The T’ruah Israel Fellowship offers a select group of six students spending the academic year in Israel the opportunity for intensive study, experiential learning, development of a rabbinic voice, and cohort building. Fellows participate in monthly study sessions, special opportunities to see human rights issues on-the-ground (in addition to the regular Year-In-Israel program), and leadership training. Fellows also take leadership roles in guiding and facilitating the Year-in-Israel program for their fellow students.
- Scroll down or click to meet our current and past fellows.
- Watch a video about our Year-in-Israel program participants planting trees in a Palestinian village.
- Read an Associated Press article about our Year-in-Israel program.
- Watch Year-in-Israel program participants talk about their experiences.
- Listen to a podcast about our Year-in-Israel program.
Israel Fellows
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Amanda Weiss
Amanda Katherine Weiss is a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, expecting to graduate in 2023. Hailing from a small village in Rockland County, NY she has lived up and down the east coast for much of her life, excepting a four-year stint in Eugene, OR. A graduate of The George Washington University, Amanda majored in Judaic Studies and Psychology, holds a Graduate Certificate in Jewish Non-Profit Management from Gratz College, a Masters in Business Administration from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, and most recently, a Certificate in Jewish Education Specializing in Adolescents and Emerging Adults through Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. For over a decade, Amanda has worked as an informal Jewish educator with synagogues, yeshivot, and Hillels at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, and Cornell University. In her free time, you can find Amanda experimenting with different art forms, bargain hunting, or (slowly!) running.
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Chayva Lehrman
Chayva is a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, expecting to graduate in 2022. She feels very fortunate to be starting a career that incorporates her love of Jewish community, music, spirituality, social justice, and learning. Chayva grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area at Congregation Beth Am of Los Altos Hills. While at Wellesley College, she studied Linguistics and Middle Eastern Studies, studied abroad in Amman, Jordan, and returned to serve as the Hillel President and Representative to the Middle East Task Force. She moved to Washington, D.C. after graduating, where she professionalized her interest in international affairs in the offices of Congressman Henry Waxman and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Upon leaving USAID, she moved to Philadelphia, where she found a love for Reconstructionist Judaism. Chayva hopes to invest her rabbinate in building meaning-making communities that are deeply inclusive, in which we see the humanity in each other. To transition into rabbinical school, she hiked 1300 miles of the Appalachian Trail and biked the Portuguese route of the Camino de Santiago. She loves hiking, blues and swing dancing, soccer, and traveling simply.
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Dave Yedid
Dave is a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary, pursuing rabbinic ordination as a Wexner Graduate Fellow and Davidson Scholar, expecting to graduate in 2022. Raised in Port Washington, New York, Dave graduated from Middlebury College with a BA in Geography. At Middlebury, he was a pioneer in the Jewish, LGBT, and dance communities. After graduating, he learned at Yeshivat Hadar in New York, his first foray into Jewish text learning. For six summers, he worked at Ramah in the Rockies as a madrich, Tikvah madrich, and rosh eidah. There, he combined his passions for guiding Jewish youth, leading wilderness trips, and experiential education. Deepening his passion for direct care, Dave was a field guide for New Vision Wilderness, where he supported young adults and teens to heal from traumas of surviving abuse, suicidal ideation, and addiction. He is a founding staff member and Rabbinic Intern at BaMidbar Wilderness Therapy. In his free time, you can find him roasting veggies or dancing. Inspired by the model of rabbi as healer, Dave hopes to expand mental health, addiction, and trauma care resources within the Jewish community.
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Mikey Hess Webber
Mikey Hess Webber hails from Baltimore MD. She is so excited to be working toward her ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2021. In her years leading up to rabbinical school, Mikey’s career centered primarily around the mentorship of Jewish teens. She spent five years working with BBYO and another three as the Youth Director at Oseh Shalom Congregation in Laurel MD. She was also a member of JUFJ’s inaugural Baltimore cohort of Jeremiah Fellows - an opportunity for her to explore how Jewish values, culture and community can support the goals of economic and social justice. Mikey has worked for Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and the Jewish Learning Venture - an organization that engages people with special needs and their families, supporting their ability to access a range of Jewish educational experiences. From 2011-2013, Mikey lived on Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael. There, she worked in the fish ponds and then as a traveling pizza maker. She had the opportunity to connect with people across Israel as she fed them and participated in their simchas. It is during this time in Israel that she developed a deeply complex and nuanced relationship with the place and the people. Since her time in Israel, as the political climate grows more polarized, she has become passionate about raising up the humanity and diverse narratives that too often get forgotten in conversations about the conflict. This passion has led to her completion, in May 2018, of a Master's Concentration in Israel Education through the ICenter in Chicago. In her free time, Mikey is an avid gardener and spends a lot of time in the dirt. She also spends a lot of time with her cat, Reuben and her husband, Scott.
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Sienna Lotenberg
Sienna Lotenberg is a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, expecting to graduate in 2023. Born and raised outside Washington, DC, she fell in love with Judaism at Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, VA. Prior to rabbinical school, Sienna lived in Providence, RI, while earning her bachelor’s degree in History and Judaic Studies from Brown University, where she wrote her senior thesis on American Jewish feminist history, looking specifically at the Brown Women’s Minyan (1973-78) and its original liturgy. While in college, she served as student president of Brown RISD Hillel, was a leader and coordinator of Hillel’s Reform Minyan, and taught religious school at Temple Beth-El. When she’s not in school, she enjoys cooking, eating, dancing, and reading academic books.
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Tyler Dratch
Tyler Dratch is a Rabbinical Student at Hebrew College in Newton. Massachusetts, part of the class of 2021. Before moving to Boston, he served as a Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center (RAC) of Reform Judaism advocating for economic justice and disability rights issues. During his time at the RAC, Tyler staffed the L’Taken Social Justice Seminar and worked with teens from across the country, engaging students in the treasure of Jewish texts that calls us to pursue justice. He graduated from Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary with Bachelors Degrees in Political Science and Hebrew Bible. Tyler is an educator of fellow learners ten to ninety-one years old. In his free time Tyler enjoys hiking, playing the guitar, and studying Torah. He is excited to work alongside other rabbinical students to deeply see the complexities of Israel and build our own rabbinic voices.
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