ALI Scholars

Matt Austerklein is a musician, scholar, and innovator in the American cantorate. After graduating summa cum laude from the College of William & Mary in Virginia, he pursued a Master of Sacred Music and cantorial ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Matt has served pulpits in Maryland, Ohio, Upstate NY and Florida. He and his family now live in Plano, Texas where Matt is the Hazzan of Congregation Anshei Torah. Matt will receive his PhD in Jewish Musicology from Halle-Wittenberg University in Germany in summer of 2026

Rabbi and Kohenet Sarah Bracha Gershuny is a writer, ritualist, musician, healer and teacher. Together with her creative co-facilitator Yoel Sykes she hosts Boulder-based independent gatherings for musical prayer, authentic movement and transformative spiritual practice.

Additionally, Rabbi Gershuny (aka the JewCPriestess) works with individuals and families to provide one-on-one spiritual counseling, pastoral support, and personal tutoring for adults. A gifted creator and facilitator of ritual, she can work with you to craft and facilitate the life-cycle ceremony you need at this moment in your life. Examples of these ceremonies include weddings, baby namings, home-blessings, funeral and memorial gatherings; as well as rituals with less traditional precedent, like those marking divorce, menopause, pregnancy loss, name changes, becoming an ’empty nester’, or gender transition.

Rabbi Gershuny has received two ordinations: one as a Rabbi from Boston’s transdenominational Hebrew College Rabbinical School; the other as a Kohenet from the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, a contemporary wisdom school devoted to female expressions of Jewish leadership. She is on a mission to transform human consciousness through direct spiritual transmission and fierce joy. 

Rabbi Rachel Shere received Rabbinic ordination from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at AJU in 2004. After serving full-time in the pulpit for 16 years, she joined the Detroit-based Jewish Hospice and Chaplaincy Network Team serving families as a spiritual resource and developing the agency’s grief counseling initiatives.

Melanie Gruenwald is the Executive Director of Kabbalah Experience, a Denver-based inclusive learning forum rooted in Jewish mysticism with branches in contemporary thought and modern sensibility. A compassionate educator, facilitator, and community builder, Melanie weaves the wisdom of Kabbalistic teachings with contemporary life, helping people find meaning, connection, and light in all stages of personal and spiritual transformation.

Shachar Gal is the founder and lead guide of Hands on Israel. With over a decade of experience as a licensed Israeli tour guide, he specializes in designing meaningful, customized journeys for travelers of all ages. While he enjoys working with diverse groups, he has a particular passion for guiding families and creating experiences that engage every generation. Guided by his belief that “like a fingerprint, no two trips are alike,” Shachar approaches each itinerary with creativity, flexibility, and personal attention.

He is licensed by Israel’s Ministry of Tourism and certified as an education guide by the Ministry of Education. Shachar holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Haifa and previously served as an Israeli emissary for Shorashim, a Chicago-based Israel education organization. At the heart of his work is a deep commitment to connection — to people, to place, and to family. He is a devoted husband and proud father of two spirited daughters who continually inspire his perspective and passion for sharing Israel with others.

Julia Lupton is the author or co-author of five books on Shakespeare, including Citizen-Saints, Thinking with Shakespeare, and Shakespeare Dwelling. A Guggenheim and ACLS Fellow, she has taught at UC Irvine since 1989 and received the 2024 Daniel Aldrich Distinguished Faculty Service Award. Her current project, Shakespeare’s Virtues, explores capacities such as hope, courage, trust, and respect in Shakespeare’s plays.

She has served as Interim Director of the UC Humanities Research Institute and co-directs the UCI Shakespeare Center, where she organizes seminars and public programs for the New Swan Shakespeare Festival. She also founded Illuminations: The Chancellor’s Arts and Culture Initiative, expanding arts programming for thousands on campus and in the community. Lupton is co-author, with designer Ellen Lupton, of DIY Kids and Design Your Life. She holds a PhD from Yale and has been a scholar in residence at institutions including Harvard, Cornell, and the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Rabbi Mike Moshe Mymon received his rabbinic ordination from JSLI in 2021 and presently is the rabbi of Congregation Sholom, a Conservative congregation in Seal Beach, California.  In addition to the rabbinic duties of the congregation, Rabbi Mymon helps officiate life cycle events for the Jewish Community in Orange County, California.

