va'tichtov: she writes
The shelves of the Beit Midrash are overwhelmingly dominated by books and articles written by men — enter the third cohort of Maharat's Women’s writing fellowship, Va'tichtov: She Writes. Va’tichtov is a fellowship to amplify the voices of female scholars as they seek to enrich the Jewish textual tradition and redress its historical gender imbalance.
The fellowship includes:
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Learning about the Jewish publishing industry over the course of three Zoom sessions with journalists and other leaders
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A writing chevruta for accountability and peer editing
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Access to writing coaches and editors
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An online conference with the goal of inspiring other aspiring and accomplished female writers
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Publishing support for the final pieces (3,000 words or longer submitted by April 24, 2024. The piece may be a teshuva, article, book chapter, commentary or other significant Torah contribution)
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$1,500 stipend to support your writing
Deadline for this cohort has passed. For more information email rzorbaron@yeshivatmaharat.org​
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Candidate profile:
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College graduate
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Identifies as a woman
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Torah scholar with strong Jewish learning background
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Should have a strong desire to write and contribute to the discourse of Torah, and must have at least three writing samples to share. ​
Questions? Contact Jennifer Feldman.
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Meet the 2023 fellowship coordinator: Rabbi Marianne Novak | Core Semikha, Class of 2019
Rabbi Marianne Novak received her BA cum laude in Political Science from Barnard College and her JD from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. She has served as the Endowment Director at the Jewish Federation of St. Louis and also helped start the Women’s Tefillah Group at Bais Abraham. Rabbi Marianne then moved to Skokie, Illinois, became a Gabbait for the Skokie Women’s Tefillah Group, and taught Bat Mitzvah students. Rabbi Marianne is an instructor and curriculum developer for the Florence Melton Adult School of Jewish Learning and taught Tanakh at Rochelle Zell Jewish High School. She has lectured for many Jewish organizations and synagogues, and writes a blog for the Times of Israel. Currently she is Rabbia and Judaic Studies faculty at Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. She is also part of the Jewish Learning Collab and a rabbinic team member of A Mitzvah to Eat , amitzvahtoeat.org. Rabbi Marianne lives in Skokie with her husband Noam Stadlan and family.
Previous fellows for Va'tichtov: She Writes
*stay tuned for published selections from the previous fellows
Dr. Guila Benchimol is a researcher, consultant, and victim advocate whose work focuses on
gender, abuse, and power. She holds a PhD in Sociological Criminology from the University
of Guelph and is also a trained restorative and transformative justice facilitator. Guila was one
of the key advisors who guided the launch of the SRE Network and she has been invited to
address Jewish professionals and clergy across Canada and the US, as well as other faith
communities where she educates, trains, and develops and implements policies on abuse
prevention and intervention. Guila also sits on the board of the Survivors Network of those
Abused by Priests and is a research associate at the Center for the Study of Social and Legal
Responses to Violence. Her first 10+ year career as a Jewish educator informed her
understanding of the need to address victimization of all kinds.
Rabbi Jessica Fisher (she/her) serves as a rabbi at Beth El Synagogue Center in New Rochelle, NY. She was ordained in 2020 by the Jewish Theological Seminary where she was awarded the Lillian M. Lowenfeld Prize in Practical Theology and the Rabbi Albert Pappenheim Prize in Professional Skills. A fourth generation Cincinnatian, Rabbi Fisher first came to New York to attend the joint program between Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, earning degrees in both the History of Social Inequality and Midrash. Rabbi Fisher is always looking for opportunities to share her love of cooking, literature, the outdoors, and her Cincinnati roots.
Naima Hirsch Gelman is a writer, educator, and life-long student. She serves as the Rabbinic Fellow at the National Council of Jewish Women, focusing on reproductive rights. She previously served as the Programming Director at the Beis Community in Washington Heights, where she created an inclusive and welcoming home for Jews of varying backgrounds through strategic programming and outreach. She completed an internship at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and taught college students about Jewish approaches to sexuality at Hunter Hillel. Naima is an editor of Monologues from the Makom, a collection of women-written monologues, poems, and creative pieces related to sexuality, body image, gender, and Jewish identity. Her poetry and prose appeared in print and online publications. Her writing has appeared in print and online publications. Naima earned her BA from Hunter College in English (Creative Writing) with a minor in Women and Gender Studies.
