ABOUT Rebekah Erev
photograph by Carter murdoch
I am an artist, a teacher, a somatic practitioner and a kohenet, Hebrew priestexx. I am also a feminist, queer, disabled dream worker, community herbalist and activist. In my work I collaborate with unseen and seen beings to make art and ritual with the intention to collaborate with benevolent beings to heal earth and support humans in experiencing their inherent belonging. I offer classes and workshops to help people manifest their most true expressions : to live an embodied life, listening to the wisdom in their bones and spirit. I make objects and create public ritual as performance / ceremony.
My work invokes the scholarship of re-remembering as relevant, immediate and decolonial in it’s nature. I practice and teach a Judaism steeped in the old ways, ancestral and earth reverence. I’m inspired and guided by Indigenous self-determination, Palestinian liberation, Abolition, Disability Justice and Black liberation movements. My work is in service to a time when the hum of bees rule the land and those who have historically been most oppressed, guide our collective healing rites and the creative manifestations of our ancestors dreams.
I’m currently co-creating a global community, advocacy tool and art practice: Queer Mikveh Project with Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt and Kyle Rocco East. We are using the Jewish water ritual of mikveh as a tool for collective healing and following the lead of Indigenous peoples in their work for LandBack. Previously I collaborated on a project visioning olam haBa (Jewish concept of the world to come) called Dreaming the World to Come with Nomy Lamm and many other contributors. I am the creator of the Moon Angels / Malakh Halevanah Oracle Deck and the forthcoming Golden Oracle.
I create home with my partner, beloved animal companions and a magical garden. I am honored to live on the occupied lands of the Squaxin by the Salish Sea known colonially as Olympia, WA and traditionally the village of Steh-chass.
Education and Training:
Somatics trainings: Personal somatic coaching work beginning in 2014 with Liuhoimon; Leadership 1, Strozzi Institute; The Power of Embodied Transformation: Live Online Coach Training with Coaches Rising & Strozzi Institute, Strozzi Institute Somatic Coaching Certification
Master in Teaching, The Evergreen State College & twenty + years teaching experience.
Kohenet, Hebrew priestexx ordination, Kohenet Institute
Various social justice, liberation and decolonizing trainings with Leticia Nieto, Rosa Blumenfeld-Romero & Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Co-founded two year advanced degree collective art school, DIY MFA
Bachelor of Arts, The Evergreen State College, Art & Writing
Various art intensives including: Penland School of Crafts: Bookmaking & Printmaking, Glass Art intensives and self guided study; Corning Museum of Glass; Haystack Mountain School of Crafts; Artbutus Folk School & more
I have learned about plants from many teachers (listed below) including the plants
Miscellaneous: I have attended many meditation retreats, worked with incarcerated folks as an outdoor instructor and in a restorative justice (almost year long) circle (I mention this under education because that’s how I experienced them), and attended many workshops related to energy work and spiritual development. As a nueroexpansive person I have a strong belief that learning takes many forms and most of our education as humans doesn’t take place in formal educational settings.
SUPPORT THE WORK
HOMAGE TO TEACHERS
I have many teachers and a complicated history with learning both intellectually and spiritually. My experience has led me through some strange portals. Perhaps my biggest human teacher has been my sibling, Jesse Giffen, a healer and intuitive. When we were in high school they taught me to meditate and introduced me to animal medicine. In our early twenties they began to teach me about plant and flower spirits. They continue to teach and guide me in the ways of plants and animals, listening and honing my intuition. My mother has been a Feldenkrais practictioner for most of my life and I continue to learn from her about embodiment. My father is a craftsperson and his work with music, glass, metal and wood have been a great influence on my artistic life. Both my parents are gardeners and their practices with native plants and botanical knowledge are a foundation for my love of the green world. My great aunt and uncle, Clara and Alex Petkov were huge influences on my life politically and spiritually. They were elders who truly lived spiritual ethics both in their political actions and through their daily relationships. And my grandparents, Hannah Ethel Romm and Samuel Lubarsky’s love and passion give me courage each day. My aunt Michael and aunt Esther have always been angels in my life and continue to charm and gift me as ancestors.
In my art and writing practice my biggest teachers have been Marilyn Frasca and Lynda Barry. I began my studies in 2003 with Marilyn during undergraduate as a student and teacher’s assistant. Several of my friends have had significant influence on my art practice and teach me through their work and our friendship: Indira Allegra, Nomy Lamm (my collaborator with Dreaming the World to Come), Grace Rosario Perkins (who I co-started DIY Art School with) and Orev Katz.
