Immersion 5783 Cohort

Lex (she/they) is a white jewish researcher/organizer/friend/lover/cat person/virgo living in Detroit on Anishinaabe lands. They love spending time dancing, eating, cooking, hiking, workshopping new life philosophies, ritualizing, reading, holding babies, and laughing. Lex finds meaning through spiritual and political growth, connection, and joy, and is honored and excited to grow and enrich their community through the Taproot Immersion.

Alison Carmel (she/her) is a queer activist, writer, artist and social entrepreneur. Born and raised in Turtle Island, she made aliyah to Palestine (Israel) in her 20s under the influence of zionism. After witnessing Israeli apartheid and occupation, her political views radically changed and she decided to dedicate a decade of her life to living and working with Palestinian activists, journalists, artists, social entrepreneurs and mental health professionals. This included supporting the establishment of Grassroots Al-Quds and 7amleh, and developing human rights projects with World Vision, Oxfam and Meta.

Ari is a white, Ashkenazi, queer Jewish woman committed to building a world of connection, mutual care, and interdependence by way of transformative justice and healing. She lives on Nipmuc and Pocumtuc lands known as western Massachusetts, where she is surrounded by beloveds, forests, and an incredible local food system. Ari currently works for an organization that builds immigrant worker power and has experience as a farm worker and as an advocate for survivors of interpersonal violence. Her deepest commitments include Jewish ancestral healing and integrating Jewish liberation into movement spaces.

Ariel is a Unitarian Universalist minister rooted deeply in their Jewish heritage and spiritual practices. With over a decade of experience in food systems and agriculture, Ariel's spirit is nurtured in the materiality of soil and body, the experience of sun and water on flesh, the pleasures of eating, and the opportunities for co-creation with other humans, species, landscapes, and the divine. Ariel seeks out visions of radical queer thriving, and works with existing institutions to transform structures to better serve accountability and liberation.

Jessie (she/her) is a ceremonialist who encourages others to cultivate deeper relationships with themselves and the Earth through Jewish rituals, connecting with the elements, plants, and trees, learning to listen, and tending to the body. She is the founder of "Bendichas Manos" (“blessed hands” in Ladino), a ceremonial cacao company, and the Director of Community for School of Living Jewishly, a virtual learning platform and community focused on lifelong Jewish learning. She is passionate about living life as the greatest ceremony of all, connecting with both her Sephardic and Ashkenazi ancestors, and expressing her prayer through music and dance. Born and raised on Ramapough Lenape land in Northern New Jersey, she calls Tongva/Chumash land home (Los Angeles) and is privileged to be weaving threads of community globally.

Joanna (she/they) is an artist, ritualist, facilitator, social worker; ashkenazi + anti-zionist Jewitch; student + champion of curiosity, courage, and awe; punk singer. Her work is expressed through Feral Queen Apothecary - a home for an emergent batch of earth/body-based healing practices centered in connective magic, mischief, and liberatory self-expression. She lives on the ancestral lands of the Yuchi, Shawnee, and Eastern Band of Cherokee Peoples in so-called Tennessee, with her sister-cat Calendula.

LB (they/ze) is a white, nonbinary, disabled Ashkenazi who is passionate about the power of humor, exploratory conversations about embodied aliveness, and uprooting the white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy (and planting calendula in its place). LB grew up in the mountains, talking mostly to themselves and the soil. They are a lover of critters, wild plant friends, portmanteaus, and the sound of tall pines stretching in the wind. LB’s journey calls them backwards and forwards in the spiral, pulled to tending the lineages of blood, place, and movement through embodied trauma healing with self and others. They feel incredibly blessed to join the Taproot community to deepen their liberation work in Jewish ways while strengthening their connection to ancestral ritual, song, and wisdom.

Miles Meth (they/them) is a queer Jewish organizer, facilitator and writer who volunteers with social movements for immigration justice and works as a professional union organizer.

Swirling through the world on two feet, two hands, or some other configuration of her limbs, molly can be found smelling some flowers or bark, humming a little diddy to herself or with a group of young people, or tending relational threads through reflection, study, and interpersonal action. molly is a reverent settler of the Sonoran Desert constantly bringing in more compassion and untangling the "deep claws" of white supremacy.

Susan Gershwin is all about community and relationship-building. From Colorado's Front Range, she is has been an adult educator and community organizer for more than 20 years. She loves hosting dinner gatherings, taking bubble baths, backpacking along rivers, and baking cakes, babakas, and other treats. She is thrilled to be a part of this Taproot Immersion cohort.

Theo is an educator living in Rhode Island with deep roots in Northern California. They currently work as a high school history teacher and are blessed to spend so much time with incredible young people, working to help them connect to their values, communities, and histories. Theo loves to dance salsa, cook, and tend to their relationships.

Valeriya was born in Ukraine and raised in a white working-class family in the Midwest. She is an overambitious rock climber, vegetable & flower grower, and hard-core home cook who has organized for wealth redistribution, fossil fuel divestment, faith-based cultural work, and legislative change.

West Kaufman connects youth with food through sustainable agriculture skills, food justice studies, and tending to moments of awe. They are a white settler of Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, living and working on Kalapuya homelands. West hopes to contribute to the construction of a future where all people have their needs met, where thriving networks of kinship grow abundantly, and where harmful hegemonies are necessarily composted.