Noach Dzmura, Director
Noach Dzmura, editor of the Lambda Literary Award winning anthology, Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community, [North Atlantic Books, June 1, 2010] serves as Director of Jewish Transitions, a non-profit that increases knowledge and discourse about conversion and burial practices for transgender Jews and their communities. He also teaches at Starr King School for the Ministry, and serves the same organization as Executive Assistant to the Provost and Director of Educational Technology. He also taught at the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco. Noach served as a mentor in the HRC Scholarship and Mentorship Program for Religious and Theological Study (2010). He has been working in US Jewish communities for the past six years as an educator and activist on behalf of transgender inclusion. Noach co-authored (with collective Kol Tzedek) the “Transgender Inclusion Report” presented to the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties, and is a member of the Transgender Task Force at the JCF that emerged from that work. Dzmura also started the East Bay Transgender Chevra a support and networking group for gender variant Jews. He has written for the Forward, Sh’ma, the Jewish Chronicle (UK) Tikkun (forthcoming) and Zeek.
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Jhos Singer, Lead Instructor and Curriculum Development Team
Jhos Singer has served as the service leader at Coastside Jewish Community in Half Moon Bay, California, since 2000. He received s’micha (ordination) from his community to act as their rabbi in 2002, and at the same time his teacher, Rabbi Gershon Winkler, conferred upon him the title of maggid. He is a frequent contributor to Jewish Mosaic’s Torah Queeries commentary. He is a gifted curriculum developer (e.g., “The Torah of Six Feet Under”) and dynamic teacher. He is a Koret Jewish educator fellow and is in the midst of pursuing his master’s degree in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union. He lives in Berkeley, California with his lovely wife, Julie Batz, and their three delightfully wily children and one lazy cat.
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