Rakhel Silverman is grateful to JWA for giving them an outlet for their many Jewish feelings. Rakhel recently graduated from Bryn Mawr College, where they majored in Religion and Sociology. They are currently in the Avodah Jewish Service Corps and work at Jews United for Justice as a community organizer and program assistant. Rakhel spends much of their time thinking about queer Torah, faith-based organizing, ritual innovation, making Jewish spaces more accessible, and cults. Their crowning achievement was at age 13 when they wrote a 20-page paper on why Rakhel was not into Jacob. Rakhel plans to attend rabbinical school. They are also the proud mother to Li'l Sebastian the guinea pig. To read more of their Jewish social justice rants and attempts at humor, check them out on Twitter @rachbsilverman.

Steph Black is a Jewish activist and writer based in DC, where she fights to expand abortion access and reproductive justice. She writes newsletters, funds abortion, clinic escorts. Read her writing, follow her work, and subscribe at her website, stephblack.blog. All typos in her work can be attributed to her cat, Goose.

Dahlia Japhet was born in Israel but grew up in the United States and studied at the University of Michigan and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She received her Master’s Degree in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto where she also studied at The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Dahlia taught at CUNY and at Bar Ilan University. She has taken courses at the Jewish Theological Seminary, YIVO, and at synagogues on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She now lives in New York City, where she works for ReServe, volunteers at the Leo Baeck Institute, and is completing a novel about German Jewish life during World War One.

Sky Karp is a proud queer, non-binary reconstructionist Jew. They are currently a sophomore at Smith College studying History with a concentration in Archives. Sky is a self-proclaimed LGBTQ+ and Jewish history nerd and they hope to create their own queer Jewish archives someday. They are passionate about creating community based archives that are accessible to all. They believe that history is a collection of stories, and that giving everyone an opportunity to tell their story, especially the most marginalized, is crucial in creating meaningful history. When not writing blog posts for JWA, Sky is very involved with Jewish and queer activism on campus. They serve as the Chair of Smith’s J Street U chapter, a board member of Smith College Jewish Community, and Chair of Smith Senate’s Trans Inclusivity Committee. They are currently an intern for Keshet and a fellow for the Vote Yes on 3 campaign for transgender rights in Massachusetts. Sky loves to read, write, and go on adventures. They believe that by telling the stories that haven’t been told yet, we can change the world.

Zoë Shannon is a rising junior at Binghamton University with a double major in History and Middle East Studies. Additionally, she studies Arabic, and is particularly interested in forced migrations. Last year, she participated in a course where she volunteered at a refugee shelter, raising funds and awareness for women’s health. Before college, Zoë served for City Year New York, an AmeriCorps program, working as a middle school reading specialist and after-school teacher. In her spare time, Zoë is a self-proclaimed ‘professional dog petter,’ having petted over 50 breeds of dogs.

Lisa Kahn is a Class of 2018 graduate of UCLA with a major in History and a minor in Film, Television, and Media Studies. At UCLA, she completed an undergraduate honors thesis that compared the development of and the relationship between Jewish American and Black American feminisms during the 1970s. In addition to her studies, Lisa also participated as a tech director, scene director, actress, improver, and producer of UCLA's LCC Theatre Company for three years. She has interned in the archive department of 20th Century Fox Studios and the Center for the Study of Political Graphics. In the Fall, she plans to apply for Masters of Library and Informational Studies programs and pursue her dream to become an archivist.

Savoy Curry is JWA's food writer. She is a current PhD student at Northwestern University, where she studies Jewish women in the medieval period. She’s currently working on a project that looks at the intersection of religion, gender, and conversion in twelfth to fourteenth century Paris. She loves a good knit crop top, and she loves knitting them herself even more. When she isn’t knitting or reading books for school, Savoy loves going on long walks with her dog and cooking meals for her friends and family.  

Rena Lubin earned a BA from the University of North Carolina at Asheville in Religious Studies with a minor in History. She has a passion for preservation, curation, and education; she has worked as an intern specializing in digitization at the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, served as the Exhibits and Global Education Coordinator and Artifact Lending Intern for UNC Asheville’s Center for Diversity Education, and is working toward a career in museum education. While at UNC Asheville, she did independent research on the often stereotypical and one-dimensional representations of Jewish women characters in American popular culture. She is dedicated to making history more accessible and inclusive, giving volume to the individual voices and experiences that are often left out of the narrative. Rena is also a huge fan of the Harry Potter series, an avid re-watcher of the Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates, and an aficionado of 90s TV dramas.

Mimi Micner is the Advocacy and Campaigns Specialist and Rabbinic Intern at Keshet and a rising fifth year Rabbinical Student at Hebrew College in Boston. She is very interested in the intersection of spirituality and social justice. Before Rabbinical School, she was a Community Organizer with the American Federation of Teachers and J Street U.