Rachel Barenblat, the "Velveteen Rabbi," is an American poet and rabbi. She was ordained as a
rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
in 2011. In 2013 she was named a
Rabbis Without Borders fellow by
Clal The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL) is a leadership training institute, think tank, and resource center. It is an inter-disciplinary and inter-denominational movement, in which rabbis from all major Jewish denominations in ...
, the Center for Learning and Leadership, and in 2015 was named co-chair of
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal along with Rabbi
David Markus.
In 2016, ''
The Forward
''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ...
'' named her one of America's most inspiring rabbis.
Background
Born in
San Antonio, Texas
("Cradle of Freedom")
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in 1975 to Marvin and Liana Barenblat, Rachel moved to New England in 1992 to attend
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...
in
Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown is a town in the northern part of Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, United States. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolit ...
.
She holds a BA in religion from Williams and a Masters of Fine Arts in writing and literature from the
Bennington Writing Seminars,
as well as rabbinic ordination from ALEPH: the Alliance for
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Renewal () is a recent movement in Judaism which endeavors to reinvigorate modern Judaism with Kabbalistic, Hasidic, and musical practices. Specifically, it seeks to reintroduce the "ancient Judaic traditions of mysticism and meditation, ...
and a secondary ordination as a
mashpi'ah, also from ALEPH.
Work
In 2000 Barenblat co-founded Inkberry,
a literary arts
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
organization, with Sandy Ryan and Emily Banner. From 1999-2002 she was a contributing editor at ''Pif Magazine'' and for several years in the early 2000s served as contributing editor at ''Zeek'' magazine, a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
journal of thought and culture. Her book ''Massachusetts: The Bay State'' was published in 2002 by World Almanac Library,
along with books about Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington and Texas. From 2009-2011, she served on the board of directors of the
Organization for Transformative Works
The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit, fan activist organization. Its mission is to serve fans by preserving and encouraging transformative fan activity, known as " fanwork", and by making fanwork widely accessible.
OT ...
. Beginning in 2014 she served on the board of directors of
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, which she co-chaired from 2015-2017. In 2018 she co-founded Bayit: Building Jewish.
Barenblat is author of several book-length collections of poetry, including ''70 faces: Torah poems'' (Phoenicia Publishing, 2011), ''Waiting to Unfold'' (Phoenicia, 2013), and ''Texts to the Holy'' (Ben Yehuda Press, 2018), as well as a variety of liturgical works, most notably her haggadah for Pesach and a volume for mourners called ''Beside Still Waters'' co-published by Ben Yehuda Press and Bayit: Building Jewish in 2019.
Her first full-length collection of poems, ''70 Faces''—a collection of poems which arise out of a full year's cycle of weekly
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
portions—was published by Montreal-based
Phoenicia Publishing in 2011.
''70 faces'' received critical praise:
:"These poems are so out there, so radical, and at the same time so gentle and inviting. Barenblat manages to do work that has passion and truth behind it, without ranting. I love the simple and confident way she deals with the akedah -- and I love the final poem in this collection -- gliding right past heartbreak into renewal, which is what her poems all seem to do." --
Alicia Ostriker
Alicia Suskin Ostriker (born November 11, 1937) is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry.Powell C.S. (1994) ''Profile: Jeremiah and Alicia Ostriker – A Marriage of Science and Art'', Scientific American 271(3), 28-3 ...
: "Rachel Barenblat's Torah poems open the doorway into sacred text so that we can walk in and make it our home. She invites us to bring all of our passion, doubt, humor, humility and chutzpah as we encounter these ancient words and bring them to Life. Through Rachel's skillful, joyful, playful and profound poetry, the Torah opens her secrets to us and invites us into an intimate conversation with Truth." -- Rabbi
Shefa Gold
Shefa Gold (born 1954 or 1955) is an American rabbi, scholar, and director of C-DEEP, The Center for Devotional, Energy and Ecstatic Practice in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. Gold is a teacher of chant, Jewish mysticism, Jewish prayer and spirituali ...
and has received generally positive reviews:
:"
he poems in 70 Facestake time to think about daily things -- a bottle of milk, talismans on a desk -- and ongoing things -- the names of animals, the urge to make -- and lifelong things -- a baby born in danger, a difficult reunion at a funeral. // They chronicle the round of the year and the quiet, continual effort to walk forward, to think about work and family and the light on the ridge lines."
