Kehillah North London
Leah (she/they) is the Progressive Student Chaplain for university students and Rabbi of Kehillah North London in Stoke Newington.
She received semicha from the Leo Baeck College in London and has lived and worked for over a decade in Britain. Leah is co-coordinator of Azara–Opening the Beit Midrash (www.azara.org.uk), a new initiative creating Jewish text learning for everyone in the UK, and they are a current and founding member of Na’amod: British Jews Against Occupation (@NaamodUK), a movement of British Jews dedicated to ending our community’s support for the Occupation.
Leah has spent three years of their adult life in Jerusalem, learning Torah and on-the-ground organising, as a Fellow at both the Conservative Yeshiva and the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, as well as doing a yearlong Fellowship at Yeshivat Hadar in New York City and studying in SVARA’s yearlong Pedagogy Chabura.
Leah also holds an MA in Jewish Studies from King’s College London, and a BA in English Literature from the University of Kansas, with concentrations in Modern European History and French language studies at the Alliance Française in Paris.
Leah is from a ‘country,’ as Bob Dylan wrote, ‘called the Midwest.’ They especially love teaching Torah & Jewish text study, youth work, building community, and organising for change. They also love travel & the universe, both this actual one, as well as fictional universes and stories. They live in London with their partner, Benji Stanley, also a rabbi.
