MEET

Jaz Twersky

Jaz Twersky is a Jewish educator and rabbinical student who loves text study, crafts, and making our tradition accessible. Jaz has studied with and been influenced by Svara, Drisha, Hebrew College, and Pardes, and frequently studies Talmud with the question, “how can this apply to our day-to-day life, to help us grapple with hard life questions and grow meaningfully?” Their perspective has also been informed by the activist and abolitionist circles they’ve been part of, and the hope that we’re all imperfectly striving towards a shared project of a better world.

Jaz has a background in Jewish children’s education, and designed curricula on the cycle of holidays throughout the year, important moments in a Jewish life cycle, and interfaith families, among other things. They’re interested in helping people find their way in the tradition in ways that resonate for them, get oriented, and figure out how to answer questions that matter to them.

Jaz also co-hosted a podcast, Kosher Queers, for two years, going through the weekly cycle of Torah and haftarah readings. There, they explored different lenses to use for our texts, including humor and queerness and the ways to read ourselves into the text as core elements. They’re always down to talk about queerness and Judaism or gender and Judaism, or just hold some queer-normative space as we talk about everything else, including potentially wrestling with some of the very challenging elements that arise in our foundational texts.

Jaz can often be found with string in their hands, knitting, embroidering, making twine, crocheting, or else taking notes filled with little cartoons to better understand the point visually. They strongly believe in creative pursuits as a way of expressing things that are important, including Jewish things, and the two often overlap or are intertwined. They know that learning through study and learning through concrete action can both be powerful ways of internalizing something, and are excited to talk through how each person learns best and how that might inform time with JLC.

Jaz fundamentally believes that Judaism and being a person is a group endeavor in which we need each other. We will each make mistakes and have to do better, but we ultimately thrive in connection, which is why they’re so looking forward to learning with you.