spiritual leader:  REB IRWIN

Rabbi (or Reb) Irwin Keller, ordained in the lineage of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, has been Ner Shalom's Spiritual Leader since 2008. Click here to read about this journey.

His most visible past work focused on LGBTQ+ and HIV advocacy: Reb Irwin authored Chicago's Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Ordinance, in effect since 1989. He later served as staff attorney and executive director of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel of the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014 he retired from show biz after 21 years as a comedian-actor-singer-writer with the acclaimed Kinsey Sicks, America's Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet.

Reb Irwin studied Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish and a range of Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has worked as a Jewish educator and cantorial soloist at synagogues in Illinois, California and Washington, DC. Reb Irwin is a Storahtelling Maven®, trained in the ritual art of bringing Torah off the page.

Reb Irwin is a founder of "Of One Soul," an initiative of the Interfaith Council of Sonoma County, working to defend the rights and dignity of the Muslim community and others who are under threat, and of Interfaith Public Fast of Sonoma County, bringing our ancient technologies of witness and petition to modern-day tragedies and challenges. He is also a founder and steward of the Taproot Community, a program training Jewish activists, organizers and artists to be community ritualists.

Reb Irwin is especially appreciated at Ner Shalom for his musical gifts and his challenging, humorous and unorthodox sermons, or drashot. You can read many of these – about Torah, Israel, God, queerness, community, disillusionment, hope and finding inspiration on the fringe on his blog, Itzik's Well. His interest in making Jewish experience welcoming for everyone (including himself) has at times expressed itself in his wearing a skirt to shul. Read why.

In 2024 he released his critically acclaimed book, Shechinah at the Art Institute: Words, Worry, Wonder.You can reach Reb Irwin by email or by calling the Ner Shalom office at (707) 664-8622.

more spiritual leadership at ner shalom

* SUZANNE SHANBAUM, Lead Musician
* SHERIDAN GOLD, Lead Musician
* SHOSHANA FERSHTMAN, Service Leader
* LEIAH BOWDEN, Service Leader
* LORENZO VALENSI, Liturgical Composer
* ATZILAH SOLOT, Chant Leader
* SALLY CHURGEL, Poet and Service Leader
* JUDITH GOLEMAN, Rabbinic Pastor
* RINAT ABASTADO, Service Leader

Suzanne Shanbaum is an accomplished musician and guitarist who collaborates with Reb Irwin and Sheridan Gold to create and perform the beautiful, music that has become a hallmark of our services. A Berklee College of Music graduate and one of the founders of the early Women’s Music Movement, she has recorded two albums, toured with the Berkeley Women’s Music Collective, and produced albums for artists including Alix Dobkin, local drummer Debbie Fier, Nancy Vogl, and Linda Hirschhorn.

Suzanne served two terms as president of Ner Shalom, focusing on preserving our historic building both physically and culturally. During the Covid pandemic Suzanne kept the music alive by working with Reb Irwin to produce songs performed by Ner Shalom’s musicians and singers. Many of those songs can be heard on our SoundCloud channel.

As Technical Director, Suzanne researched, designed, and assembled high end audio equipment, delivering high quality music to our congregation near and far. Music is at the heart of Ner Shalom, and she brings her whole heart to our music, her personal form of prayer.

Listen here

Sheridan Gold is a lead musician in the Good Shabbos Band, playing flutes, drum, and the handpan, and often singing rich harmony.  Since her Bat Mitzvah in 2020, she has expanded her spiritual leadership to helping others learn the music for their own B’nai Mitzvah, participating in leading Shabbat services and facilitating spiritual awareness activities. Sheridan finds joy in awakening a higher state of beingness in herself and helping others do so through the music at Ner Shalom. She says, “Music is my passion, but playing Jewish music is my prayer."

Sheridan has BA in Music Education and a Masters in Special Education.