Now back in Israel where she grew up, Rabbanit Michal Kohane continues to be a teacher of Torah and Talmud in Israel and abroad, while completing her chaplaincy certification. Prior to that, she was a long-time leader and educator in Northern California, serving as rabbi, Federation executive director and more. Most recently she was the Rosh Kehila of the Prospect Heights Shul in Brooklyn. Rabbanit Michal holds a BA in Studies of Israel and Education, an MS in Jewish Studies, an MA in Clinical Psychology, and holds a PsyD in organizational psychology. Rabbanit Michal’s first novel, Hachug ("Extracurricular") was published in Israel by Steimatzky and she writes a weekly Torah blog.
Rabbanit Sarah Segal-Katz is a halachic mentor, qualified by Beit Morasha’s Women’s Halacha Program, and a graduate of Yeshivat Maale Gilboa’s Halachic Kollel for Women. Sarah is also a fellow at the Har-El Beit Midrash. She founded and works at the Gluya Center, offering guidance as a Kallah teacher for young brides and couples to help them achieve a healthy physical relationship, as well as mentor single women and she runs workshops on healthy sexuality and lectures on sexuality and Halacha at the Yahel Center. Sarah is a graduate of the Revivim program, and holds an MA in Jewish Thought from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Sarah is married and a mother of three children, living in Jerusalem.
Yael Nitzanim serves on the faculty at Midreshet Lindenbaum and studies at Yeshivat Drisha in Kfar
Etzion. She previously studied at the Susi Bradfield Women’s Institute of Halakhic Leadership at
Midreshet Lindenbaum and Migdal Oz. Yael received her Bachelors in Linguistics from Princeton
University with a minor in Judaic studies. She served as Rosh Beit Midrash at Camp Stone and as
Gemara faculty of Drisha’s High School Program. On the side, she works on content creation for
Hadran and is a certified Madrikhat Kalot.
Sarah Osborne has a Master’s degree in Jewish education and close to ten years of experience as a day school educator. As a result of her personal experiences with needing to eat on Yom Kippur, she founded A Mitzvah to Eat, which supports Jews with a vast range of physical and mental health conditions, disabilities, life circumstances, trauma and more who need to eat on fast days, use a device on Shabbat, or relate differently to other mitzvot. Sarah is passionate about making Jewish texts accessible to everyone, particularly in situations where having access to sources could potentially save lives. Additionally, she is committed to creating and building a Jewish community that supports a variety of life experiences, amplifies unheard voices, and does not condone or encourage suffering in the name of Torah and mitzvot. She lives with her family in the Washington D.C. area.
Dani Rader is a master’s candidate at Harvard Divinity School, where she studies gender and sexuality in religion along with Jewish Studies, where her work lies at the intersection of the Hebrew Bible and feminist theory. Her research interests include contemporary feminist midrash, the anthropology of reproduction, critical theory, visual exegesis, and women’s faith-based activism. Dani is a former abortion doula and continues to advocate for reproductive justice in the United States and abroad. Dani is passionate about the study of Torah in feminist community and has even created a feminist midrash workshop at Harvard. She is passionate about creating midrash as a vehicle for rehabilitating Jewish texts and for better understanding the lives of women in the Hebrew Bible. When Dani is not studying Torah and making midrash, she enjoys yoga and cooking Israeli dishes.
Naama Sadan is a Ph.D. student at the Hebrew University, learning local environmental policy
networks, a practitioner, translator and teacher of the "Yemima method" a Jewish feminine spiritual approach to well-being and a permaculture designer. Since 2021, she is the lead teacher at the Eiynaich Yonim fellowship for spiritual climate leadership. She lives with her
husband in Berkeley, CA.
Shalhevet Schwartz is a Research and Program Coordinator at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America,where she focuses on supporting the work of the Kogod Research Center, the Institute’s think tank. She spends much of her spare time studying and teaching Talmud, which includes teaching a weekly gemara shiur at Columbia University Hillel. She received her BA from Yale University, where she graduated in 2021 with a degree in philosophy, and before university spent two years studying in Beit Midrash Migdal Oz. She spent several summers working in experiential Jewish education at Camp Stone, most recently in the roles of Rosh Moshava (Head Counselor) and Rosh Beit Midrash. Next year, she will be a full-time student at Yeshivat Drisha in Kfar Etzion. In her spare time, Shalhevet enjoys hiking, playing board games, and singing Slavic folk music.
Rabbanit Myriam Ackermann-Sommer, BA, MA, was born and raised in Southern France and has been living in Paris for four years with her husband Emile. She earned a B.A. in English in 2016, majoring in English and minoring in Hebrew at the Sorbonne while completing an undergraduate degree in Humanities at the École Normale Supérieure, a selective French college. Rabbanit Myriam has had an extensive training in teaching and translation, and regularly gives talks in Jewish as well as academic contexts, starting a co-ed study group (“Ayeka”) with her husband in 2017 for Parisian students and young professionals. Her favourite subjects are gender representations and notably the challenge of egalitarianism in Orthodox Judaism, the exchange of ideas and insights between Judaism and contemporary critical theory, and Jewish ethics. A dedicated musician, Rabbanit Myriam has also earned a diploma in transverse flute in 2015 and loves to enhance the spiritual dimension of Judaism by singing her heart out in prayer groups.
