Cohort Bios and Emails

Amir Weg (amir@svara.org) has been a student of Talmud and a SAVARA-nik since 2013 when he first learned in the S&M bet midrash in Chicago. He joined the staff in 2017, and serves as SVARA’s Yeshiva Administrator. In recent years, Amir has run workshops in Hebrew/Aramaic grammar at Queer Talmud Camp and other programs. Outside of the beit midrash, he spends his time listening to podcasts, watering his numerous house plants, and cooking Shabbat dinners.

Chloe (זיסל) Piazza (chloepiazza@gmail.com) is a PhD student at UC Berkeley. They study Talmud, Yiddish literature, and queer theory. Their research has gone in many directions, including looking at queer time and inheritance in the Talmud and in Yiddish women’s poetry, and exploring the history of Jewish and Yiddish burlesque and minstrelsy while simultaneously creating a Jewish drag act. Chloe is a Yiddish translator of radical feminist and communist texts and teaches beginning Yiddish at the Workmen’s Circle. They are currently working on a project to compile resources for more accessible and less offensive Yiddish language teaching. 

Earnest Vener (earnestrose134@gmail.com) is a trans Jewish educator in the Boston area. He teaches 2nd and 3rd grade at Temple Beth Shalom. Earnest is passionate about Jewish storytelling, talmud study, and mentorship. Earnest received an M.A. in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union and a B.A. in Near Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley. Prior to moving East, Earnest ran an outdoor Jewish religious school in the Oakland Redwoods. Earnest is recently engaged to Emma Price and they enjoy snuggling with their two cats, studying Torah, playing board games, and working to build a more equitable world.

Elaina Marshalek (elainam@gmail.com) loves studying Talmud, and likes to color code her daf in full rainbow. She recently returned from studying for a year at Yeshivat Hadar in New York, where she taught Talmud out of her living room in Brooklyn. She is excited to continue experimenting with “lay teaching” with SVARA, and to help support the vibrant learning community in her forever home of the Bay Area. When she’s not studying, Elaina works as Director of Strategy for UCSF Health. 

Frankie Sandmel (sara.sandmel@gmail.com) is an educator, community organizer and rabbinical student in Boston, MA. They are originally from the Chicago where they learned to love teaching, Talmud, and teaching Talmud while working and studying at SVARA and the Jewish Enrichment Center. Now on their way to becoming a rabbi, Frankie continues to teach students of all ages, to organize the Jewish community towards justice, and to bake cookies whenever possible. 

Julie Batz (julie.r.batz@gmail.com) is a spiritual leader and educator serving the Bay Area Jewish community. Together, she and Maggid Jhos Singer are the Congregational Leaders of Chochmat HaLev, a center for Jewish spirituality in Berkeley where in addition to co-designing and leading engaging, musical, and inspiring services, she provides pastoral counseling, teaches adult education classes, mentors musical service leaders, and officiates congregants’ lifecycle events. In addition to her congregational work, Julie’s bnei mitzvah training and facilitation practice serves independent Jewish families, offering them the opportunity to (re)connect Jewishly in their families and the larger Jewish community. She extends particular welcome those who have felt themselves in the margins: families new to Jewish ritual, kids with learning differences, multi-faith families, queer families, and families of all configurations. 

Noah Westreich (noahwestreich@gmail.com) is a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Prior to studying for the rabbinate, he worked and lived in Washington, DC and Jackson, MS, where he served the Jewish communities of those regions. In DC, he also served speciality coffee and developed a yoga practice. Originally from Montclair, NJ, Noah has always had a thirst for world languages and as such has become a competent speaker of Spanish, German, and Hebrew. He graduated from Macalester College with a degree in Sociology; his senior thesis explored the sociolinguistic theory of Hebrew education in American Jewry.

SAM Luckey (luckeydrop@gmail.com) is a queer and genderqueer rabbinical student at Hebrew College. In 2013 SAM and Talya Husbands-Hankin co-founded Glitter Kehilla, a community of younger adults of all genders and sexualities doing Jewish and being fabulous. As part of SAM’s rabbinic internship last year at Kehilla Community Synagogue, they also started the monthly ‘Liturgically Traditional, Radically Inclusive’ Kabbalat Shabbat service and SAM helped to launch Kehilla’s initiative for racial justice and de-centering whiteness, the Belonging and Allyship Project. Before starting rabbinical school, SAM was a professional circus performer for over a decade, and they continue to spend several hours a week upside down, in increasingly unlikely handstand positions.

Sara Lynn Newberger (sara.lynn@ttsp.org) (BS, University of Illinois; MA, Brandeis University, Hornstein Program in Jewish Communal Service and Education; Jerusalem Fellow) Sara Lynn remembers receiving her first chumash in 3rd grade – and thus was born a love of studying Torah.  Born in Chicago, she landed in St. Paul in 1989 where she came work at the Talmud Torah of St. Paul Day School because the mission and vision resonated with her soul. At TTSP has had many jobs. Her favorite is what she is doing now, exploring Jewish texts, customs, values and ideas with students. Sara Lynn is the director of TTSP’s Hineni: Adult Jewish Learning and Contemplative Practices. She believes passionately in the importance of Jewish learning and the impact it can have on people’s lives. When not working, Sara Lynn enjoys cooking, visiting with friends, singing, and being outdoors.  Sara Lynn is married to Barbie Levine and is Savta to Ruby.