FortyFest

October 2023

Watch the program

Celebrating our first 40 years. Visioning our next 40.

The Shalom Center, founded by Rabbi Arthur Waskow in 1983, turns 40 this year. To celebrate, we are hosting “FortyFest” on October 5, 2023. This first-of-its-kind virtual Hoshanah Rabbah seder will be brimming with joyous learning and soaring spirits to honor The Shalom Center’s first 40 years and vision our next 40.

Register & Contribute

We want all who are interested in The Shalom Center to join us for FortyFest because we want you to be part of our circle and we believe in this event. You can register without paying anything.

And, to accomplish all that we have planned in the years ahead, our budget will need to expand as our expenses - alongside our impact - continue to grow. It’s going to take a dedicated and spirit-filled collective effort to make all of this possible.

We are asking you to consider making a personally meaningful contribution to The Shalom Center as we turn 40. Register by clicking on the button below that is right for you, to express your support for The Shalom Center’s past, present, and future.

You may also contribute by sending a check to The Shalom Center at 6711 Lincoln Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19119. For DAFs or stock gifts, our EIN is: 23-2424621. To discuss the impact of making a gift of over $1000, reach out to Rabbi Nate DeGroot at ndegroot@theshalomcenter.org. For assistance with registration or online giving please contact office@theshalomcenter.org.

Details

Day: Thursday, October 5th, 2023

Time: 7-9:30pm EDT

Where: Virtual (Zoom link sent upon registration)

Cost: There is no cost to attend FortyFest, though we hope you’ll choose to support our work.

Featured Guests:

Names listed in alphabetical order. Headshots and biographies can be found at the bottom of this page.

  • R’ Phyllis Berman

  • Heather Booth

  • Cherie Brown

  • Madeline Canfield

  • R’ Tamara Cohen

  • R’ Diane Elliot

  • Koach Baruch Frazier

  • Gili Getz

  • R’ Shefa Gold

  • R’ Yosef Goldman

  • Aly Halpert

  • R’ Jill Hammer, PhD

  • Cantor Linda Hirschhorn

  • Shoshana Jedwab

  • Rev. Keyanna Jones

  • R’ Malkah Binah Klein

  • R’ Sharon Kleinbaum

  • R’ Ebn Leader

  • Shaul Magid

  • Bill McKibben

  • Jacqui Patterson

  • R’ Or Rose

  • R’ Micah Shapiro

  • R’ David Shneyer

  • Jonathan Silver, MD

  • R’ Becky Silverstein

  • Rev. Liz Theoharis

  • Jericho Vincent

  • Randi Weingarten

  • Yaela Wiser

Rabbi Arthur Waskow (middle) at the original Freedom Seder, 1969

Rabbi Arthur Waskow (middle) at the original Freedom Seder, 1969

Rabbi Arthur Waskow and background illustrations: Jessica Tamar Deutsch

Rabbi Arthur Waskow and background illustrations: Jessica Tamar Deutsch

Rabbi Arthur Waskow at an Exodus Alliance Passover action in front of Chase Bank, Wayne, PA, 2022. Photo credit: Rachael Warriner

Rabbi Arthur Waskow at an Exodus Alliance Passover action in front of Chase Bank, Wayne, PA, 2022. Photo credit: Rachael Warriner

FortyFest will be hosted by The Shalom Center’s Founder and Director, Rabbi Arthur Waskow and The Shalom Center’s Associate Director, Rabbi Nate DeGroot.

Teaching, facilitation, music, and more will be led in partnership with the following lineup of inspiring featured guests:

Featured Guests


  • Spiritual Director, Teacher, Group Facilitator

    A leading Jewish-renewal liturgist, life-cycle ritual and holiday retreat leader, story-writer, and story-teller since the early 1980s, Berman is widely known for the innovative and powerful Torah services she leads. From 1994 to 2005, Berman was Director of the Summer Program of the Elat Chayyim Center for Healing and Renewal. She has long been recognized for her activism and has co-authored several books. She's locally in-demand for her desserts.


