Schedule & Lineup
Schedule at-a Glance
Here is a preview of the day-to-day festival schedule. A more detailed daily schedule will be posted as we get closer to the festival.
- Thursday, October 5 – Arrive and settle in; gather with a welcome meal and an opening fire.
- Friday, October 6 – Begin preparing for the Rain Dance and Water Ritual through guided workshops, crafts, and ritual. Flow into Shabbat with music and prayer.
- Saturday, October 7 – Participate in Shacharit morning services and kiddush lunch before our Hosahanah Rabah Rain Dance, where we will also dance the Torah and celebrate Simchat Torah. Continue the celebrations with Havdallah and a gorgeous evening of feasting, dancing, and singing.
- Sunday, October 8 –ย Morning Simchat Torah Services. Further reflection on the meaning of Sukkot through workshops and village building to bring these harvests into your life.
We will offer tot and youth programming throughout the festival. Learn more on our families page.ย
Leaders & Facilitators
Here is a list of musicians, artists, facilitators and organizations who will lead programming.
More leaders, workshop descriptions, and program info will be added here. So check back often for more details!
Rabbi Zelig Golden
Rabbi Zelig Goldenโsย vision for a thriving, earth-based Jewish tradition developed out of a lifetime of nature connection, Jewish leadership, and commitment to environmental advocacy. He invokes mentorship, facilitation, and ceremonial tools to guide an annual cycle of land-based festivals, nature-based rites of passage, and mentorship for emerging leaders. Zelig is thrilled to partner with amazing Wilderness Torah community spiritual leaders and musicians to bring alive these transformational retreats. Zelig received rabbinic ordination from ALEPH, Alliance for Jewish Renewal, and holds a Masters in Jewish Studies from the Graduate Theological Union.
Rachel Ruach Golden
Rachel Ruach Golden is a cultural midwife, ceremonialist, wilderness guide and mentor.ย She is dedicated to building community and revitalizing modern culture by awakening our earth-based roots.ย Holding a strong vision of honoring and protecting not only the natural world, but our children and elders, she has trained in wilderness survival, connection, and ancestral skills, traditional mentoring techniques, community building, rites of passage, womenโs wisdom, and the ceremonial arts for the last nineteen years.
Currently, she nourishes the growth of her own 3 children while supporting local community and Wilderness Torah in key cultural and ceremonial ways. She is also the founder and co-director ofย Tree of Life Initiation
Alexander Kugler
Alexander Kugler is a menโs work facilitator and a spiritual coach. He is the founder of Manhood Embodied, a group coaching program for folks who self-identify as men that works at the intersection of spirituality, nature connection, and menโs work. Alexanderโs all-genders individual coaching practice is informed by Internal Family Systems therapy, earth-based Judaism, and indigenous traditions including plant medicine ceremony. He has been an initiated song and medicine carrier with the Peruvian Pachakuti Mesa lineage for over a decade. Alexander has worked intimately with many medicine and wisdom carriers who have shared their ways of praying with him and blessed him to carry on their teachings. Alexander stepped onto his current path in the healing arts after a fifteen year career as an opera singer where he studied conducting. He can be reached via email at alexanderkugler@gmail.com
Ilana Meallem
The Qadim Ensemble
T’filat HaGeshem: Sukkot Songs of Praise and Supplication from the Eastern Diaspora with Rachel Valfer and Eliyahu Sillsย
Come and learn songs for Succoth and Hoshanah Rabah, as well as some prayers for rain, all from the Eastern Diaspora!ย In this workshop we will be learning traditional piyutim (Hebrew poetry) from Jewish communities hailing from regions such as Iraq, Morocco, Yemen and Uzbekistan.ย The melodies range from soulful to upbeat and groovy.ย All voices are welcome, or just come and lend an ear and some clapping hands.ย
Shabbat Melodies
Friday night in the sukkah we are offering an hour of Shabbat music from the Balkans, North Africa and Middle East.ย Some of it will be more quiet and some will be dance-y.
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Rachel Valfer is a singer and oudist who studied Maqam and Persianย dastgah modal systems in Israel and Palestine for sixย years at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.ย Rachel sings in Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi, Greek, Turkish, Ladino, and Armenian.
Eliyahu Sills plays ney, bansuri and upright bass, and studied for over ten years with the Hindaustani bansuri flute master G.S.Sachdev, one of the worlds most highly esteemed musicians in that ancient tradition.ย He also studied with masters in Istanbul, Turkey and Israel, and is competent in many different eastern styles of ney (flute).
