MEET

Rabbi Xava De Cordova

Rabbi Xava De Cordova is a disabled, Sefradi, Mizraxi trans woman and co-host of the world's first Queer Talmud podcast, "Xai, how are you?". She is a long-time SVARA-style Talmud learner and SVARA teaching kollel fellow who got her start as a teacher by creating Beit Midrash Behind Bars, an organization that facilitated Jewish learning opportunities for incarcerated people in Washington State. She is also the co-founder of Shel Maala, an online-first queer yeshiva , which she co-founded SVARA fellow with Binya Koatz. She lives in Providence, RI, where she regularly produces Jewish ritual theater (or did, before the pandemic) , studies for private ordination, and does her best to steward the radical tradition she's been blessed to inherit.