  • President, Midwest Academy; Advisory Council Member, The Shalom Center

    One of the country’s leading strategists and organizers for progressive issue campaigns, Heather has organized around the civil rights movement, labor organizing, election campaigns, and marriage equality, just to name a few. There is a movie about her life in organizing, “Heather Booth: Changing the World” and she is featured in the recent film, The Janes. She is a member of Democracy Partners consulting firm. Heather's commitment to social justice is in part rooted in her Jewish values.


  • CEO, National Coalition Building Institute; Board President, The Shalom Center

    Founded and has built NCBI into one of the leading diversity training and grassroots leadership organizations, with over 50 chapters worldwide. NCBI-trained leaders combat racism, sexism and antisemitism, resolve inter-group conflict, and launch activist-based coalitions.


  • Organizing Coordinator, Jewish Youth Climate Movement

    Youth climate justice activist, Canfield previously organized with the Sunrise Movement, co-founded Houston Youth Climate Strike, co-led the Youth Working Group for the City of Houston Climate Action Plan, and served on the Zero Hour Partnerships Team. She co-founded the anti-sexual assault organization Jewish Teens for Empowered Consent. She is an undergraduate at Brown University.


  • Chief Program Officer, Moving Traditions

    Works to embolden Jewish youth to thrive through pursuit of shleimut/wholeness, hesed/caring connection and Tzedek/a Jewish and feminist vision of justice. Tamara is one of this year’s Covenant Award recipients for excellence, creativity and innovation in Jewish education. She was the Barbara Bick intern at The Shalom Center.


  • Founding Steward, Taproot; Advisory Council Member, The Shalom Center

    A performing dance artist, contact improviser, and somatic movement therapist and teacher with over 40 years of experience. She serves diverse communities as a ritual leader, teacher, and spiritual director, in the SF Bay Area and nationally. An innovator of embodied Jewish practice, she created and directed ALEPH’s Embodying Spirit, En-spiriting Body Jewish leadership training program and is a founding member of the Embodied Jewish Wisdom Network.


  • Founder, Black Trans Torah Club; Co-founder, Tzedek Lab; Advisory Council Member, The Shalom Center

    A transformer, heartbeat of movements, healer, musician, founder of the Black Trans Torah Club and co-founder of the Tzedek Lab, a network of practitioners working at the intersection of dismantling racism, antisemitism and white supremacy. A collaborative leader, rooted in tradition, curiosity and love, Koach strives to dismantle racism, actualize liberation and transform lives both sonically and spiritually.

  • Photojournalist, Actor, Activist

    An Israeli-American , Gili served as a photographer for the Israeli military. His work in recent years has been focusing on Jewish-American politics and is published regularly in Jewish and Israeli press. He specializes in progressive and Jewish protest photojournalism.


  • Chanter, Instructor, Author

    A leader in ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Gold received her ordination both from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (z”l). She is the director of C-DEEP, The Center for Devotional, Energy and Ecstatic Practice in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. She teaches workshops and retreats on the theory and art of Chanting, Devotional Healing, Spiritual Community-Building and Meditation.


  • Senior Advisor, Rising Song Institute

    Weaves together ancient devotional music from both his Mizrahi and Ashkenazi heritage alongside contemporary American and Israeli Jewish sacred music, to foster healing, connection, and social change. Yosef is an accomplished educator and vocalist. He is a longtime singer with the Hadar Ensemble, founding member of Epichorus, and together with Yoni Battat, leads Piyyut Rising. He has two albums of original music out on Rising Song Records and a forthcoming album with Piyyut Rising. He lives outside of DC, where he serves as spiritual leader of Shaare Torah synagogue alongside his spouse and co-rabbi, Annie Lewis.


  • Musician, Educator, Activist

    A young adult queer Jewish singer, pianist, drummer, and guitar player, Aly writes songs for building community, working for collective liberation, and visioning different worlds. Aly leads music and prayer for various Jewish communities, and her songs have been sung in national gatherings, song circles, and quiet moments of personal prayer, and have moved people all over the world. Whether her songs are serious or seriously goofy, Aly believes deeply in the power of music to awaken us to the loss and hope we carry, expand our sense of possibility, and connect us to each other and our collective strength.