โBeautifully presented, the players bring superb musicianship and palpable enthusiasm to each performance. Eliyahuโs ney flute along with Rachelโs succulent vocals are stars . . . creating a sense of human communication with the divine.โย ย โ All Things Considered, NPR
Check out their music here: QadimMusic.com
Nathaniel Markman
Nathaniel Markmanย is a string instrumentalist, singer, and song leader who cherishes the sounds of people singing together and enjoys helping families find the perfect blend of live music for major life cycle events.ย He is the music director for the Bay Area wedding bandย Shamatiย and collaborates with a number of local professional musicians to create memorable live music experiences for wedding ceremonies, bar/t mitzvahs and memorial services. In a previous life Nathaniel was a touring fiddle player and recording artist with bands such as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, The Wildbirds, Moshav Band, and Craig Taubman.
Zvika Krieger
Zvika Krieger is the Spiritual Leader of Chochmat HaLev, a progressive spiritual community in Berkeley, CA for embodied prayer, heart-centered connections, and mystical experiences. Zvika has served in board and leadership positions for Sukkat Shalom/Milk+Honey camp at Burning Man, Jewish Studio Project, DC Minyan, Temple of the Stranger, and other organizations dedicated to nourishing the mind, body, and soul.
Zvika has worked on mitigating some of the most damaging impacts of new technologies on individuals and society as Facebook/Meta’s first-ever Director of Responsible Innovation, creating and leading the World Economic Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and as the US Department of State’s first-ever “Ambassador to Silicon Valley.”
Zvika previously served as Senior Vice President of the Center for Middle East Peace and was Newsweekโs Middle East correspondent, based in Egypt and Lebanon and covering most of the Arab world.ย
He has a BA from Yale University, is a certified Shadow Work facilitator and Design Thinking facilitator, certified as “God” with “Talk to God”, and trained as an ecstatic dance DJ by Embodied Sound.ย Originally from Los Angeles, Zvika loves to surf, dance, backpack, rock climb, and sing karaoke occasionally on-key.
Learn more about Zvika at www.zvikakrieger.com.
Octopretzel
Octopretzel is a tangle of Bay Area musicians, educators and parents โ friends that originally came together for back yard jams. Over the years, as we developed our careers and grew our families, the music we created together continued to inspire us, and thus we formed our band. The name Octopretzel was coined by one of our then 4yr old kids, and it stuck.
Our music, comprised of original songs as well as traditional favorites, is whimsical and fun, with an underlying sensitivity for nature, animals, feelings, and connection. Best described as folk music, our songs cross generations and genres, weaving together many different musical styles, instruments and themes. Our intention is to create music that can be enjoyed by humans of all ages โ children, and their parents too!
In its current incarnation, Octopretzel is comprised of three band members โ Melita (lead singer), Jennifer Altman (percussionist and puppeteer), and Dave Rosenfeld (fiddle and mandolin player.)
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At Sukkot this year, Octopretzel will be offering a fun and engaging performance on Sunday afternoon. The show will be comprised of some Jewish songs as well as non-Jewish kid appropriate tunes that will get kids up and dancing. The performance will also include a Sukkot themed puppet show.
Rebecca Schisler
Rebecca is a meditation teacher, artist, and Jewish educator. A devoted contemplative practitioner, she has sat intensive retreats in the US and abroad for over a decade, and has trained with Mindful Schools and the Engaged Mindfulness Institute. In addition to IJS, Rebecca has led groups and taught classes and retreats with Or HaLev, Awakened Heart Project, Orot, Wilderness Torah, Pardes, and Mindful Life Project. She was previously the Director of Student Health & Well-being at Stanford Universityโs Hillel, and co-authored the Mahloket Matters Schools Curriculum with the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators. A student rabbi at ALEPH, Rebecca is passionate about integrating ancestral wisdom traditions with innovative approaches to personal and collective healing and liberation. She teaches Jewish spirituality as an embodied, holistic, and accessible path, with relevant and timely wisdom for all. Learn more at www.rebeccaschisler.com.
