FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Debra Kolodny, Executive Director, ALEPH
DATE: Thursday, December 22, 2005
Phone: 301-565-0719
Email: DebraRuth@mac.com

Dear Editor:

Enclosed is the December 2005 ALEPH News Service. We hope you run one or both of the following articles, and look forward to hearing from you if you do. This release contains:

1. ALEPH announces first Jewish Renewal Birthright Israel Trip
2. ALEPH Hires new Kallah Coordinator

About ALEPH: ALEPH acts as the headquarters of the Jewish Renewal movement by organizing and nurturing communities, developing spiritual leadership, ordaining rabbis, cantors and rabbinic pastors, creating liturgical and scholarly resources, holding retreats and festivals and working for social and environmental justice.

ALEPH has attracted and energized thousands of seekers returning to Judaism and thousands who are deeply engaged but looking to elevate their current practice. ALEPH has 42 affiliated communities and its projects include two biennial gatherings: the Kallah and Ruach HaAretz; the Sacred Foods Project, C-DEEP: The Center for Devotional, Energy, and Ecstatic Practice, the Bet Midrash (producing siddurim, publications, videos and CDs from our founder Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and other Jewish Renewal teachers) and Kesher (supporting twenty and early thirty year old leaders). In addition to its projects, ALEPH also produces one-day Jewish Renewal festivals in communities around the US and Canada called Caravans. It is home to Ohalah: The Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal and a Rabbinic Studies Program, educating future rabbis, cantors and rabbinic pastors.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like additional information. ALEPH looks forward to working with you,

Debra Kolodny /s/

ALEPH announces first Jewish Renewal Birthright Israel Trip

Go to Israel for Free with ALEPH and Israel Outdoors
Experience Israel and Jewish Renewal like never before

ALEPH and Israel Outdoors are partnering to launch the first ever Jewish Renewal Birthright Israel Trip, to be held in the summer of 2006.

RENEWAL IN ISRAEL is a 10-day trip designed especially for ALEPH and our members. The trip will serve participants at all levels of Jewish experience and knowledge and will provide an innovative experience of Jewish Renewal in a spiritual encounter with Israel.

As with most Birthright trips, we will pray at Western Wall, float in the Dead Sea, participate in a traditional Bedouin feast and tour Jerusalem. Israel Outdoors brings a focus to the trip that adds wonderful components like a camel ride in the desert and a stunning moonlit hike through the Sinai mountains, culminating in a panoramic sunrise over the tropical Red Sea.

ALEPH's Jewish Renewal focus will add visits with Israeli Jewish Renewal teachers, a ecstatic welcome of Shabbat, experiencing the mystical energy of Sfat, chanting, drumming and singing niggunim on the bus, and visiting specific holy sites like the grave of Chana Rachel, Maiden of Ludomir.

The group will spend five out of the ten days with Israeli peers on leave from army service. What better way to experience Israel than with Israeli friends at your side?

RENEWAL IN ISRAEL is a hands-on opportunity to get a taste of Israel's natural beauty, diverse culture, spiritual depth and rich history. It is perfect for anyone who wants a more intimate experience of Israel's ancient/vibrant spirit and mystic energy. Top-notch staff will include accredited Israeli educators and dynamic ALEPH chaperones.

If you or someone you know is 18-26 and has never been to Israel on an organized trip, visit www.israeloutdoors.com immediately to get on the list for this wonderful FREE summer trip. Make sure to note ALEPH trip on the pre-registration, or you will be placed on a non-Renewal trip.

ALEPH Hires new Kallah Coordinator

ALEPH is delighted to announce our next Kallah Coordinator, Sally Plone. We were blessed with a dynamic field of applicants, many of whom brought impressive management and retreat planning experience with them. Sally brings both of those and much more. She is a member of the B'nai Or Boston Jewish Renewal Community, mother of two, Expressive Arts Therapy teacher at Lesley University, psychotherapist and the producer of the video profiling Reb Zalman, "In Your Light We See Light".

Sally has managed budgets the size of Kallah, purchased institutional buildings, engineered dramatic financial and programmatic turnarounds for programs, managed large cadres of volunteers, run several Jewish events in both Jewish Renewal and other pluralistic settings and co-founded and ran a consulting practice for 8 years. A veteran of three Kallot, and former Children's Program Director at Elat Chayyim, Sally also brings a powerful vision for outreach and marketing to the Kallah.

ALEPH Executive Director Debra Kolodny says, "From a rather remarkable pool of candidates, our selection committee was unanimous in its decision to choose Sally Plone. In addition to her wonderful professional experience, her creative talent and her vision for the continuing growth and improvement of the Kallah, she brings the capacity to get things done quickly as she manages complex tasks with multiple stakeholders who have competing demands, all with humor and grace. The Kallah Coordinator position is so demanding and is so critical to the success of ALEPH and the entire Jewish Renewal movement. Sally has huge shoes to fill with the departure of Cindy Gabriel. We look forward to working with someone who brings so much to the table and to having many more successful Kallot."

Sally says of her new position, ³The Kallah holds a special place in my heart. It was my first Jewish Renewal event (Berkeley 1993) and was a spiritual "homecoming" that transformed me. I am profoundly grateful for Jewish Renewal-for the teachers, the organizations, the retreats, and the opportunities to connect with my soul, my community, and with God! It's a blessing that my skills and experience can now be of use in this arena. I am thrilled that my "know-how" and my passion will come together as coordinator of the 2007 ALEPH Kallah."

ALEPH thanks David Rafsky (ALEPH Board Personnel Committee) and Rabbis Steven Silvern (ALEPH Board Vice Chair) Phyllis Berman (ALEPH Spiritual Advisory Council) and Shaya Isenberg (Co-Director of the ALEPH Sageing Project) for their wonderful service on the selection committee.

If you would like to volunteer as a Kallah planning team member please contact Sally at sjplone@rcn.com.