The T’ruah Rabbinical and Cantorial Student Summer Fellowship in Human Rights offers a select cohort of rabbinical/cantorial students an eight week experience working in a human rights/social justice organization in New York, learning about human rights in Jewish text and tradition, and gaining the skills to be human rights leaders in your own communities. Learn more about the program and how to apply.
The program is generously funded by the Michael and Alice Kuhn Foundation and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.
US Fellows
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Phoebe Ana Rabinowitsch
Phoebe Ana Rabinowitsch is a student at Yeshivat Maharat expected to graduate in 2022. She grew up in South Florida and earned a B.A. in Religion and Anthropology from American University (Washington, DC). Phoebe Ana has completed various internships including at Hillel International and a national voter registration campaign. Phoebe Ana studied at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Middlebury College Language Schools. She has studied Torah at Drisha, Hadar and Pardes, where she was involved in organizing a weekly partnership minyan. She has experience teaching English as a Second Language to adult learners and Hebrew and Judaic studies at various religious schools in New York City. Phoebe Ana is an active participant in a monthly women's Rosh Chodesh group that brings together text to discuss health and wellness and the relationship to being a Jewish woman today. Phoebe Ana is committed to exploring how beliefs and practices can help create supportive and nourishing environment and is interested in further exploring the field of chaplaincy and pastoral education. Phoebe Ana teaches at Jspace at the Bayit, a family education program in Riverdale, NY. She lives in Washington Heights, New York.
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Ze’evi Berman
Ze’evi Berman is a cantorial student at Hebrew Union College ‒ Jewish Institute of Religion, Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, and anticipates being ordained in 2022. They grew up at Temple Shalom of Newton, Massachusetts and at URJ Eisner Camp during the summers. They earned a BA in Vocal Performance from Bennington College. During their time at Bennington, they co-founded Bennington College’s first Jewish student organization, Kulanu, and held internships at the Boston Jewish Music Festival, Romemu, and Keshet (an LGBTQ Jewish advocacy nonprofit). Following graduation, they moved to NYC to pursue their love of Jewish music and education. Before beginning cantorial school, Ze’evi served as a tefilah leader and music educator at Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, Congregation Beth Elohim, East End Temple, Astoria Center of Israel, and Stephen Wise Free Synagogue. They developed, taught, and led engaging and innovative tefilot and Jewish music curricula for preschoolers, young professionals, and all ages in between. Ze’evi also worked as a project coordinator on the URJ-Youth team, focusing on expanding social justice and arts programming for teens. During their first year of studies at HUC-JIR, DFSSM in Jerusalem, Ze’evi was the student cantor for Kehillat HaShachar in Even Yehuda. The following summer, Ze’evi returned to URJ Eisner Camp as Head Songleader. In their second year of cantorial school in NYC, Ze’evi served as the student cantor at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan. In their free time, Ze’evi enjoys practicing hand balancing and circus partner acrobatics.
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Hannah Jensen
Hannah Jensen is a rabbinical student at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, where she is expected to be ordained in 2022. She grew up in many places, but considers South Bend, Indiana home. She graduated from Carleton College with a degree in Cinema and Media Studies and French, before quickly fleeing Minnesota for coastal North Carolina. Once there she spent as much time as possible at the beach, and the rest of the time working in restaurants and restaurant management. She found herself in many other places along the way - working in after school arts education programs, working as a commercial property manager for a real estate development company, and helping to run a tutoring program for ESL elementary school kids. This all led her, circuitously, to Los Angeles, where she realized the puzzle she was trying to fit together for her future had been missing the ‘Jewish’ piece. Since discovering this, she has worked with special needs young adults in the Tikvah Program at Camp Ramah California, taught Torah at monthly social justice meetings, tutored bar and bat mitzvah students, and worked as a spiritual counseling intern at Beit T’Shuvah (a residential addiction treatment center). Outside of school, she loves walking, crafting the perfect piece of toast, writing, astrology and the moon, dismantling the patriarchy, and reminding herself how lucky she is to live in a place with 285 days of sun per year.
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Jonah Winer
A Toronto, Canada native, Jonah Winer felt inspired to pursue the rabbinate during his time as an undergraduate at McGill University. He is now an Orthodox rabbinical student at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah where he expects to graduate in 2022. His study of religion in university and his volunteer leadership roles at downtown Montreal’s student-led Ghetto Shul showed him the need for inclusive orthodox communities, and for religious leaders capable of building them. Jonah's leadership of Mcgill's Interfaith Student Council helped channel his passion for interfaith work and community organizing. Jonah now lives in Riverdale with his wife, Emily, a student at Yeshivat Maharat.
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Ariel Zitny
Ariel Zitny is a rabbinical student at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, where he will be ordained in 2022. While living in Jerusalem, he was the first male intern to work with Women of the Wall, an activist group fighting for women’s right to pray at the Western Wall. Before coming to rabbinical school, he studied creative writing: First at the Orange County High School of the Arts, then at the University of British Columbia, where he double majored in Creative Writing and Psychology, and finally at Chapman University, where he received an MFA. He has had poems published in Wild Ones, Vermillion Literary Project, and TQ Review, and will have poems published in the upcoming anthology Queer Voices. He has written for Keshet and J-PRIDE, Jewish LGBTQ organizations, on being a transgender rabbinical student, and on the importance of transgender inclusion in Jewish spaces. He has given educational presentations about transgender identities and issues, and has participated in panels about transgender experiences. He lives in Los Angeles with his cat Lord Darlington.