Speaker Profile Rahel Berkovits

Rahel Berkovits lectures in Talmud, halakhah and the status of women in Judaism at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. She has spent many years studying Talmud and Jewish texts in both traditional and academic frameworks at such institutions as Midreshet Lindenbaum, The Shalom Hartman Institute, and Hebrew University in both the Talmud and Jewish education departments. She lectures widely in both Israel and abroad on topics concerning women and Jewish law, and has published entries in the CD Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Rahel is the editor in chief and halakhic editor of Ta Shma JOFA's Halakhic Source Guide Series. She is a founding member of Congregation Shirah Hadasha , a progressive halakhic minyan , which is enriched by both male and female participation in synagogue ritual. Rahel has lived in Jerusalem for the past eighteen years and she is the mother of ten-year-old boy/girl twins and a six year old daughter.