Paige Lincenberg
Rabbi Paige Lincenberg serves the Mendocino Coast Jewish Community, where she lives in an intentional community in the redwoods on Pomo land. She specializes in Earth-Based Judaism, working for the organization Shefa: Jewish Psychedelic Support and officiating weddings, baby namings, bโnai mitzvot, conversions, and especially funerals, honoring both the cycles of the earth ืืืื and the earthlings ืืื, too. For further connection, please flow on over to rabbipaige.com
Lior Tsarfaty
Lior Tsarfaty is an internationally touring musician and recording artist. He uniquely weaves music and various healing modalities to create transformative experiences for his audience. He will be leading Shabbat morning services.
Rachael Knight
Rachael Knight is an attorney with expertise in community land tenure security, community natural resource governance, legal empowerment, and community-led conservation and cultural revitalization. She recently completed a Masters degree in ethnobotany; her dissertation focused on the role of ceremony and ritual in conservation of land and sacred natural sites. She is currently mothering her one-year-old son and writng a book about how to revive lost land-honoring rituals.See more at rachaelsydneyknight.org.
Rachel will be making the central altar for the rain dance and leading the altar-decorating workshop on Friday.
Yari Mander
About Yari
Yari Mander is a gifted music educator with a patient, supportive, professional teaching style honed over more than 15 years working with children and adults. He is also a professional drummer who has performed onstage with Joan Baez, Gamelan X, Reverend Michael Beckwith, Agape Choir and many other artists,
He has taught professional workshops and facilitated rhythm events at San Francisco State University, City College of San Francisco, Oakland Unified School District, Association of Independent Schools, Oakland Mile Project and many more.
Yariโs mission is to facilitate joyful, active and transformational musical experiences for diverse individuals and communities. He enjoys guiding groups to greater levels of connection, confidence, unity and teamwork through making music together.
Yari will be leading the drumming track for our Hoshanah Raba Rain Dance Ritual.
Dor Haberer
About Dor
Dor has been weaving with Wilderness Torah for the last 8 years. He is Jerusalem-Born, of Moroccan Ancestry, and a teacher of Rewilding Judaism. He is a shiatsu therapist (www.dorhaberer.com), Men’s Work Facilitator (kinhood.org), forest pre-school teacher, and B’nai mitzvah mentor and rites of passage educator. He was a fellow for Sojourners Rising Leaders of Color Fellowship and was a resident at Canticle Farms.
Dor will be co-leading a Shitsu Partner Massage workshop with Sarah Salem.
Sarah Salem (She/Her)
Sarah is an educator, artist, bodyworker and Kohenet trained in earth-based Jewish ritual. She weaves experiences that invite play, curiosity, warmth and interconnectedness. Sarah has a private Zen Shiatsu practice and facilitates nature-based learning programs and rites of passage.
She will be co-leading a Shiatsu partner workshop.
Carey Averbrook
Carey Averbook (she/they) is a poet, photographer, ritualist, emotional hygiene coach, facilitator of transformative and integrative spiritual experiences, and a Jewish spiritual practice guide and educator. She is devoted to supporting people to cultivate evermore layers of awareness and to reconnect with themselves, others, ancestors, village consciousness, the living world, and oneโs own sense of Greater Than / the Divine. Their path to learning about well-being includes years in Bolivian Andean culture both in Bolivia and in Bolivian communities in the US, Jewish textual study and spiritual practices, unlearning and embodying different stories, earth-centric ceremony and ritual, nature connection practices, emotional hygiene counseling and coaching, elders, mentors, and guides both embodied and disembodied. She works at the JCCSF doing Jewish education, young adult (20s/30s) community building, and clinical pastoral training. Theyโre a student in ALEPHโs Earth-Based Judaism Certificate program and an MA student in Jewish studies at the GTU. In 2021, she went the Tree of Life year long earth-centric ceremonial rite of passage into adulthood.
Carey will be co-leading a workshop called Weaving with the Ancestors on Sunday afternoon.ย Join us for a Weaving Workshop bringing together the threads of color & ancestors into a hand-made tapestry. Each participant will leave with their own loom and tapestry weaving project. We’ll learn about the sukkot practice of ushpizin as we invite in our ancestors and weave with their corollary sephirot colors. This will be a relaxed craft-circle vibe for up to 12 participants, must be at least 14-years-old to participate.
Village Spaces
Meet The Leaders of Each Village Space
Ellie Schindelman
Elder Space
About Ellie Schindelman
Ellie is honored to be an โelder at largeโ in the rich multi-generational community of WT, where inย additionย toย holdingย elder spaces, she ย has served as a coach, mentor, organizational consultant, board member and deep creative thinking partner. Outside of WT, Ellie is a life/career/leadership coach who loves her time with grand and god-children & dogs, bicycling, facilitating ceremonies, tap dancing, planning travel adventures, spending time in wilderness and being part of radically inclusive Jewish life.