Born in Israel, Rabbi Mymon came to the U.S. to study aerospace engineering following his military service with the Israel Defense Forces’ paratroopers.   Upon completing his education and becoming a U.S. citizen, Rabbi Mymon began his involvement with the aerospace industry, including the science, design, and manufacturing of aerospace products for the U.S. armed forces, intelligence agencies, NATO, and other U.S. allies.

After a life-long involvement in the different facets of synagogue life, including, but not limited to, teaching, various board positions, and covering for the rabbis when they went on vacations, Rabbi Mymon decided to rekindle an old passion of becoming a rabbi.

Rabbi Mymon and his wife Shelly reside in Orange County, California.  They are the parents of Morgan, Austin, Natalie, and Brian.

Hartley Lachter, Professor of Religion, Culture, and Society, holds the Philip and Muriel Berman Chair in Jewish Studies. His scholarship focuses on medieval Kabbalah, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between Jewish historical experiences and the development of kabbalistic discourses. His work explores how medieval Jewish-Christian debates, as well as disruptive moments of violence and forced conversion, shape Jewish mystical literature and serve as a form of cultural resistance for some pre-modern Jews. He is the author of, Kabbalistic Revolution: Reimagining Judaism in Medieval Spain, published by Rutgers University Press, and Kabbalah and Catastrophe: Historical Memory in Premodern Jewish Mysticism, forthcoming with Stanford University Press in October, 2024. Hartley Lachter’s teaching interests include Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah, the history of antisemitism, introduction to Judaism, Jewish bioethics, Jewish messianism, and explorations of contemporary religious extremism and violence. In both his work and his teaching, Dr. Lachter invites his readers and students to consider how religious identities are negotiated through the production of public discourses that shape,and are shaped by, the interactions across identity boundaries. 

Rabbi Micah Becker-Klein serves as rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Bennington, Vt. He is an original member of Shabbat Unplugged, has solo recordings Walking Humbly (2003), Kosherdawg (2016), and was part of the JRF Passover recording A Night of Questions (2001). Micah acted as assistant editor for the High Holy Day Prayerbook published by the Reconstructionist Press and serves on the Camp Havaya (formerly Camp JRF) board. He is on the faculty at the University of Delaware, formerly taught at Keene State College and the Keene State Holocaust Education Center, and served as Director of Jewish Life and Education at the Springfield Jewish Community Center in Springfield, MA. Micah is also an expert in the field of kosher food as a mashgi’akh, and a specialist in micro-shekhitah. He is married to Rachel and is father to Sophie and Reuben.

Bex Rosenblatt is the North American Faculty-in-Residence for The Conservative Yeshiva, and is available to teach at your congregation, university, or group of learners. At The Conservative Yeshiva, Bex has taught Tanakh to rabbis, rabbinical students, Jewish professionals, twenty- and thirty-something meaning-seekers, college students, and learners of all ages. Bex holds a B.A. in History and German from Williams College and is a graduate student in Hebrew Bible at Bar Ilan University. She is the recipient of numerous academic awards, including a Fulbright Grant to Austria and a Va’Tichtov Writing Fellowship. Her writing appears weekly in Torah Sparks and she has written for Mosaic Magazine and Washington Jewish Week. In her free time, Bex writes poetry and does improv.  Bex meets her students where they’re at, bringing them into her love for the Tanakh, and enabling them to marry their own passions to our traditions. She teaches courses and one-off classes covering any book or theme in the Tanakh, such as “Human Sacrifice in Genesis” and “Searching for a Story in Song of Songs.” She also teaches bibliodrama, reading and performing the text as if the narrator were a movie director.  Additionally, Bex teaches biblical grammar through text study, taking students from knowledge of the aleph-bet to ability to read Biblical Hebrew.

Dr. Leah Hochman directs the Louchheim School for Judaic studies at the University of Southern California and serves as associate professor of Jewish Thought at Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles where she teaches classes in medieval and modern philosophy, American Judaism, modern history, and food ethics. She is the author of The Ugliness of Moses Mendelssohn: Aesthetics, Religion and Morality in the Eighteenth Century and the editor of Tastes of Faith: Jewish Eating in the United States.