Rivka Wietchner is a member of the Israeli Rabbinate Beit Midrash at the Shalom Hartman Institute. She is a fellow of the Herzog College Women’s Beit Midrash and holds an MA in Theory and Policy of Art from Bezalel Academy of Art. Originally from Har Bracha in Samaria, Israel, and nowadays lives in Jerusalem. Previously, she was part of various Beit Midrash programs and served as an OU-JLIC Co-Director and Educator at University of Chicago Hillel. Rivka has a BA from the Open University of Israel and a Kallah Teacher Certification from Nishmat. Rivka is married to David, a rabbi and doctoral student in philosophy at Bar Illan University. She is a mother of four and in her free time, she loves to read and paint.
Rivka Believes in connection between different leaders and communities and is hoping to make Torah more relevant to our postmodern culture, by bringing together cultural theories and deep Torah studying. She cares about making lifecycle events meaningful for the people around her by preparing and putting together ceremonies and experiences.
Dr. Rachel Furst is a research fellow and adjunct lecturer in Jewish history and Jewish law at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her academic scholarship focuses on Jewish law-in-practice and Jewish-Christian relations in medieval Europe, as well as on the history of women and gender. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her B.A. from Barnard College. She is also a graduate of advanced Talmud and halakhah programs at Matan, Midreshet Lindenbaum, and Beit Morasha. Dr. Furst has taught and lectured widely in high school, university, and adult education settings in the United States, Israel, and Europe. She currently lives in Munich, Germany with her husband and daughters.
Rabba Shani Gross is the Director of Programs at Pardes North America. Shani most recently served as Pardes’s Assistant Director of North American Education. Shani earned rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Maharat, is a Wexner Graduate Fellow/Davidson Scholar (Class 29), and a former Hillel Fellow for Rabbinic Entrepreneurship (OOI). Shani was the Director of the Silicon Valley Beit Midrash, a center of learning on the West Coast. Shani loves to teach on topics related to Tanakh & Midrash. When not teaching, she can usually be found with her husband Chaim, chasing after their two beautiful sons.
Avigayil Halpern is studying toward rabbinic ordination as a member of Hadar's Advanced Kollel. She has taught Torah in spaces including the Drisha Institute, Hunter Hillel and Brandeis Hillel, and the Kreuzberg Kollel (now Ze Kollel), and is trained as a Mikveh Guide through Rising Tide, the national network of community mikvaot. Avigayil holds a BA in Judaic Studies from Yale University, where she completed a senior thesis exploring Talmudic narratives of women engaged in Torah discourse and the implications of such stories for feminists committed to the study of Talmud today. She has written on issues of Judaism and gender in Jewish and other media and is currently writing a weekly dvar Torah on the parsha incorporating queer and feminist insights through her newsletter, Approaching (avigayil.substack.com).
Nomi Kaltmann is from Melbourne, Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts in Politics and Jewish Civilizations from Monash University, as well as a Master’s degree in Legal Practice from the Australian National University. Previously Nomi has worked for the Shadow Attorney General of Australia and for the Victorian Legislative Assembly. Nomi also coordinated and accompanied a Parliamentary delegation to Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Nomi is one of the founding members of the Women’s Orthodox Tefillah Group in Victoria. She is also the founder and inaugural president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) in Australia. Previously Nomi completed several fellowships, including at Hillel International’s Centre for Rabbinic Innovation and the Orthodox Leadership Program for Women (OLP). She writes regularly, with her pieces most often appearing in Tablet Magazine, where she is the Australian correspondent and Plus61J, where she has a monthly piece.
Morah Deborah Klapper is an innovative and progressive educator specializing in big picture understandings of Tanach narratives and literacy-based Torah education. After many years as a classroom teacher and school administrator, Morah Klapper is now a full-time tutor, teaching adults and children to read and understand the texts of our tradition independently, so they can form their own relationships with Hashem and truly inherit their heritage. She holds a Bachelor's degree from Harvard College and certificate from the Drisha Scholars' Circle. She lives and works in Sharon, Ma.