  • Author, Scholar, Ritualist, Poet, Dreamworker, Midrashist

    Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion (www.ajrsem.org) and a co-founder of the Kohenet movement. She is the author of a number of books, including Undertorah: An Earth-Based Kabbalah of Dreaming, Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah, The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership (with Taya Shere), The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons, Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, and The Book of Earth and Other Mysteries. She is the translator of The Romemu Siddur and of Siddur haKohanot: A Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook. She lives in Manhattan with her family.


  • Cantor, Temple Beth Sholom, San Leandro, CA

    A member of Ohalah, the organization for clergy in the Jewish renewal movement and voted the Best Cantor for 2005 in the J, the Jewish News Weekly Bulletin of Northern California. Cantor Hirschhorn is a nationally renowned choral director and composer, with multiple published songbooks and numerous original recordings released, including many with her a cappella ensemble, Vocolot.


  • Percussionist, Singer-songwriter, Worship Leader, Jewish Educator

    As a child, Shoshana Jedwab would drum on parked cars, plates, tables, books and other people’s bodies. Shoshana is the Jewish Life Coordinator at the A.J. Heschel Middle School. As a prize-winning Jewish educator, Shoshana has more than 34 years of experience bringing sacred Jewish texts to life for a wide variety of grateful audiences. Shoshana’s original, hip-shaking, prayer music grounds body and spirit, and brings the ancestral past into joyous contemporary practice, with original songs now sung around the world.


  • Organizer, Community Movement Builders

    A Political and Social Justice Activist and Community Organizer, who currently works with CMB to educate, engage and empower the Black Community in Atlanta, Georgia. She is an ordained minister and proprietor of E Equals MC Squared Educational Services, LLC, where she works as a Homeschool Curriculum Consultant, IEP Advocate and German Translator.

  • Founder, Merkava

    Merkava supports spiritual transformation and healing through creative ritual. Malkah Binah was raised in the breathtaking mountains of Los Alamos, NM, amongst scientists working on nuclear weapons, and her spiritual leadership grows from a commitment to love, truth, and justice, while honoring the complexities of the human condition.


  • Senior Rabbi, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah

    Spiritual leader of CBST in NYC since 1992, when she was installed as the community’s first rabbi. Her longtime leadership of CBST and her outspoken activism have made her a powerful voice for GLBTQ rights and human rights in America and around the world.


  • Jewish Spiritual Teacher

    For the past 25 years Ebn Leader has been a student of Rabbi Arthur Green, whom he joined in the founding of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. He was also privileged to study extensively with rabbis David Hartman OBM and Zalman Schachter Shalomi OBM. He has been a teacher for most of his professional life and has co-authored books and written on the topics of Hasidism and Neo-Hasidism. He is married to Rabbi Claudia Kreiman, and together they parent two daughters.

  • Professor, Author, Scholar, Rabbi

    Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College, Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, rabbi of the Fire Island synagogue, and the Visiting Professor of Modern Judaism at Harvard for 2023-2024. He works on Jewish thought and culture from the sixteenth century to the present, focusing on the Jewish mystical and philosophical tradition. He has written many books, writes for a variety of topical journals, and is an elected member of the American Academy for Jewish Research and the American Society for the Study of Religion.


  • Founder, Third Act; Advisory Council Member, The Shalom Center

    Organizer of people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 20 books, and his work is regularly published in a wide variety of publications. McKibben helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, and he has participated in some of the most important climate action in modern times.


  • Founder & Executive Director, The Chisholm Legacy Project; Advisory Council Member, The Shalom Center.

    Rooted in a Just Transition Framework, Jacqui’s work serves as a vehicle to connect Black communities on the frontlines of climate justice with the resources to actualize visions. Prior to the launch of the Chisholm Legacy Project, Patterson served as the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program for over a decade. Since 2007, Patterson has dedicated her career to intersectional approaches to systems change.

