Avigayil Halpern, Cooperberg-Rittmaster Pastoral and Educational Intern

Avigayil Halpern (she/her) is entering her final year of study toward rabbinic ordination as a member of Hadar's Advanced Kollel. She has taught Torah in spaces including the Drisha Institute, Hunter Hillel and Brandeis Hillel, and the Kreuzberg Kollel (now Ze Kollel), and is trained as a Mikveh Guide through Rising Tide, the national network of community mikvaot. Avigayil holds a BA in Judaic Studies from Yale University, where she completed a senior thesis exploring Talmudic narratives of women engaged in Torah discourse and the implications of such stories for feminists committed to the study of Talmud today. She has written on issues of Judaism and gender in Jewish and other media and maintains a newsletter project, Approaching (avigayil.substack.com), which incorporates queer and feminist insights into commentary on the weekly parsha.