The IJS is led by a dedicated staff of recognized academics, rabbis, cantors, and educators who fully participate in the format and practices of the program. The teachers are also seekers whose goal is to share insights and to create an atmosphere of trust where participants can risk sharing their own spiritual and professional struggles, their ideas and beliefs, and expand their vision of the kind of leaders they yearn to be.
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Executive Director Associate Director Administrative Director for Programs Co-Directors of Programs Director of Outreach and Community Development |
Director of Yoga and Movement Practices Director for Hevraya Resource Bank and National Hevraya Retreats Regional Director, Northern California Assistant to the Director |
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Larry Schwartz Dorian Goldman Judith Glaser, Ed.D. Rabbi David Glanzberg-Krainin Rabbi Steven Fox Ellen Friedman |
Nancy Krakaur Cantor David Lefkowitz Cindy Shulak-Rome Miriam Scharf Kate Wenner |
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Elisa Bildner |
Rabbi Harold Kushner |
Rabbi Rachel Cowan received her ordination form Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1989. From 1990-2003 she was Program Director for Jewish Life at the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Her work has been included in Moment and Sh'ma as well as in anthologies, including Illness and Health in the Jewish Tradition: Writings from the Bible to Today. She is the author, with her late husband Paul Cowan, of Mixed Blessings: Untangling the Knots in an Interfaith Marriage. In 2007 she was selected as one of the 50 most influential rabbis by 
Rabbi Nancy Flam, Director of the IJS, was a co-founder of the Jewish Healing Center in 1991. She then directed the Jewish Community Healing Program of Ruach Ami: Bay Area Jewish Healing Center in San Francisco. She has served as a consultant for Synagogue 2000 and the National Center for Jewish Healing. Rabbi Flam earned her B.A. in Religion (Phi Beta Kappa, Summa cum Laude) from Dartmouth College in 1982; her M.A. in Hebrew Literature from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1986, and was ordained in 1989. She is the editor for LifeLights, a series of informational, inspirational pamphlets on challenges in the emotional and spiritual life.
Dr Lawrence Fine, Ph.D is Irene Kaplan Leiwant Professor of Jewish Studies, and professor of Religion at Mount Holyoke College, where he is chair of the Religion Department. He is an historian of Jewish mysticism, with special interests in mystical practice and contemplative experience, ritual life and intentional community. He is active in The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, and teaches widely in the Jewish community. His books include Safed Spirituality, Essential Papers on Kabbalah (ed.); Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period (ed.); and Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos--Isaac Luria and His Kabbalistic Fellowship.
Rabbi Shefa Gold is a leader in Aleph: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal and received her ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. Shefa composes and performs spiritual music, has produced eight albums, and her liturgies have been published in several new prayerbooks. She teaches workshops and retreats on the theory and art of Chanting, Devotional Healing, Spiritual Community building and Meditation. Shefa combines her grounding in Judaism with a background in Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Native American spiritual traditions. She is the director of C-DEEP, The Center for Devotional, Energy and Ecstatic Practice, a resource-place for communities and individuals who want to nurture the devotional and ecstatic aspects of their lives.
Dr. Arthur Green is the Dean of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in Boston and the Philip W. Lown Professor of Jewish Thought at Brandeis University. A historian of Jewish religion and a theologian, his work seeks to form a bridge between those two distinct fields of endeavor. Dr. Green has taught Jewish mysticism, Hasidism and theology at the University of Pennsylvania, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (as Dean and President) and now at Brandeis. He has written numerous books on these subjects.
Rabbi Myriam Klotz is a co-founder and co-director of The Yoga and Jewish Spirituality Teacher Certification Program at Elat Chayyim Jewish Spiritual Retreat Center. A certified yoga teacher and yoga therapist, she writes and teaches about the body and Jewish healing nationally. She received her B.A. from Brown University and graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where she serves as a Spiritual Director and Rabbinic Intern Director. She is also editor of the forthcoming Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association Rabbi's Manual. Her recordings include "Each and Every Day: Yoga and Meditation for Jewish Spirituality." 
Jonathan Omer-Man has devoted much of his professional life to the dissemination and promotion of Jewish spirituality, initially among seekers who felt unheard and unanswered in the Jewish world they encountered; and subsequently, in the larger community, as a teacher, writer and lecturer. In 1985 he established Metivta: a center for contemplative Judaism as a vehicle for this work. As Director of Metivta, he was the founder of the Institute working closely with Nancy Flam, who ran IJS as a project of Metivta until 2002. 
Rabbi Nehemia Polen is Associate Professor of Jewish Thought at Boston's Hebrew College. He received his Ph.D. from Boston University. He is the author of The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto; and co-author with Malkah Shapiro of The Rebbe's Daughter, as well as many academic and popular articles on Hasidism and Jewish spirituality. 
Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller is Professor of Cantorial Arts at The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in New York. She serves as cantor at Bet Am Shalom Synagogue in White Plains, New York. She is a published composer, and serves as a member of the commission charged with creating a new prayerbook for the Reform movement. Her most recent CD is entitled A World Fulfilled. 
Rabbi Jonathan Slater is a graduate of the first cohort of the Rabbinic Program of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and mindfulness training program with Sylvia Boorstein and Rabbi Sheila Weinberg. He received his ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City in 1979. Until recently, Rabbi Slater served for 19 years as rabbi for Congregation Beth Ami, a Conservative congregation in Santa Rosa, California, where he addressed various spiritual, educational and organizational needs, including pastoral ministry, healing services, and meditation services.
Rabbi Michael Strassfeld is the rabbi of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, a synagogue in New York City. He is the author of A Book of Life: Embracing Judaism as a Spiritual Practice published in paperback by 
Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg was the spiritual leader of the Jewish Community of Amherst, Massachusetts for thirteen years, having worked the previous seven years in Jewish community relations and as Hillel director. She has published widely on such topics as feminism, Judaism, spirituality and single parenting, and has contributed commentaries to Kol HaNeshama, the new Reconstructionist prayerbook. Rabbi Weinberg teaches mindfulness meditation to rabbis, Jewish professionals and lay people and serves as faculty for all IJS programs.
Larry Schwartz, Chair, is a principal of JSSI (Lugz) shoes in New York City. One of his dreams is to grow and develop a vibrant liberal Jewish community in Montclair, New Jersey. He serves on the board of the conservative synagogue, Shomrei Emunah, in Montclair.
Rabbi Steven A. Fox is a Founding Partner of Davis & Fox LLP, a Los Angeles law firm, and an Adjunct Rabbi (part-time) at Temple Isaiah (also in Los Angeles). Rabbi Fox advises rabbis, congregations, and other non-profits on a variety of issues, including contract matters, employment disputes, board relations, charitable gifts and grants, rabbinic wellness and other spiritual and organizational concerns; all of which is in addition to his business litigation practice. He has also served as a mediator in disputes between rabbis, educators and congregations. At Temple Isaiah, Rabbi Fox’s work focuses primarily on providing an opportunity for synagogue members to deepen their own Jewish spiritual lives and growth through Jewish meditation, contemplative practices and text study. He also served as faculty for the Union of Reform Judaism, Pacific Southwest Council, at its Kallot and Biennials leading worship and workshops on Jewish spiritual practices.
Kate Wenner is a public speaker and novelist, the author of Setting Fires and Dancing With Einstein.