Student Rabbi designing pop-ups to encounter Jewish wisdom through storytelling, cocktails, and connective conversation.
I'm a first-year rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, coming to this work by way of a BA in Anthropology and an MA in Photojournalism before an MA in Jewish Studies pulled me toward the rabbinate. With two other RRC students, I co-founded Makom Midrash, a storytelling and gathering pilot built on the belief that Jewish wisdom for our lives is carried in stories, and that craft cocktails and mocktails can transmit those stories and their wisdom in a container of connective conversations. We ran our first pop-up this past August and are using a small grant to pilot more gatherings this fall.
I'm only starting to work out some questions inside this project: how a cocktail actually carries a story rather than just accompanying it, what midrash is doing when the room is full of personal story instead of only text, and what financial models could carry this project forward.
I'd love to connect with other innovators who have piloted something similar, especially around ritual, food/drink, or hospitality design, and I'm looking for funding or collaborators to help this grow past a single fall season.
