neySHEV means "let's sit."
neySHEV was founded by artist and educator Aviva Chernick as an intentional community that gathers weekly, and for intensive retreats, to practice mindfulness through guided and silent meditation, movement, and song.
neySHEV is an embodied practice guided by the heart-based wisdom of Torah. Practice involves nurturing awareness of what is unfolding in the present moment, awakening to arising thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and witnessing how they live in our bodies. We do this with the essential companions of compassion, curiosity, and lovingkindness.
Kavanot / Intentions
Teachers
Photo by Dahlia Katz
Aviva Chernick
neySHEV was founded in 2016 by Aviva Chernick. Aviva is a queer Jewish artist, a white settler living in Tkaronto (Toronto). Aviva brings the artistry of voice, story and movement to each and every offering. For the past fifteen years, alongside an active performing and touring career, Aviva has led and taught about the voice in prayer and contemplative practice across North America and beyond. She has cultivated her teaching skills with participation in three teacher training programs; voice, yoga and meditation. Aviva teaches an online course for the Institute of Jewish Spirituality on Liberating the Voice / niggun (wordless melody) as prayer and is the inaugural Artist in Residence with Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto (2019 – present).
Guest Teachers
Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell
Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell is the Director of Camp Ramah in Canada. Previously, he worked for the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS) as a teacher of Jewish Mindfulness and as Program Director of the Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training. For the IJS, Jordan also taught meditation to rabbis and cantors through the IJS's Clergy Leadership Program. After being ordained in 2008, he served as a congregational rabbi outside of Chicago and co-founded Orot: Center for New Jewish Learning. Jordan is a recipient of the 2014 Covenant Foundation Pomegranate Prize. He and his wife Yael live in Toronto and are the proud parents of three.
Risa Alyson Cooper
Risa Alyson Cooper is an ardent educator, environmentalist, and urban homesteader. She completed her B.A. Honours at Queen’s University in Comparative Religious Studies, and her M.A. at the University of Toronto, focusing on Contemporary Jewish Environmental Ethics. Upon graduating, Risa moved to rural Connecticut where she worked as a Jewish environmental educator at the Teva Learning Centre for three years. She then transitioned into small-scale organic farming as a member of the Adamah Jewish Farming Fellowship. In 2008, Risa returned to her native Toronto to work as the Founding Director of Shoresh, bringing together her experience in Jewish outdoor education with her love for Canadian soil and the plants and people that it sustains. She is the Executive Director of Shoresh, and is happiest when frolicking in fields and forests.
Koach Baruch Frazier
Koach Baruch (KB) Frazier is a transformer, heartbeat of movements, healer, musician and cofounder of the Tzedek Lab, a network of practitioners working at the intersection of dismantling racism, antisemitism and white supremacy. A collaborative leader, rooted in tradition, curiosity and love, Koach strives to dismantle racism, actualize liberation and transform lives both sonically and spiritually. Koach lives with their wife, LaJuana in Philadelphia where he is a student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
Sheniz Janmohamed
Sheniz is a poet, artist, educator, spoken word artist and nature artist; a firm believer in fostering community through collaboration and creativity. Offering spoken word, creative writing, professional development and land art workshops, Sheniz is a recipient of the Lois Birkenshaw-Fleming Creative Teaching Scholarship, and holds an Artist Educator Mentor certificate from the Royal Conservatory (Toronto). She has performed her work in venues across the world and her ephemeral land art has been exhibited at the Aga Khan Park, Confluence Concerts and the Indian Summer Festival. She has three collections of poetry, published by Mawenzi House: Bleeding Light (2010), Firesmoke (2014) and most recently, Reminders on the Path (2021).
Ari Kaplan
Ari Kaplan is a lawyer, mediator and president of Makom: Creative Downtown Judaism in Toronto. He is an instructor-in-training with the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program at UC Berkeley led by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. He has practiced mindfulness for over a decade, is trained in MBSR, and has taught meditation sessions for the Ontario Bar Association and professional communities. Ari has a masters degree in law from Osgoode Hall and a B.A. in Jewish Studies from McGill University where he studied hasidism. Ari is an original participant in Aviva Chernick’s neySHEV meditation circle.
Rabbi Miriam Margles
Miriam has been serving as the Rabbi of Toronto's Danforth Jewish Circle since 2010, an unaffiliated, progressive, inclusive, song-filled community. She has been teaching with the Institute of Jewish Spirituality since 2005 and is a member of the inaugural faculty of Romemu Yeshiva in New York, a program of intensive spiritual study and practice integrating rigorous text study, deep prayer, and Jewish mindfulness-based practices. Her original compositions of music for prayer are sung by communities throughout North American, Israel and Europe. She is also the co-founder of Encounter, dedicated to strengthening the Jewish people to be constructive agents of change in transforming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Rabbi Dorothy Richman
Dorothy Richman serves as the rabbi of Makor Or: Jewish Meditation Center and is a founding faculty member of the Romemu Yeshiva. She released an album of original songs, Something of Mine, largely based on texts from the Jewish tradition, available on BandCamp.
Geoff Siskind
For more than two decades Geoff has worked as a producer, writer and director on television shows, radio and podcasts that have been seen and heard around the world. He is also the co-founder of the creativity community The Creativity Guild. Sparked by his interest in meditation and creativity, Geoff’s teaching taps into a sense of wonder and playfulness that lives within us all.
Andi Yumansky
Andi Yumansky works as a registered psychotherapist in Toronto and holds a Masters of Pastoral Studies from the University of Toronto. Andi works primarily with the LGBTQ community, facilitating both individual and group therapy. Their practice is rooted in somatic and relational approaches which aim to open the heart and uncover the truth of being. Andi has been an avid meditation practitioner for the past decade or so, with a deep love and curiosity for the spiritual path and the mystery of life.
From its inception, neySHEV has been generously supported by Rabbi Aaron Levy and Makom: Creative Downtown Judaism. Through hosting our initial sits at the Makom space in downtown Toronto to providing outreach to help us grow to sponsoring our programming during the first months of neySHEV online, and now through hosting our zoom space, Makom’s presence and partnering in this community has been integral to its thriving. We continue to be grateful for this nurturing relationship.
