hello • سلام • אַ גוטן טאָג
I’m Eli.
I’m an artist, organizer and rabbinic student based in the midwest.
My work visits the intersections of directing & writing for live performance, grassroots organizing, and facilitating embodied Jewish ritual.
Our Talmudic sages Shimon the Righteous & Shimon ben Gamliel each declaim three things on which the world stands…
My three things are:
Rooted in study
Having grown up the child of an interfaith family, I was raised Jewish within the conservative (denominational) movement, attended K-8 Jewish Day School, and continued in Judaic studies throughout high school and college.
For the past 10 years, I’ve had the pleasure of working as an educator, ritual leader and community organizer with folks navigating their Jewish journeys. From 2021-2024, I designed and facilitated B’nai Mitzvah and adolescent programming with Mishkan Chicago. As a current student pursuing my rabbinic ordination at ALEPH: the Seminary for the Spiritual Renewal of Judaism, I continue to work independently as a shaliakh (guide) in Jewish practice for students and families all over the world.
Guided by story
In my family which spans several generations of artists and storytellers, we joke that I was “doomed” to seek a career in the arts. Live performance is my instinctual language; it’s the glue that binds everything in my life together. Within the innovation and ritual of story craft, site work and multi-arts experience are especially activating.
My toolkit consists primarily of narrative and experiential design skills. I play with these tools frequently as a director & writer, while equally relishing the story-forward approach to movement, justice and community practice.
Compelled to service
A childhood spent alongside the Mississippi River, in a state whose name derives from the Dakota mni (“water”) & sota (“sky-tinted”), personalized for me tensions between our environment and its people: from witnessing acts of regrowth, resilience and regeneration to those human destruction and exploitation. Grounded in Jewish ethos of akhdut (“oneness”) and pikuakh nefesh (the pursuit of life-saving), I earnestly dedicate the practices of art-making, organizing and ritual in recommitment to solidarity.
