Masks required on the 3rd and 4th Shabbat of the month. In-person attendance is open to members & their guests .
Please contact us if you are not connected with a member and wish to attend.
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SHABBAT THIS WEEK:
Since 2014, Rabbi Alana Alpert has led our community in prayer and protest. She joined us shortly after receiving semikha / rabbinic ordination from Hebrew College in Boston.
Until recently, she served as both our rabbi and as the Founding Director of Detroit Jews for Justice. Adapting powerful models from across the country, DJJ engages the Metro Detroit Jewish community on issues like water access, health care, workers rights and police brutality. She is proud that DJJ is thriving under new leadership and is enjoying living more fully into her role as congregational rabbi. She is a graduate of the Clergy Leadership Incubator and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Clergy Leadership Program.
R. Alpert was raised by a family of Jewish educators in Los Angeles. She studied Resistance and Social Movements at UC Santa Cruz, writing her thesis on the then burgeoning Jewish Social Justice Movement. She cut her teeth as an organizer in New York City with NY Jobs with Justice, Avodah and Jews for Racial & Economic Justice.
During her time at Hebrew College, Rabbi Alpert served in student government, facilitated a prison justice praxis group, and co-founded the Liberatory Minyan, a place for students to explore the nexus between prayer and activism. Increasing demand from social change-workers for spiritual support, inspired her capstone project, "Like a Burning Bush: Jewish Practice for Activists." She worked at Harvard Hillel, Temple Shir Tikva, the Pardes Center for Judaism and Conflict Resolution, and completed a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education where she served Holocaust survivors.
She has a long history of engagement with Israel/Palestine including 3 years living in the region, founding Project Hayei Sarah, facilitating for Encounter, and serving on the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinic Council. Her more recent work has been through IfNotNow, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, and Shleimut.
She lives in the North End (not far from where her grandmother grew up) with her kiddos Ne’ilah & Zohar, sister Adina, pup Mississippi, and partner Justin. A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Justin is part-time professor of philosophy and religion at several institutions in the Metro-Detroit area, a popular local educator, and the creator of the Esoterica web series.
Rabbi Alana Alpert
she/her
ravalana@tchiyah.org
Writings, Speeches & Divrei Torah
Check out Rabbi Alana's writings in The Forward, My Jewish Learning, and the Detroit Jewish News, and in the links below:
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"It is not antisemitic to be Palestinian and to express your identity" (Nu? Detroit, 2023)
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"Yom Kippur Sermon: Teshuvah, Tefilah, Tzedakah & the Work of Reproductive Justice" (2023)
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"Detroit Jewish group supports Tlaib, reject Trump's racist division" (Detroit Free Press, 2019)
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Intolerance Lies Below the Surface in America - Dawud Walid of CAIR Michigan and Rabbi Alana respond to the tragedies of Pittsburgh and Louisville (Detroit News, 2018)
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Rosh Hashanah Sermon: Disobedience Here Below - Rabbi Alana and Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann's Rosh Hashanah 2018 sermon about their work with the Poor People's Campaign (Tikkun, 2018)
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Yom Kippur Sermon: Ladders, Empires & East Jerusalem - (JewSchool, 2017)
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From Racism to Liberation: Confronting Tzaraat in Our Society (T'ruah, 2016)
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Tshuvah and Police Accountability (JewSchool, 2015)
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"Open a Window" (Project Chayei Sarah, 2012)
When times are hardest and filled with questions, T'chiyah feels like bedrock, like a taproot that burrows into some unknown depths and offers nourishment... When I'm shaken, T'Chiyah is grounding, when I'm down, the community gently lifts my chin, when I am full, it is a place for joining in growth.
-Anonymous, T'chiyah member since 2017