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 Hannah Dresner, Rabbi Emerita
Senior Or Shalom Rabbi Hannah Dresner received rabbinic ordination and ordination in spiritual direction from ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal. She comes to the rabbinate with experience as an educator, piloting curricula in the arts at Northwestern University and creating participatory programs for the Spertus Museum of Judaica in Chicago.
Rabbi Hannah is a regular contributor to Rabbis Without Borders, and My Jewish Learning, where you can find more of her writings. Read further writings and reflections in the From the Rabbi section of our website.
A founding member of Chicago’s post denominational minyan, Lomdim, and of Or Zarua, the Reconstructionist Chavurah of the East Bay, Rabbi Hannah has facilitated large-scale High holiday services for Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley where she co-leads a niggun and meditation group. She serves Reform congregation B’nei Torah in Brentwood, CA as visiting rabbi, and travels extensively to teach chassidic texts, the art of prayer and niggun as spiritual practice. Last August she served as a featured prayer leader and speaker at the shabbaton commemorating Reb Zalman in Boulder. Rabbi Hannah is a member of the four person Jewish Renewal Bet Din, has completed a CLAL (The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership) student fellowship, and has been selected as a new blogger for Rabbis Without Borders.
Rabbi Hannah is delighted to be Or Shalom’s new rabbi and is very much looking forward to the exciting possibilities the future holds. She believes that what enlivens religious community is our sense of its relevance to the questions we are presently living. A synagogue community attains its fullest resonance when its every program answers to an expressed or perceived need, whether that need is to satisfy an intellectual curiosity, experiment in a modality of opening to the divine, a need for social connection or support in aspects of family life, whether it is a need in the realm of social justice, to mark comings of age, to lament or bear witness or be witnessed, a need of help in cultivating gratitude or restraint or courage, or in holding one of the myriad dualities of life, and on.
Rabbi Hannah embraces the spectrum of Jewish truths and is committed to offering the broadest possible platform upon which to build the works of art that are our lives. She supports a wide range of ways in which to experience Judaism so that our religious lives truly address our human needs, and so that we flourish. As Or Shalom’s rabbi she will foster inclusive community embracing those coming to the tradition for the first time, educated Jews and those once estranged, blended families of every flavour, individuals of all capacities, all ethnic, racial and gender pluralities. She looks forward to her relationships with congregations of all ages, each of us seen and ministered to, given voice, offered enrichment, partnered with appropriate sub-communal affinity groups and pastorally companioned.
Rabbi Hannah has become a Rabbi Emerita with her retirement in November 2024 after 9 years of service to Or Shalom
In the words of Rabbi Hannah Dresner
Hello there,
I was at Or Shalom this past Shabbat (Feb. 4th).
Inspired by my visit, I dedicated The Anthology of Jewish Music’s last radio broadcast (Feb. 7th) to all the folks and the work they do at Or Shalom. The songs on I chose for this broadcast, hopefully reflect something of the positive experience I had at your synagogue. (Sorry I had to leave at the start of the d’rash.
If you (or others) would like to give it a listen -hope you do-! here’s a the link: http://www.coopradio.org/station/archives/72
Shalom,
Marcus
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