My first spiritual mentor was Nancy Sullivan in Olympia in 2000. I’ve learned a lot from her about energetic boundaries and space clearing. In 2001 I met Josee Perez, the mother of some of my oldest friends, Dalya Perez and Yazmeen Perez. Josee and her family introduced me to a Judaism I hadn’t experienced before, filled with food, community, chosen family and all the living rituals of their Sephardic/Mizrahi family. In 2008 I first learned with Rav Kohenet Jill Hammer. She became my formal teacher in 2009 when I began my training with Kohenet. In 2007 I also spent a summer living in a similar area to Rabbi Lynn Gottleib. Rabbi Lynn continues to be a teacher and friend. She is a living example of social justice, art and community leadership that I am blessed to have as a model of Jewish spirituality and ethics I hope to model.
I have been hanging out with plants for a while, like most of us here on the earth plane. I have been studying and making medicine for many years and studying nutrition and the medicine of food. I did a formal eight month herbal apprenticeship with Corinne Boyer in 2018/2019. I have also learned in workshop Dori Midnight. I’m grateful for the time I volunteered with Canoe Journey Herbalists and the life changing learnings from Karyn Sanders, Rhonda Grantham and Sophie Geist. Carol Trasatto of blessed memory, was the first person to teach me that lying on the earth is a treatment for dis-ease. Olivia Chumacero’s teachings have infused my life in ways I don’t have words for.
I have participated in many trainings and classes dedicated to undoing the work of white supremacy for the last twenty five years. These include anti-oppression trainings, classes, groups and projects dedicated to unlearning racism and classism. Some of my most influential teachers in this liberation work include: Leticia Nieto, Therese Saliba and Simona Sharoni.
I have been formally involved in social justice work since 1999 when I attended the WTO protests in Seattle. Since then I have been actively learning about and participating in intersectional liberation movements. I am currently active in Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Action South Sound and a mutual aid project to secure long term housing for a family affected by anti-Black police violence.
I spent nine years of my early adult life in a cult. In many ways it was abusive and harmful and the person who ran it eventually got shut down by the Health Department. It was a therapy group that functioned like a cult. (For more information on cults please see the work of Margaret Singer.) In many ways it was transformative and a spiritual initiation. Though the person who led the group was unethical in her practices, I also learned an incredible amount from her (about ethics of what not to do as well). I learned even more, from other people involved with the group. The work highly revolved around ritual and grief work both in the group and in our individual work. Many of us were influenced by the work of Joanna Macy and a few worked with her directly. This informed work we did together. It’s difficult to talk about myself as a spiritual practitioner without talking about this formative experience. So much of how I have come to my current work is through this experience. My spiritual ethics as a facilitator and practitioner have become defined through the experience of working intimately over many years, with someone who didn’t have boundaries.
My ancestors live in my bones and heart and inform my love and actions as much as the promise of coming generations. On my mothers side my people are from the Pale of Settlement, the Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Russia. On my father’s side we are from Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, France, Iceland, and Finland. We are recently discovering we also may have Sephardic ancestry. Ancestry is complicated and it’s a privilege to know anything about the people who came before you. I am a strong supporter in people claiming cultural workers, artists, mystics and everyday people who’s work has touch them, as personal ancestors. I am also a big supporter that anyone with Jewish lineage from either side of their family who wishes to, explore and claim it. Even if you don’t have “proof” your family was Jewish. I think there has been a lot of hurt in the Jewish community by people excluding those who are paternal Jews or who’s family assimilated by converting to some form of Christianity. There is a kabbalistic teaching that those who convert to Judaism are more Jewish than those who are born into it. I love this teaching because it welcomes anyone who feels called to the culture and spirituality.
ETHICAL PRODUCTION
Supporting local business and having my products made in the U.S. is extremely important to me. All of my products are printed and produced locally in the San Francisco Bay area with a collective print shop, Inkworks Press. The decks are collated and put together by hand by myself and friends.
COPYRIGHT
I am glad to know you love my visual language and enjoy the content of Rebekah Erev Studio! You’re welcome to PIN, REPOST and SHARE my images and products. When you do, please credit @rebekaherevstudio on Instagram or Rebekah Erev Studio. Please note:
All images and written content on this site are the sole property and original work of Rebekah Erev Studio. All of the material on Rebekah Erev Studio is copyrighted and protected by law, and shall not be rewritten, published, or used in any medium without proper credit with back link. Please email me (rebekah[at]rebekaherevstudio.com) for a proper permission if you are interested in using my images for commercial use / reproduction / etc. Please, always mind that it’s someone else’s hard work, ideas and lots of energies behind every image and every design detail!
