Rachel Barenblat

Rachel Barenblat, the "Velveteen Rabbi," is an American poet and blogger who was ordained as a rabbi in 2011 and as a spiritual director in 2012. In 2013 she was named a Rabbis Without Borders fellow by Clal, the Center for Learning and Leadership, and in 2015 was named co-chair of ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal along with Rabbi David Markus.

Born in San Antonio, Texas in 1975 to Marvin and Liana Barenblat, Rachel moved to New England in 1992 to attend Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She holds a BA in religion from Williams and a Masters of Fine Arts in writing and literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars, as well as rabbinic ordination from ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal and a secondary ordination as a mashpi'ah, also from ALEPH.

In 2000 Barenblat co-founded Inkberry, a literary arts non-profit organization, with Sandy Ryan and Emily Banner. From 1999-2002 she was a contributing editor at Pif Magazine and for several years in the early 2000s served as contributing editor at Zeek magazine, a Jewish journal of thought and culture. From 2009-2011 she served on the board of directors of the Organization for Transformative Works. As of 2014 she serves on the board of directors of ALEPH, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal.

Barenblat is author of three book-length collections of poetry: 70 faces: Torah poems (Phoenicia Publishing, 2011), Waiting to Unfold (Phoenicia, 2013), and the forthcoming Open My Lips (Ben Yehuda Press, 2015), as well as a variety of liturgical works, most notably her haggadah for Pesach and her machzor (prayerbook) for the Days of Awe.

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