  • Founding Director, Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership of Hebrew College

    Before his current position, Rose worked for over a decade in various administrative and teaching capacities at Hebrew College, including serving as a founding faculty member and associate dean for Informal Education of the Rabbinical School. Rabbi Rose was also one of the creators of CIRCLE, The Center for Interreligious & Community Leadership Education, cosponsored by Hebrew College and Andover Newton Theological School (2007-2017) and has taught for Hebrew College’s Me’ah Classic program. He is a renowned teacher, author, and editor.

  • Composer, Prayer Leader, Music Producer

    Enriches Jewish communities across the country with his distinct blend of musical and spiritual leadership. He is the founder of Nariya-The Shabbat Sing Out and Yetzira-The Jewish Songwriters Collective and released his full length album, Zeh Ha-Sha’ar in May 2023. Micah studied at The Rabbinical School of Hebrew College and served as Campus Rabbi at Penn Hillel from 2017-2021. He has served as a musician and songwriting contributor for Nava Tehila, a vocalist on both Rabbi Yosef Goldman and Batya Levine’s albums, and was selected for the inaugural Hadar Rising Song Fellowship. He lives in Cleveland Heights with his partner Aaren, their almost four year old (drummer) Levav and baby Ravi.

  • Founder, Director, Spiritual Leader, Am Kolel

    Received his "semicha" from the Aleph Seminary. The past president of Ohalah, the Rabbinic Association of Jewish Renewal Rabbis, Reb David leads the Fabrangen Fiddlers and is a composer of new liturgical music. Arrested with Reb Arthur more than once, Reb David, a founder of Jews United for Justice is active in several social and eco-justice organizations.


  • Ba'al Tekiya, B'nai Jeshurun

    Jonathan Silver first learned to sound the shofar 58 years ago, when he was 12 years old and is grateful to be one of BJ's Ba'alei Tekiya for 30 years. His current practice focuses on the Kavannah of the sounds of the shofar. He began his mindfulness journey with Rabbis Marcelo Bronstein and Rachel Cowan (z”l) and completed the course in Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teaching with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, where he currently serves on the Board.


  • Co-Director of the Trans Halakha Project, SVARA

    A believer in the power of community, Torah, and silliness in transforming the world. He strives to build a Jewish community and world that encourages and allows everyone to live a life that reflects their inherent divinity / dignity. Becky is a Schusterman Fellow, and currently serves on the board of the Jewish Studio Project.


  • Director, the Kairos Center; Co-Chair, the Poor People’s Campaign; Advisory Council Member, The Shalom Center

    A theologian, pastor, author, and anti-poverty activist, she has been organizing in poor and low-income communities for the past 30 years. The recipient of many awards and a published author, she is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and also teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.


  • Spiritual Entrepreneur; Board Member, The Shalom Center

    Jericho Vincent is the founder and spiritual leader of Temple of the Stranger, a mystical community in Brooklyn, New York that is rooted in Jewish ancestral wisdom and open to all. They are a leading teacher of mystical, queer, feminist, and trans Torah at organizations around the country and on Instagram @thealef.


  • President, American Federation of Teachers

    President of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, which is dedicated to the belief that every person in America deserves the freedom to thrive, fueled by opportunity, justice and a voice in our democracy. Under Weingarten’s leadership, the AFT continues to grow and expand its voice as a union of professionals.

  • Poet, Game Designer, Artist, Nature Lover

    An 8th grader and a newly minted Jewish adult. She plays piano and clarinet, and volunteers in the classrooms of her former Hebrew school. Yaela is a 7th year Girl Scout and is deeply committed to social justice. She LOVES to read and holds a particular interest in fantasy literature. If Yaela could change only one thing in this world, she would have a cat of her own to cuddle and pet every day. Yaela lives with her parents in a cat-free home outside of Boston Massachusetts. This is her first year blowing shofar.

Thank you to our organizational partners: