Raysh Weiss

Raysh Weiss (born 1984) is the Rabbi of Beth El of Bucks County.[1][2] From 2016 to 2019, Weiss served as the spiritual leader of Shaar Shalom Synagogue in Halifax, Nova Scotia[3][4] as well as the Jewish chaplain at Dalhousie University and University of King's College.[5] Weiss is also the founder and director of YentaNet[6][7] and is a social activist;[8] a musician; and a published author on popular and academic subjects for such media as Tablet Magazine,[9][10] JewSchool, Zeramim: An Online Journal of Applied Jewish Studies,[11] and My Jewish Learning.[12][13] Weiss is an alumna of both the Bronfman Fellowship (2001)[14] and the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program (class 25).[15] She has served on the national boards of both T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights and the National Havurah Committee.[16]

In 2012, Weiss, who wrote her doctoral dissertation about Yiddish musical cinema of the early 20th century,[17] 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.[18]

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.[19]

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![20] for whom she produced the album Party Like it's 1899 (2004), hosted and produced Continental Drift,[21] 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.[22]

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),[23] 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.[24] During her time in Nova Scotia, Weiss was one of only two women serving as full-time senior rabbis of Conservative synagogues in Canada[25] and was a regular contributor to the "Rabbi to Rabbi" column in The Canadian Jewish News.[26][27][28] In 2015, Weiss was named by The Forward as one of the paper's "36 Under 36."[29]

Weiss is a descendant of Rabbi David Altschuler, the 17th–18th Century author of the Biblical commentaries, the Metzudat David and the Metzudat Tzion.[30]

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