GHIORA AHARONI founded his multi-disciplinary studio for art and design in New York City in 2004, and his work has been exhibited internationally in museums, institutions and galleries. A graduate of Yale University, Aharoni’s work is in the permanent collection of The Pompidou Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Vatican, The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., The Morgan Library & Museum and The Anu Museum in Tel Aviv—as well as numerous private collections in North America, Europe, Australia, Israel and India. Aharoni’s artworks are characterized by engaging time and text as a medium, and an interest in exploring dualities, such as the intersection of religion and science, and the intertwined relationships of seemingly disparate cultures. Much of his work involves traditional objects or symbols—such as cultural artifacts or sacred texts—that have been recontextualized and imbued with meaning that asks the viewer to question or reconsider their conventional social/cultural significance. Aharoni created Hebrabic© (a combination of Hebrew and Arabic that he conceived in 1999 while at Yale), employing the shared etymology of the word “home” in Hebrew and Arabic as a metaphorical framework for exploring personal, intercultural and spiritual relationships. Hebrabic© is an integral element of Aharoni’s work in free-standing sculptures, works on paper, glass-engraved assemblage sculptures and site-specific installations. https://www.ghiora-aharoni.com/

& /ˈampərˌsand/ (April 30) is a fermentation revivalist and interdisciplinary performance artist working in Brooklyn, New York. She concerns herself with taking care of nearly invisible things: bacteria, yeast, cryptocurrencies, earthworms, and the liminal space of trans existence. her overlapping processes of fermentation, decomposition, self-portraiture, and performance improvisation build relationships to these invisible forces and illuminate their world-shaping impacts. Her desire is to learn the technologies of the small in order to care for big transformations necessary to survive, if not effervesce, in climate ruin. 

Her most recent work is a fermentation CSA that deepens community relationship to their microbial kin through feeding people. Follow her work (@and_by_itself).

EDEN BAREKET (April 3) - Baritone Saxophone, Flute. Although a relative newcomer to New York's scene, the Argentina-born Israeli baritone saxophonist Eden Bareket quickly gained notice and esteem as an in-demand Sideman. Indeed Bareket's collaborative projects show an eclectic streak, as his horn playing ranges from modern classic Eyal Vilner Big-Band, to the adventurous Ari Hoenig Nonet, to even the Ethiopian jazz inspired grooves of Anbessa Orchestra.Bareket has also woven these disparate musical strands together in his own leader project. https://www.edenbareket.com/

SUSAN BERGER (April 11) and her family became members of the New Shul in 2005, after having had experiences at 3 other downtown congregations that didn’t feel right.  It’s felt right since, including while being on the Va’ad from 2007 through 2016, and this year has felt more right than ever.  Susan is a psychologist and psychoanalyst, practicing in New York City. As an instructor and supervisor, as well as a former codirector of a child and adolescent psychotherapy training program, she has also been very involved in training others.  Susan has published about intergenerational transmission of trauma and has a longstanding commitment to working with underserved populations.  She has work experiences that include community organizing, teaching, serving as a psychologist for the Children’s Aid Society and Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, as well as directing an on-site mental health services program at an inner city school.  She is so grateful to TNS for providing a community with which to learn about and experience Judaism in a way that incorporates her values, her family’s legacy, and the many facets of her identity.

KERRY BRODIE (April 30) is the founder and executive director of Emma's Torch. Emma's Torch is a non profit restaurant, cafe, and catering business in Brooklyn that provides culinary training and job placement services to refugees, asylees, and survivors of human trafficking. Emma's Torch was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Greatest Places in the World in 2018, and has been featured in The New Yorker, The Rachael Ray Show, The New York Times, Vogue Magazine, and others.

SARAH CHIEN (April 23) is a Brooklyn-based dancer, teacher and producer, who creates improvised works with collaborators from dance, music, circus and theatre. She is known for a grounded, emotive movement style and work that straddles the abstract and the accessible. A queer, multiracial, third-generation New Yorker, Sarah was raised in Illinois but returned “home” to the NYC in 2006. She has performed her own and collaborative projects throughout New York City, the U.S., as well as in Greece, Slovakia, Spain and Italy. Sarah’s pre-pandemic performance projects include ∞therside collective, an international improvisation collective of which she is a founding member; ¡Spontaneous Combustion!, an all-improvised performance party series on her homemade rooftop dance floor, and Songs Stuck in My Body, her touring dance-theater solo show. Upcoming pandemic projects include her Zoom solo "This Time," a dance film for DanceNow NYC's virtual festival in May, and her self-published book How to Build a Dance Floor, to be released in April!   https://www.sarahchien.com/