:"Reb Rachel engages head-on with a question that nags — what is the downside to this whole taking over Canaan business? There is nothing heavy-handed or polemical here. She could be talking about the ancient Israelites, the modern Israelites, or any of us caught in the situation of getting the better of someone else. In my humble, really good poetry tackles big questions in such a way as to leave the reader with more questions, shaking our collective heads heads in wonder. The good stuff – and here I'm quoting another poem from the book - builds a structure to house what you long for."
although the ''Forward'' reviewer argued that the book's fatal flaw is "its failure to live up to the claims the author makes for it."
Her second book of poetry,
Waiting to Unfold, was also published by Phoenicia (2013):
:Poet and rabbi Rachel Barenblat wrote one poem during each week of her son's first year of life, chronicling the wonder and the delight along with the pain of learning to nurse, the exhaustion of sleep deprivation, and the dark descent into -- and eventual ascent out of -- postpartum depression.
:This book is two cycles, one of pregnancy, and one of the first year after her child's birth. The poems have that same "Oh! I'd forgotten about how beautiful/hard/sad/quiet/fierce that was" quality that all true stories about the first year of parenthood do, and made me laugh and tear up a little and feel nostalgic and sad for new mothers everywhere.
Barenblat is also author of several poetry
chapbooks
A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch.
In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered booklet ...
, among them ''the skies here'' (
Pecan Grove Press, 1995), ''What Stays'' (Bennington Writing Seminars Alumni Chapbook Series, 2002), ''chaplainbook'' (Laupe House Press, 2006),
and the self-published ''Through'', a collection of
miscarriage poems (2009.)
From 2005 to 2010, Barenblat was a student in the ALEPH rabbinic program;
she was ordained a rabbi in early 2011. She started a blog, ''Velveteen Rabbi'', in 2003,
and in the spring of 2008, it was named one of the top 25 blogs in Time.com's First Annual Blog Index.
She has guest-blogged at Jewess, Kesher Talk, Sojourner, and the Best American Poetry Blog, and she spent a year writing weekly
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
commentaries for
Radical Torah. Her poetry appears in
The Heart of All That Is: Reflections on Home (
Holy Cow! Press, 2013),
Before There Is Nowhere to Stand (Lost Horse Press, 2012), and
The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry (Bloomsbury, 2013), among others.
With
Thurman Hart, Barenblat co-founded the first Progressive Faith Blog Con, a gathering for bloggers of progressive faith which took place in
Montclair, New Jersey
Montclair () is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated on the cliffs of the Watchung Mountains, Montclair is a wealthy and diverse commuter town and suburb of New York City within the New York metropolitan area. ...
in 2006.
Her ''Velveteen Rabbi's Haggadah for
Pesach
Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the The Exodus, Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, or ...
'', a free and open-source
haggadah
The Haggadah ( he, הַגָּדָה, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each J ...
which combines traditional texts with poetry and creative interpretations,
is used worldwide.
Personal life
Barenblat lives in
Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown is a town in the northern part of Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, United States. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolit ...
. She married
Ethan Zuckerman
Ethan Zuckerman (born 1973) is an American media scholar, blogger, and Internet activist. He was the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, and Associate Professor of the Practice in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT until May 2020, and the a ...
in 1998,
and they have one son.
They divorced in 2016.
Since 2011 she has served as the rabbi for
Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams, MA.
She has also served as interim Jewish chaplain to
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...
.
References
External links
*
Velveteen RabbiAmerica's Most Inspiring Rabbis 2016by Haley Codron. ''Orlando Sentinel'', May 9, 2017.
*Rachel Barenblat
“Is Ranting Against Globalism Anti Semitic?”''Forward'', October 24, 2018.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barenblat
Writers from San Antonio
1975 births
Williams College alumni
Poets from Texas
American women bloggers
American bloggers
Living people
Jewish bloggers
Jewish American writers
People from Berkshire County, Massachusetts
Women rabbis
American women poets
21st-century American poets
21st-century American women writers
American Jewish Renewal rabbis
Mashpi'im
21st-century American rabbis