Rabbi Benay Lappe

Rabbi Benay Lappe, Executive Director and Rosh Yeshiva of SVARA, was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1997and was the first openly lesbian Conservative rabbi. She holds three additional advanced degrees, in teaching and rabbinics. An innovator in combining Jewish text study and queer theory, Rabbi Lappe was the founding director of the Gay & Lesbian Lehrhaus Judaica in New York and the Queer Jewish Think Tank in Los Angeles, both of which continue to thrive. Rabbi Lappe currently serves as Professor of Talmud at the Hebrew Seminary of the Deaf, in Chicago, Visiting Professor of Talmud at the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley, is an Associate at CLAL, and an educator and consultant at Keshet, in Boston. While learning and teaching Talmud are her greatest passion, Rabbi Lappe is also a licensed pilot, shoemaker, and patent-holding inventor.

Ari Lev Fornari

Ari Lev Fornari currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts, where he is a rabbinical student at Hebrew College. Before moving to Boston, Ari Lev completed the Anne Braden Anti-Racist Organizing Program with the Catalyst Project, which continues to ground his involvement with grassroots social justice movements. Ari Lev strives to weave his spiritual practices with his political work in a vision of our collective liberation. He is committed to the inclusion of marginalized voices as he deepens his experience of Judaism as a spiritual practice. In his spare time, he can be found riding a bike, cooking for a crowd and sewing crafts. But Talmud Torah k'neged kulam - studying Talmud takes the cake!