Shoshana Fershtman, PhD, is a psychologist and Jungian analyst in private practice in Santa Rosa. She has spent many years studying the Jewish mystical tradition and the re-emergence of the Sacred Feminine in Judaism. Her book, Jungian Perspectives on the Mystical Exodus: Transforming Trauma and the Wellspring of Renewal, was published in 2021. Read more about Shoshana's work at Four Worlds Therapy.

Leiah Rubin Bowden is an ecstatic servant of the divine and a lifelong searcher for pathways into the numinous. She has studied with Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Pir Valayat Khan, and other teachers in various realms of light. She established her spiritual mentoring and mirroring practice, Lightspeak Transformational Arts, to help people open to their birthright of wonder, self-approval and their own radiance.  She believes that love is a communicable ease and that there is no time out: everything counts. Leiah appreciates the strong Jewish education she received in a Reform temple, but never really felt at home in Judaism until she found Ner Shalom. She is thrilled and profoundly grateful that Ner Shalom welcomes the music, poetry, and inspiration that pour through her. During our COVID-time zoomed services, she found poetry pouring through her in the Amidah portion of each service for two years, and published them as Amidah in the Pandemic: Received Blessings.

Atzilah Solot served for a dozen years as Ner Shalom’s resident Chant Leader. Since her relocation to Tucson in 2020, she will continue to host periodic Zoom offerings for Ner Shalom.

Atzilah is a chanter, composer, performance artist, painter and master teacher in body-mind movement arts. She is dedicated to gently and playfully guiding others into their bodies to cultivate deep presence, creativity, satisfaction and joy. She was a student of Rabbi Shefa Gold and is a graduate of the Kol Zimrah chantleading program. Hear Atzilah’s chant “Gifts of the Heart” by clicking here, or her “New Year’s Niggun” by clicking here.

Sally Churgel is a lead player in Ner Shalom’s Poets’ Guild, a past president of the congregation, and our leader for Yom Kippur yizkor. She founded Call to Joy for those who yearn to live life fully and in a continuum of joy as the base note rather than a rare and random experience. Sally’s toolbox for teaching others how to access joy moments when in overwhelm, stress and imbalance includes: 20 years as a certified teacher of Integrated Awareness® (energy/body work); advanced classes in Internal Family Systems, Emotional Brain Training, Positive Neuropsychology, as well as Heartmath, Soul Collage creation, art therapy, numerous Jewish meditation retreats and the wisdom of cats and trees.

Rabbinic Pastor Judith Goleman, MFT, is a "sometimes" leader of services at Ner Shalom and at several other synagogues.  She performs wedding, funerals, private bar and bat mitzvahs, and baby namings for Jewish people who are not affiliated with a synagogue; she performs life cycle rituals for people who may be intermarried, Buddhist, LGBT, spiritual but not religious, not spiritual, or simply not affiliated with a synagogue. Designing rituals which reflect  the people involved is a specialization of hers. Her ordination as a Rabbinic Pastor comes through the Jewish Renewal Movement - the Aleph Rabbinic Pastor Program founded by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

As a marriage and family therapist, Reb Judith has a private practice in downtown Sebastopol. Her interest in Kabbalistic/Hasidic concepts, such as the sparks of holiness that are said to be our deepest nature, imbues her with an optimistic relationship to the processes of healing in psychotherapy. She is currently doing some writing about why American Jews sometimes are not aware of the spiritual depth in Judaism - "it's similar to the grounded spiritual optimism of Buddhism, but with better deli."

She is very happy to be connected with the vibrant, creative, spiritual aliveness she finds at Ner Shalom.

Rinat Abastado came to Ner Shalom for her sons' b’nei mitzvah and fell in love with this community. Rinat brings to Ner Shalom her love of Torah study and Torah chanting, her interest piyyutim (Medieval prayer-poems) using Mizraḥi melodies, and her native speaker’s knowledge of Hebrew. Rinat offers monthly Torah study on Shabbat morning at Ner Shalom.