Raysh Weiss

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RayshWeiss (born 1984) is a Co-Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel of Natick, MA. [1] Previously, Weiss served as Senior Rabbi of Beth El of Bucks County in Yardley, PA [2] [3] and as the spiritual leader of Shaar Shalom Synagogue in Halifax, Nova Scotia, [4] [5] as well as the Jewish chaplain at Dalhousie University and University of King's College. [6] Weiss is also the founder and director of YentaNet [7] [8] and is a social activist; [9] a musician; and a published author on popular and academic subjects for such media as Tablet Magazine, [10] [11] JewSchool,Zeramim: An Online Journal of Applied Jewish Studies, [12] and My Jewish Learning. [13] [14] Weiss is an alumna of both the Bronfman Fellowship (2001) [15] and the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program (class 25). [16] She has served on the national boards of both T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights and the National Havurah Committee. [17]

In 2012, Weiss, who wrote her doctoral dissertation about Yiddish musical cinema of the early 20th century, [18] earned her PhD in comparative literature and cultural studies at the University of Minnesota, where she had previously earned her MA with a minor concentration in Music Studies. During her years in Minnesota, Weiss founded and helped lead an independent Jewish community, the Uptown Havurah. [19]

A Fulbright ethnomusicology research fellow in Berlin (2006–2007), Weiss has presented at multiple conferences and written on the origins of klezmer music and its shifting cultural reception; some of Weiss' studies on this theme can be found in her chapter "Klezmer in the New Germany: History, Identity, and Memory" in Three-Way Street: Jews, Germans, and the Transnational. [20]

A visual artist and musician, Weiss, as an undergraduate student at Northwestern University (where she majored in Comparative Literary Studies, philosophy, and Radio/Television/Film) founded and led Northwestern's klezmer band WildKatz! [21] for whom she produced the album Party Like it's 1899 (2004), hosted and produced Continental Drift, [22] the daily world music show on WNUR 89.3 fm (2005–2006), served as an award-winning political cartoonist for The Daily Northwestern, and she has written on the history and cultural narratives of the illuminated haggadah. [23]

A filmmaker (director, actor and writer), Weiss directed the award-winning live-action film The King's Daughter and, while a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary (from which she was ordained in 2016), [24] Weiss co-wrote and acted in a satirical video "If Men Rabbis Were Spoken To The Way Women Rabbis Are Spoken To," which, in The Jewish Week , opened up a conversation about gender equity in the rabbinate. [25] During her time in Nova Scotia, Weiss was one of only two women serving as full-time senior rabbis of Conservative synagogues in Canada [26] and was a regular contributor to the "Rabbi to Rabbi" column in The Canadian Jewish News . [27] [28] [29] In 2015, Weiss was named by The Forward as one of the paper's "36 Under 36." [30]

Weiss is a descendant of Rabbi David Altschuler, the 17th–18th century author of the biblical commentaries, the Metzudat David and the Metzudat Tzion.[ citation needed ] [31]

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References

  1. ↑ "Rabbi Raysh Weiss | Temple Israel of Natick". 6 August 2021. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
  2. ↑ "Our Rabbi".
  3. ↑ "New Beth El leader had detours on route to rabbinate".
  4. ↑ "The Shaar: About Us: Leadership". The Shaar. 17 August 2015.
  5. ↑ Jacobson, Joel (13 September 2016). "New Faces Arrive To Lead Halifax Jewish Institutions". CJN. The Canadian Jewish News. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  6. ↑ "Allies at Dalhousie" (PDF).
  7. ↑ Nussbaum Cohen, Debra. "21st Century Yentes: Personalized Matchmaking Makes a Comeback". Haaretz. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  8. ↑ Wiener-Bronner, Danielle (29 July 2015). "This Jewish matchmaking service is the anti-JDate". Splinter. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  9. ↑ "Rally organized at Halifax's Cornwallis statue for victims of Charlottesville race riots". CTV Atlantic. CTV. 14 August 2017. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  10. ↑ Weiss, Raysh (10 September 2015). "A Centuries-Old High Holiday Prayer About How Hard It Is To Pray". The Scroll. Tablet.
  11. ↑ Weiss, Raysh (30 August 2017). "Elul is Judaism's New Year For Animals. Here's What Tradition Teaches About Our Relationship to Them". The Scroll. Tablet. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  12. ↑ Weiss, Raysh. "A League of Their Own: The Untold Story of the Women's League of Conservative Judaism" (PDF). Zeramim: An Online Journal of Applied Jewish Thought. Zeramim. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  13. ↑ Weiss, Raysh. "Himmel Signaln". My Jewish Learning. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  14. ↑ Weiss, Raysh. "Haredim (Charedim), or Ultra-Orthodox Jews". My Jewish Learning. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  15. ↑ "Past AVF Grantee Projects". bronfman.org. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  16. ↑ "Complete Roster of Wexner Graduate Fellows and Alumni – Meet Our Fellows and Alumni – Programs". wexnerfoundation.org. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  17. ↑ "Rabbi Raysh Weiss, PhD – T'ruah". truah.org. 3 November 2016. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  18. ↑ "Recent Dissertations". College of Liberal Arts | University of Minnesota. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  19. ↑ "TC Jewfolk: 50 reasons to love being Jewish in the Twin Cities". 27 November 2010.
  20. ↑ Weiss, Raysh (2016). Three-Way Street: Jews, Germans, and the Transnational. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
  21. ↑ Scott, Carol (28 January 2004). "Krazy for Klezmer (Close Up)". dailynorthwestern.com. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  22. ↑ "Raysh Weiss". IMDb. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  23. ↑ Weiss, Raysh. "Seeing the Sounds". InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visible Culture. University of Rochester. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  24. ↑ Flare Staff. "#HowIMadeIt: Raysh Weiss, Congregational Rabbi". Flare. Flare Staff. Archived from the original on 10 April 2018. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  25. ↑ Skolnik, Gerald C. "It's Not Just About Race". The Jewish Week. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  26. ↑ Sarick, Lisa (15 September 2016). "New Rabbis, New Challenges". CJN. Canadian Jewish News. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  27. ↑ Weiss, Raysh; Landsberg, Debra (15 March 2018). "Rabbi To Rabbi: Guess Who's Coming To Dinner". CJN. Canadian Jewish News. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  28. ↑ Cutler, Adam; Weiss, Raysh. "Rabbi2Rabbi: an email dialogue between Rabbi Adam Cutler and Rabbi Raysh Weiss (December 2016)". Beth Tzedec . Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  29. ↑ Landsberg, Debra; Weiss, Raysh (6 November 2017). "Embracing Joy In Turbulent Times". CJN. The Canadian Jewish News. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  30. ↑ Lipman, Steve (29 May 2015). "Building Community and Bridges; Raysh Weiss, 31". The Forward. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  31. ↑ "Altschuler, David | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
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