Earth-Based Judaism Faculty
Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone
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Rabbi Zelig Golden
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Rabbi Zelig Golden is the Executive Director of Wilderness Torah. He received rabbinic ordination from ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, supported by the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, and was previously ordained Maggid by Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi z”l. Rabbi Zelig holds a Masters in Jewish Studies from the Graduate Theological Union. He previously worked as an environmental lawyer protecting food and farms and has long guided groups into the wilderness. Zelig lives in Occidental, CA, with his wife, Rachel, and his kids, Emma, Ilana, and Ezra.
Rabbi Jill Hammer
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Rabbi Hammer is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion and also the co-founder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, a program in spiritual leadership for Jewish women. As a leader of the Kohenet Institute, she creates and teaches earth-based, embodied ritual and study that transforms Jewish conceptions of prayer and ceremony. Rabbi Hammer’s publications include poetry, stories, five books, and numerous academic articles. She leads guided meditation and lifecycle rituals that combine sacred text and tradition with creative, poetic exploration. Rabbi Hammer received her B.A. from Brandeis University, her doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut, and her rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. She lives in Manhattan with her wife Shoshana Jedwab and their daughter.
Rabbi Natan Margalit
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Rabbi Natan Margalit, Ph.D., is Department Chair of Rabbinic Text and member of the AOP Academic VAAD. Rabbi Margalit was raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. He received rabbinic ordination at The Jerusalem Seminary in 1990 and earned a Ph.D. in Talmud from U.C. Berkeley in 2001. He has taught at Bard College, the Reconstuctionist Rabbinical College and the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. Natan is Rabbi of The Greater Washington Coalition for Jewish Life, in Connecticut. He is Founder and President of Organic Torah Institute, a non-profit organization that fosters holistic thinking about Judaism, environment and society. (www.organictorah.org). He lives in Newton, MA with his wife Ilana and their two sons.
Rabbi David Seidenberg
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Rabbi David Seidenberg is the creator of neohasid.org and the author of Kabbalah and Ecology: God’s Image in the More-Than-Human World. One of the foremost scholars in the world on Jewish ecotheology, David teaches on ecology, animal rights, the Torah of dance, astronomy, and Chasidic song, and leads rituals adapted from the “work that reconnects” and the ecospirituality movement. David has smicha from both the Jewish Theological Seminary and from Reb Zalman.
