JTS Alumni and Students Named to Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” List for 2017

Press Contact: Tom Hopkins
Office: (212) 678-8950
Email:publicity@jtsa.edu


May 25, 2017, New York, NY

The Jewish Week’s tenth annual “36 Under 36” list of rising Jewish innovators features one current student, one future student, and two recent alums from JTS:

Kendell Pinkney is a founder and associate producer of Kaleidoscope Jews, a troupe of storytellers who relate the experiences of Jews from various non-Ashkenazic, non-white backgrounds. Pinkney, who holds a BA in Jewish studies from Oberlin College, is a graduate of New York University’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, a former member of the Union for Reform Judaism’s Youth Professionals Community of Practice, and a past fellow at the LABA Laboratory for Jewish Culture. A Brooklyn-based Hebrew school teacher, tutor, and youth group leader, Kendell will enter JTS’s Rabbinical School this fall. 

Lauren Tuchman is a current rabbinical student at JTS. She is the rabbinic intern at T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. She has written and taught widely on the intersection of Judaism and disability justice, including the Summer Institute On Theology and Disability, the National Havurah Committee, and JTS, and has served as a scholar in residence at synagogues and other Jewish organizations around the country. She has been published in the Journal of Interreligious Studies, State of Formation, Jewschool, RitualWell, and Hayidion: The Ravsak journal for dayschool educators. Lauren holds a BA in religion and Judaic studies from Dickinson College and an MA in Judaic studies from JTS.

Yehudah Webster is a recent graduate of List College’s Joint Program with Columbia University and current Slifka Program Coordinator at JTS. His upbringing as one of the only black Jews in the Conservative synagogue his family attended informs his current work advocating for racial inclusion and equality in the Jewish community. Yehudah also serves as a consultant for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, founder and director of the B’nai Mitzvah Campaign, and a resident of Moishe House in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, where he helps run community events that raise awareness about race and equality.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Moffet is a recent graduate of JTS, ordained in May at Park Avenue Synagogue. He is working to create the first egalitarian Sephardi siddur. Incorporating Sephardi traditions, modern liturgy, poetry, and calligraphic illustrations, Siddur Masorti will be a complete Hebrew-English weekday prayer book, using gender-neutral English and gender-inclusive Hebrew, bridging tradition and modernity. He holds a BA from Hamline University and an MA in Jewish thought from JTS. Having recently served as the student rabbi at Oceanside Jewish Center in Oceanside, New York, Adam will be the rabbi of St Albans Masorti Synagogue in St Albans, United Kingdom, beginning this summer.

Read the full article in Jewish Week.