Rina Krautwirth attended Barnard College, where she majored in Biology. She is a graduate of the Drisha Scholar’s Circle, where she studied for three years. She also holds a Master’s degree in Modern Jewish History from YU and an MLIS from Queens College. Rina has served on the young leadership board of the New York chapter of the Israel Cancer Research Fund, where she helped to organize fundraising events. She also has interned at the American Museum of Natural History, including at its butterfly exhibit. She is interested in the intersection between science and Judaism and has written articles and spoken on the topic. Additionally, she has authored an article for Researchers Remember, an anthology of writings by children of Holocaust survivors.
Dr. Tamar Marvin is a scholar, writer, and educator currently based in Los Angeles. She holds a Ph.D. in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary, a B.A. in Literature and Journalism from New York University, and is currently a student in the semicha program at Yeshivat Maharat. She has taught in a number of university and Jewish settings, including American Jewish University, Hebrew Union College, and the Wexner Heritage Foundation, and published her work in academic and broader media. Tamar is particularly interested in the theory and codification of halakhah, the transmission of texts and traditions, and Jewish theology. She is passionate about creating access to foundational Jewish texts in their full complexity for all who wish to approach them. She believes that magic happens when people encounter Jewish text—that this process is transformative and generative both for them and for Judaism.
Trobairitz Dana Pulver is a cultural art and social entrepreneur, exploring new formats and genres in approaching Jewish literature. She is the creator of a musical interpretive project Talmudic Ballads, which brings a surprising match between Talmudic stories and European folk music. Another new genre of her foundation: Midrashirt or T-Midrash, on dresstelling.com. In this initiative Dana creates clothes that tell a story, via a dialogue between Jewish heritage and pop culture. A few years back Dana appeared on RTVi, an international Russian language television network broadcast all over the world discussing the weekly Torah portion. She also commented on Jewish texts for Israeli press like Maariv online, Makor Rishon and Eretz Acheret, and contributed to Dirshuni – a compendium of women’s midrashim. She holds an MA from the HU in cognitive sciences and an MSc in molecular biology from Ariel University. She was born in Kiev, Ukraine, made aliya to Israel, and today lives in Maale Shomron with her family.
Rabbanit Chani Ravhon Klein is a scholar, educator, and perpetual student. Chani studied in both Migdal Oz and Midreshet Lindenbaum and graduated from the Susi Bradfield Women's Institute of Halachic Leadership at Midreshet Lindenbaum (WIHL). Currently, a participant of the RIKMA Beit Midrash for Rabbinic Leadership alongside studying couples and family therapy. Chani loves teaching Torah and interacting with people. Her real joy comes from the space where the two connect. This reflects upon her writing where she shares a relatable interpretation of the parsha. She is also a certified life coach who guides others on the journey to find their unique voices and answers within. Lives in Maale Adumim and teaches groups and individuals around Israel.
Tikva Blaukopf Schein lives in Jerusalem, where she periodically runs Torah-poetry slams, learns, and teaches (although she sees all her teaching as learning). She is finishing up her doctoral research at Bar-Ilan University on the threatening nature of laughter in Ancient Jewish and Classical literature. Her first and second degrees are from Oxford University in Classics and Oriental Studies. Tikva was involved in fostering Jewish learning globally via Limmud for many years and she is a teacher by profession. She is looking forward to developing her learning through cultivating a strong writing (and sharing) practice, together with the gem of this community that the Fellowship coheres.
Rabbanit Alissa Thomas-Newborn is a Board Certified Chaplain through Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains (NAJC) and a trailblazer in Orthodox Jewish female spiritual leadership. From 2014 to 2022, Rabbanit Alissa served as a spiritual leader at B'nai David-Judea Congregation, as the first Orthodox female clergy in Los Angeles. She received her ordination from Yeshivat Maharat and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brandeis University with a degree in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Classical Studies Archaeology and Ancient History. Rabbanit Alissa is a prolific writer and speaker, with specialties in end of life care, palliative care, and psychiatric care. She is the current President-Elect of NAJC, and in 2017 she was chosen as one of the Forward50, the Forward's annual list of the 50 most influential, accomplished, and interesting American Jews. Starting in May 2022, she is thrilled to join the Pastoral Care Department at New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Rabbanit Alissa is married to Akiva Newborn, and they have a wonderful toddler named Ella.
Dalia Wolfson is a graduate student in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. A gap-year alum of Nishmat, Dalia received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania, and her MPhil in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge University. She currently serves as the editor of Texts & Translations at In Geveb, and is working on translating the short prose of Yente Serdatzky with the support of the 2021-2022 Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellowship. She has previously taught Yiddish at the Boston Workers Circle and the Yiddish Book Center. Dalia lives in Boston, where she enjoys organizing events as a resident of Moishe House Somerville.