future programming.

	Early bird (by Sept. 15)	Regular
Discounted Rate	$100	$120
Regular rate	$120	$150
Supporter rate	$150	$180

The Queer Shabbaton will be held at the Kraft Center, Columbia's Hillel building, at 606 West 115th St. in Manhattan.

Need a ride? Need a place to stay? Want to offer a ride or a place to stay? Check out our Ride and Housing Board.

Or check out nearby hostels:
Candy Hostel (West 95th St.)
Central Park Hostel (West 103rd St.)
HI-New York (Amsterdam Ave.)

Or click here to see a list of nearby hotels.

Student Scholarships and Financial Assistance

Student scholarships and financial aid are both available through a simple application process. If you would like to apply for a student or need-based scholarship, please read this before you apply. We are pleased to have scholarship money available thanks to the generosity of our supporters. We are thrilled to be able to help you attend.

Tentative Schedule

Friday, October 31

1:00-3:00 Registration, Kraft Center Lobby

3:00-4:00 Welcome and Opening Program

4:00-4:30 Prepare for Shabbat

4:35-5:15 Mishpacha Groups Introduction

5:30-6:15 Candle Lighting [actual candlelighting 5:35 pm] and Shabbat Services with Rabbi Jacob Staub, Shoshana Jedwab, and Chani Getter

6:15-7:45 Dinner and Singing

8:00-11:00 •Evening Session 1: Halloween Parade in the Village

•Evening Session 2: Jewish Film and Discussion led by Vanessa "Vinny" Prell of NUJLS

•Evening Session 3: Tisch (song, drink, celebration) led by Afraim Katzir-Cozier and Zvi Bellin

11:00 Laila Tov! (Good Night!)


Saturday, November 1st

9:30-12 •Shabbat davening option 1: Shacharit w/ Rabbi Jacob Staub, Shoshana Jedwab, and Chani Getter

•Shabbat davening option 2:
10-11 Back to School: Judaism 101 with Nehama Benmosche
11-12 Yoga with Daniel Max
•Shabbat davening option 3: Shacharit at area shuls

12:00-1:20 Lunch (including Nehirim First-Timers Table with Zvi Bellin

1:30-2:30 Afternoon Session 1

•Option 1: Jewish Halloween lesson with Rabbi Jill Hammer

•Option 2: Integration of our Jewish Queer Lives with Chani Getter

•Option 3: Zeek magazine presents a panel on Jewish Social Justice

2:40-3:40 Afternoon Session 2

•Option 1: Intergenerational Community Building with Rabbi Jacob Staub and Jonathan Vatner

•Option 2: Kishkas: Fat Acceptance for a Personal Revolution with Devra Beth

•Option 3: Trans/Gender 101 with Jase Schwartz

•Option 4: 150 Days of Silence, or, Come Hear About Jay's Meditation Retreat with Jay Michaelson

3:45-4:30 Mishpacha groups

4:45-5:45 Afternoon Session 3

•Option 1: Jews, Muslims and other Interfaith Dating Adventures with Randy Furash and Ty Power

•Option 2: Fathers, Sons, Inheritances: Text study on Joseph with Rabbi David Dunn Bauer

•Option 3: Educating Your Clergy: The Next Step in GLBT Activism with Gabriel Blau

•Option 4: Create Your Own Workshop

6:00-6:45 Evening Spiritual Practice

•Option 1: Mincha with Aaron Weininiger

•Option 2: Meditation with Jay Michaelson

•Option 3: 12-Step Meeting with Rafi Daugherty

•Option 4: Student talk time with Zvi Bellin

6:45-8:00 Dinner

8:00-8:15 Traditional Maariv with Aaron Weininger

8:15-8:45 Havdalah

9:00-10:30 Evening Program: Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad

11pm Laila Tov! (Good Night!)


Sunday, November 2nd

9:00-9:50 Early Risers Coffee Klatch

10:00-10:50 Breakfast

11:00-11:50 Sunday Session

•Option 1: Yoga with Daniel Max

•Option 2: Take QSNY home with you with Sasha T. Goldberg and Vanessa "Vinny" Prell

•Option 3: Meet the other Queer Jews who work in the Jewish World with Ri Turner

12:00-12:50 Closing program/ Last mishpacha group



Our presenters and educators (list still in formation!) include:

Sasha T. Goldberg, Retreat Co-Director
Sasha T. Goldberg is a professional Jewish educator who, in the past two years, has worked five different Jewish jobs, taught six different grades in Hebrew School, led eight Jewish teen retreats, served on a Jewish Board, davenned in at least seven different shuls, and spent four months living in Israel. Accordingly, Sasha is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Judaism at The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Out in the queer world, Sasha has organized conferences, presentations, and workshops, and she has spoken extensively on sexuality, gender and identity.

Vanessa "Vinny" Prell, Retreat Co-Director
Vanessa "Vinny" Prell has dedicated one quarter of his life (and counting) to anti-oppression work, and continues these efforts as the Executive Director of the National Union of Jewish Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, and Intersex Students (NUJLS). An old hand at program development and workshop leading, she has conducted workshops on topics as varied as becoming an ally, sex education, religion and abortion, rape culture, and identity politics. Her background in youth empowerment has led him to work with high school and college aged youth. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with honors, and degrees in Literature and the Study of Racism and is honored to serve on the board of Bet Mishpachah, Washington DC’s egalitarian Synagogue embracing a diversity of sexual and gender identities.

Jay Michaelson
Jay Michaelson is the founder and executive director of Nehirim. He is also the chief editor of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture, a columnist for the Forward, a Ph.D. candidate in Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the author of God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2006) and Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007). His recent academic articles include "I'm Just Not That Kind of God: Queering Kabbalistic Gender Dimorphism" in Jewishness and Sexuality, Danya Ruttenberg, ed. (NYU Press, 2008) and "The Idea of Order vs. Key West: Homosexuality as Liminality" (also forthcoming).

Rabbi Jill Hammer
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is the director and co-founder of Tel Shemesh, a website celebrating and creating Jewish earth-based traditions, and the author of The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons (forthcoming September 2006). She is a poet, writer, myth-maker, and midrashist who has been published in many journals and anthologies, and is the author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, a collection of modern midrash. She received a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1996 and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001.

Rabbi Jacob J. Staub

Rabbi Jacob J. Staub is Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Spirituality at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, where he served as Academic Vice President for 17 years and where he was ordained. He served as editor of the Reconstructionist magazine. He is the founder and director of the first program in Jewish Spiritual Direction at a rabbinical seminary. He teaches medieval Jewish studies, Jewish meditation, and Jewish spirituality. He is the author of The Creation of the World According to Gersonides and the co-author of Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach. He came out as a gay man five years ago.

Shoshana Jedwab

Shoshana Jedwab is a prize winning Jewish educator and the Jewish Studies Coordinator at the A.J. Heschel Middle School in NYC. She is the founding facilitator of the Makom Drum Circle at the JCC in Manhattan and is a percussionist and performance artist who has trained in bibliodrama and psychodrama. Shoshana has provided empowering drum circles to singles, student, training, and bereavement groups. Shoshana has performed with: Storahtelling, Chana Rothman, Debbie Friedman, Akiva Wharton, A Song of Solomon, Hebrew Mystical Chant with the Kirtan Rabbi, Andrew Hahn, and Tel Shemesh seasonal events.

Our sponsors include: