Meet Cohort 5 (Bios)

Below are the names & bios of the folks that will journey through this Kollel alongside you! You can get to know Fellows from previous cohorts here.

Alex Bailey Dillon (they/them) is a globe trotting Diaspora Jew currently based on Lenape land in/on Manhattan. Since being welcomed into Judaism by a small, DIY community in their college town of Edinburgh, Scotland, Alex has lived in Chicago, the Bay Area, and now New York City. They have kept the lights on as an arts worker in the theatre and as a program associate at a Jewish non-profit. They hope to continue facilitating the experiences – artistic, intellectual, and spiritual – that celebrate and deepen our shared humanity, especially for people and places that are isolated from institutional Jewish life.  

Ari L. Monts (they/them/theirs) is an independent scholar, artist, and queer liturgist based in Sunnyside, NY. Their work looks at participatory performance rituals’ role in community formation. They’ve had their writing featured on Autostraddle, Bitch, and Ms. Magazine and were a 2021 ALEPH Kesher Fellow. Their Jewish practice is centered around exploring the joy of small, intergenerational gatherings, playful rigor with liturgy, and lots of laughter. Currently Ari works as the Communications and Programs Manager for Lab/Shul. 

Chava Shapiro (they/them) is a queer Jew dwelling on the lands of Tohono O’odham people. They are invigorated by the way that Talmud acts as a conduit of ancestral conversations that span space and time. They are an artist and writer exploring histories of resistance, identity, erasure, and collective memory. In 2019 they founded the Jewish Zine Archive, which serves as both an archival collection and digital Jewish cultural space. Their writing was featured in the anthology “There is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists” published by AK Press in 2021. They have participated in nearly 20-years of anarchist and community-based organizing through which they strive to root in Jewish histories of political and social resistance while engaging in acts of solidarity and co-creation with others.

Erie Rosser (they/she/he) is an anarchist folk/punk/country musician living on the shores of the Salish Sea in so-called Seattle. They love Talmud for the same reason they love folk music – both are oral traditions containing tall tales, horrifying prejudice, and wisdom, all blended together and iterated on for hundreds of years. In these beautiful amalgams that emerge is a spark of something with so much radical potential waiting for us to harness it. And what a joy it is to do so!! 

Julia Spiegel (she/her) is originally from Skokie, and is currently a rabbinical student at Hebrew College. In 2017, Julia and RP Whitmore-Bard co-founded Queer and Trans Rosh Chodesh (QTRC) in Boulder, Colorado — a queer rosh chodesh group for young(ish) adults. In addition to Talmud, Julia’s interests include, but are not limited to: musicals, tennis, cooking, playing cards, dancing salsa, and her beloved mustached cat, Ruth.

Kiki Lipsett (she/her) is an educator, musician, performer, and prayer leader in California’s Bay Area, on unceded Ohlone Land. She grew up at the intersection of music and Judaism, and her work over the past decade has revolved around music, performance, social justice, Jewish ritual and teaching, and community building. She loves words and delights in linguistic play in the Talmud. She is known in the Bay Area for writing, directing, producing, and performing in “Irreverently Yours, The Shushan Queens,” an annual, politically satirical, feminist, musical Purim comedy all in rhyme. 

Ma’ayan Seligsohn (they/them) is a frum Rebbetz in Riverdale, NY who loves building community around the Shabbos table. They nurture beauty into the world through their garden, writing poetry grounded in Tanach, and of course lots of Gemara learning. On good days (and bad!) Ma’ayan, together with their partner Ezra, and three young children, can be found doing family stuff like dancing to classic Jewish music, hiking, and bedtime routines.  

Natalie Boskin (she/her) fell in love with the Talmud when she first cracked open a mesechet at the 2017 Queer Talmud Camp and has been a dedicated Svara learner ever since. She works as the Assistant Director of Youth Programs at Kehilla Synagogue (on Lisjan Ohlone Land) where she also teaches as a B’mitzvah teacher. Natalie is passionate about cultivating tools that allow us to remain present with the thorniest moments in torah and transform them into texts of radical empowerment- she is intent to turn it and turn it to see what else is in it. When Natalie isn’t eyebrows deep in torah and dictionaries, she’s likely doing something embodied like salsa dancing, singing nigunim, or gettin’ some kitten cuddles.

Ortal Ullman (they/them) loves asking questions so much that they made a whole career out of it. As an organizer, trainer, and coach, they’ve spent the last decade using questions to try to get to the root of things — so when they found SVARA, they were hooked from the start. By day, Ortal’s work is focused on supporting scientists in building their organizing and advocacy skills, getting science out of the labs and into the streets. They love talmud as a practice of interrogating what we think we know and challenging ourselves to hold many truths. Ortal has found home in Boston, where they enjoy hosting an elaborate shabbos table, putzing around the kitchen, and riding their bike.