Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, named in 2016 by the Forward as one of America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis, was ordained by ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal as a rabbi in 2011 and as a mashpi’ah ruchanit (spiritual director) in 2012. From 2015 to 2017 she served as co-chair, with Rabbi David Evan Markus, of ALEPH. In spring 2017 she served as interim Jewish chaplain to Williams College. Since 2011, Rachel has served as spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Israel.
She holds a BA in religion from Williams College and an MFA in Writing and Literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She is author of four book-length collections of poetry: 70 faces: Torah poems (Phoenicia Publishing, 2011), Waiting to Unfold (Phoenicia, 2013),Toward Sinai: Omer poems (Velveteen Rabbi, 2016) and Open My Lips (Ben Yehuda Press, 2016), as well as several poetry chapbooks.
A 2012 Rabbis Without Borders Fellow, Rachel has served as alumna facilitator for the Emerging Jewish and Muslim Religious Leadersretreat organized by RRC‘s Office of Multifaith Studies and Initiatives and co-presented in 2016 with the Islamic Society of North America. Since 2003 she has blogged as The Velveteen Rabbi, and in 2008, TIME named her blog one of the top 25 sites on the internet. Rachel is a regular contributor to Kol ALEPH, to the Reform Judaism Blog, and to The Wisdom Daily.
Rachel was a regular contributor to Zeek magazine, “a Jewish journal of thought & culture,” from 2005-2015. Her work has also appeared in Lilith, The Texas Observer, The Jewish Daily Forward, and anthologies including The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry (Bloomsbury), The Women’s Seder Sourcebook (Jewish Lights), and God? Jewish Choices for Struggling with the Ultimate (Torah Aura),among other places. Her downloadable Velveteen Rabbi’s Haggadah for Pesach has been used around the world, and with R’ Jeff Goldwasser in 2014 she released Days of Awe: the Velveteen Rabbi’s Machzor, now available in a revised edition.
She has taught courses arising from the intersection of the literary life and the spiritual life at the ALEPH Kallah; at many congregations around New York and New England; and at Beyond Walls, a writing program for clergy of many faiths, at the Kenyon Institute. She lives in Williamstown with her son.