Avi Rose
Elder Space
About Avi Rose
Avi Rose has long worked in the Jewish and LGBTQ communities, recently as Executive Director of Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay. He is a longtime lay spiritual leader at Kehilla Community Synagogue. Avi has recently turned his attention toward serving as an end-of-life doula.
Sarai Shapiro
Red Tent
About Sarai Shapiro
Sarai Shapiroย is a personal coach, healer, and ceremonialist, specializing in nature based transformational ceremonies and experiences. She has been a teacher of earth-based Judaism throughout the years to people of all ages. You can find her work here atย www.sarainicolina.com
Ariella Powers
Tea Lounge
About Ariella Powers
Ariellaย Powersย is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and producer. She is dedicated to creating & curating spaces for people to come together in ritual, theater and playfulness; while exploring themes of sacred adornment, ancestral alignment and beauty in the everyday. Devoted to the ancient ways,ย Ariellaย is a life-long student of the mystery teachings, including those from her own Jewish ancestry and beyond. She has contributed her writings & words to:ย At The Well, The Jewish Psychedelic Summit, Wilderness Torah, Oracle Arts Apprenticeship, Mushroom Books, M.I.T.ย (October Magazine) and more.
Ariellaย is currently working on her first book about mystical Jewish offering practices.
Ophir Haberer
JOC Space
About Ophir Haberer
Ophir is a Jerusalem-born facilitator, educator, body worker, somatic therapist, culinary artist, ritualist, poet, storyteller, and organizational consultant. He was formerly Wilderness Torahโs festival and leadership manager and has been involved the past few years in integrating more Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Jews of Color programming. He and his brother have also led an online community for two years on ReWilding Judaism.ย Ophir is one of the founders of Kinhood, a menโs care organization committed to growing the capacity for care that men receive and create. He has guided menโs work for over 5 years and has facilitated for numerous organizations all over the country. He helped pilot and direct MenschUp, the mensโ program for the Shalom Bayit, the Jewish Center for Domestic Abuse. He has trained with the Hakomi Institute and the Esalen Institute.
Dor Haberer
Healing Hut
About Dor Haberer
Dor has been weaving with Wilderness Torah for the last 9 years. He is Jerusalem-Born, of Moroccan Ancestry, and a teacher of Rewilding Judaism. He is a shiatsu therapist (www.dorhaberer.com), Men’s Work Facilitator (kinhood.org), forest pre-school teacher, and B’nai mitzvah mentor and rites of passage educator. He was a fellow for Sojourners Rising Leaders of Color Fellowship and was a resident at Canticle Farms.
Mischa Skolnik
The Hearth
About Mischa Skolnik Troy
I’ve pretty much been in the hearth since my first Sukkot on the Farm in 2013! Started as a volunteer, mentored into leadership as assistant chef, head chef, and hearth manager! People always ask where I got my start as a professional chef, and it was right here.
I currently work with couples to prepare them to be married through pre-marital coaching and wedding planning! I’m accepting new clients for 2024 if any couples are looking to solidify their union! You might find me matchmaking here and there, so let a lady know if you need help finding your person!
If you want to reach me, you can send me an email, or follow me on instagram @midnightpicnic_ .
Ruthie Praskins
The Hearth
About Ruthie Praskins
Ruthie is an herbalist, functional nutritionist, healing foods chef & somatic guide. She orients towards food as medicine and deep nourishment as foundational to healing. Ruthie runs a small farm to table catering business called Healing Hearth, is trained in Functional Nutrition from Bauman College and a Somatic Trauma Resolution Modality called Psycho Neuro Energetics. She will soon be offering Integrative Wellness Council sessions for folks with chronic illness – and is currently writing an Ashkenzi Jewitch Cookbook centered around wild foods, ancestral tending, healing recipes and the Jewish calendar.
