Or Shalom honours Rabbis who have professionally served Or Shalom and continue to be part of Jewish Renewal and the Or Shalom community.

Rabbi Daniel Siegel, Rabbi Emeritus

הרב דניאל ישראל זרח בן דוד איסר הלוי והדסה

Rabbi Daniel served as the co-founding rabbi of Or Shalom together with Rabbi Hanna Tiferet from 1978-1987. As a certified mediator, Rabbi Daniel co-founded a successful mediation program at Dartmouth College, where he was Jewish Chaplain and rabbi for the Upper Valley Jewish Community from 1987-97 as well guiding the development and construction of the Center for Jewish Life at Dartmouth, the acquisition of a Jewish cemetery, and religious leadership for the local Muslim community.
Rabbi Daniel then became the Rabbinic Director of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal and, later, its Director of Spiritual Resources. In that capacity, he founded the ALEPH Bet Midrash which, under the new umbrella of the Integral Halachah Institute (IHI), edits Reb Zalman’s teachings, produces Siddur Kol Koreh, and develops resources based on Reb Zalman’s concept of Integral Halachah, many of which are shared on his occasional blog.
He is the founder of ALEPH Canada and continues as its Rabbinic Director. ALEPH Canada is now the home of two major ALEPH projects, the IHI and Sacred Foods.
He was a founding member of the governing va’ad of the ALEPH Ordination Program, the chair of its rabbinic texts department, and teacher of halachic process to senior rabbinical students.
Reb Daniel was the first person to receive semicha from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. He has a BA from Rutgers University and an MA from Temple University. He trained and received a certificate in Conflict Resolution from the Justice Institute of British Columbia.
Reb Daniel is the father of three wonderful young men and now grandfather of Eden Genie and Avna Shulamit. He lives on Hornby Island, where he tends a garden, takes walks along the Pacific shore, serves as the vice-president of the Hornby Island Residents and Ratepayers Association, and continues to write and teach.

Link: https://www.alephcanada.ca/reb-daniel-biography

Contact Info: hornbyrav@gmail.com

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Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel, Rabbi Emerita

הרב חנה תפארת בת יעקב ישראל ורבקה ביילע

Rabbi Hanna co-founded Congregation Or Shalom in Vancouver, British Columbia from 1978-1987 with her husband, Rabbi Daniel Siegel. They helped to revitalize the Upper Valley Jewish Community in Hanover, NH from 1987-1997 and then served as co-spiritual leaders for Congregation B’nai Or of Boston, MA from 1999-2006.

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Rabbi Hillel Goelman, Rabbi Emeritus

הרב יאיר הלל גואלמן

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Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, Rabbi Emerita

הרב לאה ברוריה קפלן בת ברוך הלוי ורבקה

Rabbi Laura’s Home Page

Rabbi Hannah Dresner, Rabbi Emerita

photo courtesy: Anita Laura Fonseca

Rabbi Hannah Dresner, Rabbi Emerita

Rabbi Hannah Dresner received rabbinic ordination from ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal in 2014, and further ordinations in spiritual direction, and as a Dayan, a thinker on Jewish law from a Jewish Renewal perspective. She entered the rabbinate with an MFA in Fine Art and an initial career as a working artist and curator, teaching visual and performative arts to graduate and undergraduate students in university.

Rabbi Hannah believes that what enlivens religious community is our sense of its relevance to the challenges we are presently living and that a synagogue community attains its fullest resonance when its programs answer expressed needs – whether to satisfy intellectual curiosity, respond to the injustices of our time, experiment in a modality of opening to the divine, need for social connection, or support in aspects of personal and family life. 

As Or Shalom’s Spiritual Leader, Rabbi Hannah worked to deepen relationships between members of the synagogue by conceiving the Or Shalom Dialogue Project. Rabbi Hannah was determined that, with scrupulous boundaries and with an investment in dialogue practice, our community would be able to discuss just about anything, even sensitive issues that might arise.

She broadened the pool of our lay ritual leadership and expanded our modes of prayer to include regular meditation and practice of niggun. She increased programing in numerous arenas, particularly in the arts, inspiring Our Lights in Winter concert series and Koreh: Writers in the Sanctuary. Rabbi Hannah led and co-led numerous art bet midrash programs, including writing workshop and visual studio investigations. 

Rabbi Hannah worked hard to roll Or Shalom over to a new, younger generation and, to accommodate the next phase of Or Shalom’s blossoming, set in motion a major renovation of the Bayit. 

Rabbi Hannah took pride in partnering with many members of the Or Shalom community who joined her in visioning and enacting these endeavors.

In the greater Jewish community, Rabbi Hannah served on interfaith panels, and was the first woman and the first Renewal rabbi to chair the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver. She also initiated collaboration of the liberal rabbis of Greater Vancouver to join together in teaching a cross-denominational Tikkun Lel Shavuot.

During Rabbi Hannah’s tenure, Or Shalom newly challenged itself to consider what constituencies continue to be marginalized by the synagogue’s culture and how to remediate such problems. She was pointed in inviting Queer role models of scholarship and rabbinical arts to Or Shalom. The most tangible outcome of these efforts was Or Shalom’s 2024 ratification of any person born of one Jewish parent as authentically Jewish in the eyes of our synagogue.

After 9 years of service, Rabbi Hannah retired in the Fall of 2024 and has moved to San Francisco’s East Bay with her husband Ross Andelman, fondly known as Rebbitz Ross. Rabbi Hannah continues to mentor younger rabbis through Adamah’s Clergy Leadership Incubator. Her writing is archived at My Jewish Learning and on the Or Shalom website. Rabbi Hannah remains committed to the Or Shalom community, returning ,occasionally, to join in leadership, to teach, and to enjoy being a Jew-in-the-pew.

In the words of Rabbi Hannah Dresner