VOODO FE (May 7), a Brooklyn native, is a Self-taught renaissance artist comes with a style unique to his work, using unusual products to create his pieces sets him apart. Bottle caps / corks and other items are used to create depth texture and colors which makes is more than just art, it’s ART. Voodo Fe artwork you can find in specialty stores, galleries celebrities’ homes and his artwork is also featured in magazines. Not only an Artist, Voodo Fe is also a very recognized fashion designer, designing for luxury brands and companies, any given day you could be wearing something designed by Voodoo Fe, and he also has his own line of clothing. His creativity doesn’t stop there, he’s also a musician… creative is what he is…

http://www.thespotforart.com/

DAVALOIS FEARON (April 23 & May 16) is a critically acclaimed choreographer, dancer, and educator born in Jamaica and raised in the Bronx.  She received a Bessie Award for her performance in “the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds” in 2017, was named among “7 Up-and-Coming Black Dance Artists Who Should Be On Your Radar” by Dance Magazine in 2018 and was a member of the Joyce Theater's Young Leaders Circle Artist Committee. Dava danced with Stephen Petronio for 12 years and founded Davalois Fearon Dance in 2016 with the mission to push artistic and social boundaries. Her work has been commissioned by renowned institutions and presented nationally and internationally. In New York, her work has been performed at the Joyce Theatre, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and New Victory Theatre on Broadway. She is a professor at Purchase College and the College of Staten Island.  https://www.davaloisfearon.com/#/

Talia Feldberg (April 30) is a director, dramaturg, and theatre maker based in her native New York City. She is particularly interested in the past, and in exploring theatrical form; her work often involves the intersection of the two, bringing together non-theatrical texts and multidisciplinary performance. Most recently, she directed and co-created Pat Reads THE KING IN YELLOW, a streaming theatre series presented by The Tank. Pre-pandemic, she had an SDCF Observership on the upcoming Broadway revival of Company. Other credits include Ensemble Studio Theatre, La MaMa, Ars Nova, Long Wharf Theatre, and a whole bunch of other places. Graduate of Vassar College and the National Theatre Institute. Taliafeldberg.com

Deborah Fishman (April 30) founded FED, an inclusive Jewish community and platform for ideas and art. FED has hosted over 100 creative gatherings, in NYC, Paris, Jerusalem, Be'er Sheva, Mallorca, Budapest, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, and Boston. FED belongs to Hakhel: The Jewish Intentional Communities Incubator, for which Deborah serves as Advisor and Network Manager, and leads Hakhel's Arts & Culture Subnetwork. Deborah was previously The AVI CHAI Foundation’ Director of Communications and Network Animator for PresenTense / Editor & Publisher of PresenTense Magazine. An ROI member since 2009, she has served as an ROI Igniter for NYC. She graduated from Princeton University and holds a Master's in Jewish Professional Studies from Spertus Institute. 

ERAN FINK (April 3) - Percussion, Vocals was born in Petach Tiqwa, Israel on March 17th 1986. He started his musical education at the age of 10, taking drum lessons at his hometown's conservatory. When he was 14 years old he was accepted to Israel's most renowned jazz program at the Thelma Yellin High school of the Arts. Since arriving in New York, he has been active in the local music scene. Eran is currently involved in multiple professional musical projects that are scheduled to perform both in New York and abroad.  https://www.eranfink.com/

KONSTANTY GEBERT (April 11) , international reporter and columnist with leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. Democratic opposition activist in the Seventies, and underground journalist (pen name: Dawid Warszawski) in the Eighties. Co-founder i.a. of the underground Jewish Flying University, and of the Polish Jewish intellectual monthly Midrasz. Has taught i.a. at Hebrew University, UC Berkeley and Grinnell College. Author of eleven books in Polish, English, Italian and Bosnian, i.a. on Poland’s round table negotiations of 1989, on the Yugoslav wars, on Israeli history, and commentaries on the Torah. Most recent publications: „Salvation and perdition – the Polish Jews’ Russian school of modernity and politics” [in Polish], in: Lidia Zessin-Jurek, Katharina Friedla (Ed.): Syberiada Żydów polskich. Losy uchodźców z Zagłady, Warszawa 2020, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny; “Poland, Israel and History” [in German], in Gisela Dachs (Ed.): Freindschaften, Feindschaften. Essays., Berlin 2020, Suhrkamp. Most recent award: the American Jewish Press Association Rockower Award, 2018