Daniel Schindelman Schoen
Youth Village
About Daniel Schindelman Schoen
Daniel (aka DanDan) Schindelman Schoen is the Festivals Youth Village Manager at Wilderness Torah. Daniel traces his ancestry back through Yiddish speaking Eastern Europe where he believes his forebearsย were playing wild devotional music and wearing beautiful hats. By some plan not of his own, he currently lives amongst the coastal redwoods in unceded Southern Pomo land where he designs and leads youth into learning from where we are and how to live with creative joy in troubled times. As the former Youth Programs Director at Wilderness Torah, Daniel helped to launch theย successful teen backpackingย Neshama Questย program.ย Daniel is blessed to be a father and life collaborator as part of a multi-cultural family with roots in California and Argentina. On quiet afternoons one might find Daniel playing blues piano, appreciating seasonal fruit, or studying old stories with strange endings.
Leora Cockrell
House of Memory
About Leora Cockrell
Leora Cockrell (she/they) has worked, studied, played, prayed and organized at the intersections of Queerness, Judaism, Land Relations & Indigenous solidarity.
Sarah Elise Rund
Queer Magic Haven
About Sarah Elise
Sarah Elise (they&she) just loves getting outside and getting their hands dirty! She earned an MS in Ecological Teaching and Learning from Lesley University, and has worked as an environmental educator in numerous contexts for well over a decade. Living the majority of their life in New England, Sarah Elise developed a deep love of the turning of the seasons and all that they offer. Sarah Elise grew up in a Conservative Jewish household, and her personal spiritual practice has always been deeply tied to the natural turning of the year.ย As a rising Kohenet,ย Sarah Eliseย is tying together their deep love of Jewish tradition, awareness of the natural world, and the power of collective song.
Village Spaces: Learn More About Each Space
Below is a list of the spaces at this yearโs Sukkot festival. Our village spaces provide distinct areas for people to engage deeply in diverse content.
Our sukkah is the central gathering space for ritual, meals, and offerings. It provides shade and some protection from the wind.
The Elder Space is a place for elders to gather to share perspectives on what it means to serve the community in this capacity, to exchange reflectionsย on the health and vitality of the village, and to share stories and songs and wisdom.ย All generations are welcome in this space to come and bask in what our precious village elders have to share.
There is a designated family camping area near the community sukkah, with special youth spaces nearby including:
- Nevatim Garden (Ages 0-5)
- Kids Sukkah (Grades K-5)
- Pre-teens Sukkah (Grades 6-7)
- Teen Shomrim Sukkah (Grades 8-12)
Each sukkah will have age-appropriate programming for youth, guided by our mentors and staff. Please visit our Families page for more information.
The House of Memory is dedicated to connecting with and learning ancestral skills of creating with our hands and sharing stories. This space will be used for crafting workshops, conversations and activities honoring ancestors and welcoming guests, and earth-based Jewish text learning.
This is a home space for folks who identify as people of the global majority, Jews of color,ย Sephardi or Mizrahi, and/or of Indigenous heritage. It is a space which uplifts the unique identities, complexities, and gifts of these intersecting communities, while creating a sanctuary where folks can rest, recharge, and connect in what otherwise can feel like a dominant white, Ashkenazi space. The Sanctuary is a space for sharing experiences, learning from one another, and ย exchanging ย stories and traditions that uplift the diverse expression of American Jewish life.ย
The queer space is a safer space for queer community to gather, learn, reflect and teach about the intricacies and intersectionality of queerness. Open to queer folks and allies this space is aimed at cultivating a more inclusive village, and providing a space of conversation and community.
The Healing Oasis provides a space for healing and for connecting with your body, mind, and spirit during the festival. It houses herbal remedies for wellness and first aid, body work opportunities, and spiritual guidance. This is a place to rest,retreat and heal, like a supercharger station for your health and wellness. We encourage people to offer their healing gifts such as massage, Reiki, counseling, blessings, acupuncture,, sound healing, etc.
If you have homemade medicinal salves, tinctures or other herbal remedies that you would like to share with the community, the Healing Space would be happy to put them out during the festival.
The Red Tent is a space of rest, renewal and rejuvenation. It is an unstructured space where all feelings are welcome. Traditionally the Red Tent was used for people who were stepping out of society while menstruating. At this gathering, we open it to all those who identify as women and for all bleeding bodies and post-menopausal bodied people to experience a space created for healing and nourishment. Please be mindful that this space is not open to youth who have not yet experienced passage into their moon-time phase.
Bring your instruments, your poems, your songs, your sorrows, your joys, your silence and your prayers. Return to yourself, make a new friend, reconnect with an old friend, or simply enjoy some down time taking refuge in the simplicity of a cup of tea.
