Hi!

My name is Zev. As a child, home was near the mouth of the Connecticut River valley, between the glacier-carved traprock formations of East Rock and West Rock on the Long Island Sound. I am a Religion, Philosophy and the Environment major; I hope to continue to learn how older ways of existing in relationship with an emergent natural world can be at the nexus of many processes of healing, at  both personal and earth-sized scales of community. 

My conception of Judaism in childhood was largely shaped by the confluence of two similar ancestral rivers: two Jewish families fleeing Europe. But their journeys were separated by nearly 70 years, leaving me very aware that I was a melding of two different Judaisms, two different Americas, and by extension at the center of two very different dreams of the future.

Beginning this project, I was especially excited to engage with Kolot folks to learn about how their spirituality allows for a reconstruction of an ancient identity into living, breathing practices. I’m was also curious how some members engage removed from our (recent) immigrant pasts: perhaps now feeling at home in this colonized land. How does the movement for Land Back play into an evolving sense of Jewish place and belonging in America?

I can be silly too 🙂 I love playing guitar, singing to birds as I walk, climbing trees, writing poetry, finding the best smells on a hike, foraging (especially in urban landscapes) and generally bouncing around this world with dear human friends!

I deeply enjoyed bearing witness to even a small slice of Peter Kleinbard’s story.Attending services before the interview, I was surprised to notice how my ability to connect with the spirituality in the core of my body was lifted up by this community in a way I had never felt in synagogue. Interestingly, it wasn’t just that these folks also loved to sing or were dancing in their pews. Rather, it was the feeling that we were all on the same page politically: we were not only practicing together but we understood that practicing was a way of cultivating our capacities for connection to take with us into our lives. At Kolot, the profane, ordinary moments of my world seemed to glow with new sacredness— each moment is now also a space to practice connecting to my sense of Judaism. I hope to find ways to remain connected to the Kolot community!

Listen to: Zev’s Interview with Peter Kleinbard