HALEY GEWANDTER (April 30) is a painter, muralist, and teacher born in 1992 in New York City. After graduating from Bowdoin College with a major in Visual Art, Haley moved back to New York City, where she currently works and lives. Her work has been exhibited in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, and Florence, most recently at SCOPE Art Show during Art Basel Miami. Her work explores memory and time and nostalgia and family and objects and heirlooms, using pigments suspended in oil to suspend her subjects in time. In addition to pursuing her career as a visual artist, Haley followed her love for teaching and passion for working with children, complementing her solitary time in her studio with the active, collaborative rhythms that come with being a standardized testing, academics, and art tutor. After working for an elite tutoring company in downtown Manhattan, Haley co-founded a tutoring business of her own, The Learning Collaborative. In 2018, she was lucky enough to combine her two loves, art and teaching, as the Lead Artist for a city-block-long, outdoor CITYarts mural, which she designed and painted with a team of young students who live and attend school in the Bushwick neighborhood surrounding this large-scale work of art. She is proud to be a founding member of The New Shul. www.haleygewandter.com

GILI GETZ (April 17) is an Israeli-American actor, photojournalist and activist. He served as a military photographer for the IDF and as a news editor for Ynet. His work in recent years has been focusing on American Jewish politics and he is published regularly in Jewish and Israeli press, and by Princeton University in the book "Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel" by Professor Dov Waxman.  Gili has been working for peace in Israel/Palestine and against the occupation for many years promoting freedom and dignity for both Israelis and Palestinians.  His latest one-man play “The Forbidden Conversation” explores the challenges of having a conversation about Israel-Palestine in the American Jewish community. The play premiered at the Center For Jewish History in the spring of 2016 and has been touring the country since.  He is currently working on his new photography book that will explore the last decade of the American Jewish left.  giligetz.com

ELLEN GOULD (April 11) is an Emmy Award-winning writer and performer. Inspired by artists like Spalding Gray, John Leguizamo and Anna Deavere Smith, Ellen is one of the first writer/performers to extend solo theater into the musical realm. Her many original musicals all received New York productions though she is perhaps best known for Bubbe Meises, Bubbe Stories, which opened to critical acclaim Off Broadway, followed by a made-for-television version which aired on PBS n and won Ellen her two Emmys (for writing and performing). A graduate of Brandeis University, she has an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and was the recipient of a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship in Music.

YONATAN GUTFELD (Music Director, May 7) grew up in Jerusalem, where he studied music composition. He was active in the Tel Aviv singer-songwriter scene and toured the country with his band after re- leasing his debut album.  Since 2012 Yonatan lives in NYC where he records his songs, teaches and writes music for theatre productions. In 2017 he released Time’s Tyranny, an album of new compositions to Shakespeare sonnets in He- brew translation. In 2019 he released In Exile Even In His Own Room, a selection of songs set to lyrics by poet Ory Bernstein. In 2020 he released Acht U Shtaim, an album of original Hebrew children songs.  Yonatan is the Music Director of The New Shul.  https://yonatangutfeld.bandcamp.com/album/--2

AVIGAIL GUTFELD (May 7) , originally from Jerusalem, now Brooklyn-based, is a production and scenic designer.  The interaction between people, space, and language is what draws her to storytelling. Coming from a background of comparative literature and classical music training, her approach to design is interdisciplinary. She is a recent graduate of NYU Tisch Design (MFA) and Berlinale Talents alumni.  Among her latest projects is -Ship: A Visual Poem, which won the Short Film Jury Award: US Fiction at the 2020 edition of the Sundance Film Festival.  https://www.avigailgutfeld.com/

AVIYA HERNSTADT (April 30) is a dancer, educator, and Jewish New Yorker. Her approach to movement (both in dance and community organizing) is grounded in her sense of ancestral connection and the Bundist concept of “doikayt,” or “hereness,” which embraces the diaspora as home, urging us to commit to our immediate communities and lands. Aviya is in collaboration with Carmen Caceres DanceAction, Yehuda Hyman’s Mystical Feet Company, and The New Shul, where she co-created a work with Rabbi Misha Shulman and Michael Posnick for the Shul’s 2020 High Holy Day services. She spent a year in Quito, Ecuador and performed with La Frente de la Danza Independiente. Aviya currently works at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange supporting youth education programming, and organizes with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and The New Shul’s Black Lives Matter Chevrutah.

