Unique program features Rabbi Dawn Rose, Professor David Brodsky; takes place May 30-June 1, 2008

New York, NY, May 6, 2008. Nehirim, a national organization that provides spiritual and cultural community for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) Jews, partners, and allies, will host over 120 GLBT Jews for a unique spiritual weekend retreat, to be held May 30-June 1, 2008.

Nehirim’s executive director, Jay Michaelson, an outspoken advocate for inclusion of GLBT people within the Jewish community, says the weekend, now in its fifth year, is “less about politics than about creating a distinctive spiritual community for Jews who are members of sexual or gender minorities.”

Added Michaelson, “we’re not waiting for straight people to decide whether we can have a personal relationship with God. What Nehirim is about is building that relationship for ourselves, in our own distinctive ways.”

This year, the keynote speaker at the Nehirim retreat will be Rabbi Dawn Rose, who holds a Ph.D. in Jewish philosophy and was one of the first in the Conservative movement to teach feminist theology. Other featured educators include Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Professor David Brodsky, founder of Storahtelling Amichai Lau-Lavie, and Rabbi Jill Hammer, director of the Tel Shemesh institute.

Founded in 2003, Nehirim is a nondenominational, independent organization under the fiscal sponsorship of the Jewish Funds for Justice, and supported by the Charles & Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund.

Said Michaelson, “many of us have been told that because of who we are, God hates us. The Nehirim retreat is about experiencing God’s love instead.”