- Rachel Barenblat
Rachel Barenblat is a poet, blogger, and rabbinic student.
Born in
San Antonio ,Texas in1975 to Marvin and Liana Barenblat, she moved to New England in 1992 to attendWilliams College . She holds a BA in religion from Williams, and an MFA in writing and literature from theBennington Writing Seminars .Barenblat co-founded [http://www.inkberry/org Inkberry] , a literary arts nonprofit organization, with Sandy Ryan and Emily Banner. From 1999-2002 she was a contributing editor at "Pif Magazine" and since 2006 she has been a contributing editor at [http://www.jewcy.com/zeek/ Zeek magazine] , a Jewish journal of thought and culture.
Barenblat is author of three poetry chapbooks: "the skies here" (Pecan Grove Press, 1995), "What Stays" (Bennington Writing Seminars Alumni Chapbook Series, 2002) and "chaplainbook" (Laupe House Press, an imprint of Phoenicia Publishing, 2006.)
Since 2005 she has been a student in the [http://www.aleph.org/ordination.html/ ALEPH rabbinic program] . Her blog, [http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/ Velveteen Rabbi] , was named one of the top 25 blogs in Time.com's [http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/0,28757,1725323,00.html First Annual Blog Index] in spring of 2008. She has guest-blogged at Jewess, Kesher Talk, Sojourner, and the Best American Poetry Blog, and she spent a year writing weekly Torah commentaries for Radical Torah.
With Thurman Hart, Barenblat co-founded the first [http://progressivefaithblogcon.com/ Progressive Faith Blog Con] , a gathering for bloggers of progressive faith which took place in
Montclair ,New Jersey in 2006.Her "Velveteen Rabbi's Haggadah for Pesach", a free and open-source haggadah which combines traditional texts with poetry and creative interpretations, is used worldwide. As of 2008, the most recent edition is version 6.0 and can be downloaded [http://velveteenrabbi.com/ here] .
Barenblat lives in
Lanesboro ,Massachusetts , with her husbandEthan Zuckerman .External references
[http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/ Velveteen Rabbi]
[http://velveteenrabbi.com/BJVarticle.html When Can I Run and Play With the Real Rabbis?]
[http://faithfulprogressive.blogspot.com/2005/05/fp-interview-rachel-barenblat-from.html FP Interviews Rachel Barenblat]
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