SAMIR LANGUS (April 3) - Gimbri, Vocals is a Grammy nominated musician, born and raised in the city of Agadir, Morocco. Music has always been a part of the constant variety of street sounds of his city, from merchants to entertainers and calls to prayer. LanGus began learning Gnawa, a traditional, spiritual trance music, when he was 8 years old from the Gnawa masters of Morocco. LanGus makes great use of this traditional repertoire, and adds his own, contemporary spin with additional jazz instrumentation. Taken as a whole, this exciting new artist fuses a centuries old North African tradition with the pulse and attitude of New York City now. He would like to collaborate with diverse musicians improvising new sound that respects the Gnawa tradition. https://samir-langus.wixsite.com/samirlangus

RAN LIVNEH (April 3) - Bass. Born in Zichron-Ya’aqov, Israel, Livneh studied music at the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem, where he studied double bass with Maestro Dr. Michael Klinghoffer and received his Bachelor of Arts in Double Bass Classical Performance. Mr. Livneh has recorded, arranged, performed and toured with many world renowned musicians such as Anbessa Orchestra, Gili Yalo, Ismael Kouyate, Friend Roulette, Zozo Afrobeat, Marc Miralta, and Berry Shaharof, to name a few.  http://www.livnehran.com/

SIR FRANK LONDON (April 23) is a Grammy Award-winning trumpeter/composer and co-founder of the Klezmatics. His latest releases are Salomé: Woman of Valor (with Adeena Karasick) and Ghetto Songs. He leads Glass House Orchestra, Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars, Shekhina Big Band, Sharabi with Deep Singh, Ahava Raba with Yanky Lemmer & Michael Winograd, and Vilde mekhaye with Eleanor Reissa. He has worked with John Zorn, Karen O, Itzhak Perlman, Pink Floyd, LL Cool J, Mel Tormé, Lester Bowie, LaMonte Young, They Might Be Giants, David Byrne, Jane Siberry, Ben Folds 5; is on over 400 CDs and was featured on Sex And The City

http://www.franklondon.com/

MIKE MCGINNIS (May 16)  Saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer Mike McGinnis is a musical explorer unbound by stylistic barriers; unwaveringly individual, curious, and open-minded.  He has released five critically acclaimed albums as a leader during his twenty-two years in the NYC jazz scene. For four consecutive years, he has been listed in the Clarinet  “Rising Star” category by the DownBeat Magazine International Critics Poll.  http://www.mikemcginnis.com/

JUDY MINOR (Steering Committee, April 11) is a stage and film director, teacher, and writer. She has directed plays across the country and for numerous theaters in NYC. She has directed a broadway national tour and made a film that screened in festivals world wide. Judy has taught directing at Wesleyan University and at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. She has taught writing and various forms of creative expression at UCLA and at private schools in NYC. Currently she works for POPS THE CLUB, a group that amplifies the voices of teenagers whose family members are impacted by incarceration and deportation. She lives in the west village with her son, Conrad and their dog, Maeve.

RABBI JAMES PONET (April 11) is currently the Howard M. Holtzmann Jewish Chaplain, Emeritus, at Yale University, James Ponet served as director of Yale Hillel and Jewish Chaplain at Yale from September 1981 until July 2015. He earned his undergraduate degree from Yale in Religious Studies and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Hebrew Union College, where he was ordained in 1973. After his ordination, Rabbi Ponet and his wife Elana lived and worked in Israel for eight years during which time the couple had three children. Ponet taught at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, the Shalom Hartman Institute, pursued doctoral work in medieval Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University and served in the IDF Artillery.  Ponet is a lecturer at the Yale Divinity School and in Yale's Alumni College.

WILLA SHEIKH’s (April 30) passions for nature, social justice, and cooperatives are just a few things that led her on the path to becoming Greene Hill Food Cooperative’s General Manager. In this role, she works to grow a healthy and equitable business that provides access to affordable, sustainable, organic, and local food to our community. She loves hanging out with my furry adventure pal, Summit, growing food, cooking, and rock climbing.

DAVID SHULMAN (April 17) is Professor Emeritus of South Asian Studies at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He specializes in the languages and cultural history of southern India and has published many books and studies on philological topics, history of religion, intellectual history, south Indian poetry and poetics, Tamil Islam, Carnatic music, and the Kudiyattam classical theater of Kerala. He is a long-time activist in Ta'ayush, a grass-roots human-rights and peace organization working in the occupied territories, especially the South Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley. He is the author of Dark Hope; Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine (2007) and Freedom and Despair (2018).