ABOUT
I serve as lay-leader at HAMAKOM in West Hills, California, a modern, egalitarian Jewish congregation that arose following the merger of Shomrei Torah Synagogue and Temple Aliyah in 2023. My life-long quest for spiritual meaning has led me to become a contemplative practitioner, a student of perennial wisdom traditions, and a teacher. I host the Cinema Journey Film Series, teach Wisdom Journey and Wise Aging courses, and co-lead Contemplative Circles at HAMAKOM, and I lead a monthly Contemplative Circle at the Fairwinds Assisted Living Community in West Hills, CA. I hold Certifications in Wise Aging Instruction and in Mindfulness Practices from the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. I identify as white, Jewish, queer and feminist (she/her pronouns).
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Contact me to teach one of my courses to your group or organization, or for a consultation about designing a curriculum customized for your adult learners. I am also available to offer one or more teachings to your study group, Chavurah or Va'ad.
Spiritual Practice
I am a Jewish contemplative practitioner, a student of mysticism, a seeker of wisdom, and a teacher of inner transformation. I draw deeply from the wellsprings of interspirituality, in that I take an interfaith approach to spirituality and religious exploration. I believe that the universal truths of love, compassion, mindfulness and inner transformation underlie all of the world's major spiritual and religious traditions, and that it is those truths that connect us and enable us to transcend our individual, small ego self and grow more fully into our authentic, spacious Higher Self.
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While I teach from within a Jewish frame of reference, everything that I practice and teach is shaped by the perspective of the Wisdom Tradition. Sometimes known as The Perennial Philosophy or Sophia Perennis, the Wisdom Tradition is a philosophy that has been taught throughout all ages and all cultures and is at the headwaters of all of the world’s great religious traditions. Consequently, I draw from Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Shintoism, Sikhism, the spiritual practices of Indigenous peoples, folk tales, mythology, mysticism, movies, music, opera, literature and art to create the curriculums for my classes and circles.
At the foundation of the Wisdom Tradition is the concern for the transformation of the whole human being from egocentricity into love and compassion, from a judgmental and dualistic worldview into one of nondual acceptance, and from a false perception of separateness into the realization of one’s inner divine spark, or Higher Self, which leads to the understanding that the divinity within ourselves is one and the same in all people, all creatures, and all life. The goal of my teaching and practice is to help us free ourselves to move beyond our egos and into a journey towards deeper relationship with our own souls and with each other, our communities, our planet, and God (however we understand God).
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Movies
I LOVE MOVIES!! To me, they are the ultimate expressive art form of our time, offering a profoundly powerful way to see and understand the underlying truths of our world. I find teaching through movies to be one of the most exciting ways I have for helping adult learners to gain insight along the path of inner transformation. Movies engage all our senses at once through light, color, motion, music and dialog. They sweep us up into the flow of myth and storytelling by connecting us with archetypes, images and symbols. They engage our emotions and our subconscious, which enables us to viscerally access deep knowledge and wisdom.
I host the Cinema Journey film series, and I curate and host Movie Night Film Conversations on request. Contact me for a consultation about a Movie Night Film Conversation for your group or organization.
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READ MORE about my filmmaking adventures
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Music
I was a freelance professional orchestral musician from 1972 until 1994, playing oboe and English horn with Boston's premiere orchestras including the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Ballet. From 1981 to 1983, I served as Co-Principal Oboist with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra of Tokyo. I was Principal Oboist with the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra in Manchester, New Hampshire from 1985-1987. I played English horn on John Williams' soundtrack for the 1993 film "Schindler's List", which was recorded with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, John Williams, conductor.
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Listen to my 1986 performance of the Vaughn-Williams Oboe Concerto with the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra
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Listen to my 1982 performance of the Biscogli Trio Concerto with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra of Tokyo
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​READ MORE about my musical life
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Urban Planning
As an urban planner from 1990 until 2022, I served as Strategic Planning Manager for the Boston Public Schools, and as Chief Enrollment Analysis Coordinator and Deputy Director for the Los Angeles Unified School District's Master Planning and Demographics Unit. I specialized in K-12 public school operations, developing web-based supply and demand capital master planning applications for school administrators, and logical computational flow models for making enrollment projections, facility capacity assessments and school choice simulations.
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Volunteering
From 1982-1984, I served as a volunteer counselor at the Elizabeth Stone House in Boston, MA, which was a residential shelter for women in transition, and is now a domestic violence shelter. I provided counseling and direct service to residents and participated in peer-to-peer discussion groups.
From 1984-1995, I volunteered at the Parental Stress Line (PSL) in Boston, MA, a confidential, state-wide child-abuse prevention telephone counseling hotline helping parents under stress. I served as a telephone counselor, volunteer trainer, supervisor, trainer of trainers and Co-Director. I also managed operations, developed an updated volunteer training manual, and coordinated a fundraising project. During my 11-year tenure with the PSL, I trained over 120 telephone counselors, 20 trainers, and 4 trainers-of-trainers, and I served on the Advisory Board and Speakers’ Bureau. I was named to the Telephone Counselors' Honor Roll in 1987.
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Speaking & Writing
I am always happy to talk about the spiritual topics I care about. I have given many congregational drashot (Torah portion commentaries) and I have lectured on Mussar-related topics (cultivation of spiritual qualities) for the Ramban Society. I am particularly interested in talking about the intersection of spiritual growth and movies.
Contact me to speak at workshops, on podcasts, for interviews, for film events, or to lead guided meditations.
GENEALOGY RESEARCH
In the 1980s, when I first started investigating my family history, I didn't even know my paternal family's original surname. Now I do: it's Jedwabinski, and I also know where my paternal ancestors came from: they came from Szczuczyn, Poland.
Genealogy research has become a great passion of mine. My family tree now has over 16,000 people, and in the course of my research I have met dozens of cousins, many of whom I have collaborated with to find clues and solve mysteries about our hidden common ancestors. If you are a Jedwabinski, Januszewski, Kuciwicki, Klinkowsztejn, Tyszko, Kurland, Westphal or Ihnken descendant, we might be cousins. Contact Me!
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I love discussing genealogy and sharing my research with other ancestry enthusiasts so much that, on August 25, 2019, I gave a presentation on my great-uncle Szmul Jedwabinski, a bigamist leading a double life in New York and Chicago, to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles. Watch the video of my JGSLA presentation "The Double Life of Szmul Jedwabinski" HERE.
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