Our story
Openlev is not just a community—
it’s a sanctuary for the modern soul.
Welcome to the Openlev life
Openlev gatherings nourish the soul and grow the self. In a world that’s disconnected and lost in the noise of daily life, many of us yearn for meaning, purpose, and connection. Within this, Jewish identity often feels distant from the rhythms of everyday life.
We started Openlev as a way of bringing people together—in song, movement, and meaning—to live our values and connect with each other. Each event—from intentional coworking to weekly meditations to soul-stirring music—guides you closer to living your most embodied life.
—
Benjamin Richman,
Openlev Founder
This is Your Home
Openlev is a place of learning and connection. As Community Director, I’ve had the honor of watching our community grow. Our events have opened me up to aspects of Judaism I never experienced in synagogue. Openlev feels a lot like a tree, one with roots in Jewish wisdom, that blossoms and infuses spirituality, meaning, and aliveness into everyday moments. I love that Openlev is open to all and is breaking the mold by giving traditions a modern, energetic twist.
—
Alexandra Klausner,
Openlev Community Director
Our Values
Inspired by the Jewish mystical tradition, teaching us that we live simultaneously in four worlds: Essence, Intellect, Design, and Action.
Honor
Each
Spirit
We celebrate the uniqueness and brilliance within each of us.
Students
and
Teachers
We stay open to new wisdom, shared discovery, and a lifelong commitment to growth.
Open
Heart
We shape ourselves and our relationships through kindness, compassion, and generosity.
Embodied
Purpose
We bring our ideas into the world and live our values with intention.
Meet the Collective
Openlev partners with tastemakers, leaders, and creatives re-imagining Jewish life.
Rav Jericho
Rav is the founding rabbi of Temple of the Stranger, a growing Ivri community in Brooklyn. A frequent guest lecturer in communities across the country, they serve as an advisor to both Beit Kohenet and The Shalom Center. They are a Wexner Fellow, a member of B’not Esh and the Schusterman ROI Community, and a recent fellow at Atra: The Center for Rabbinic Innovation. Their work has been recognized by the Forward 50.
Raised in a rabbinic ultra-Orthodox family, Rav Jericho is a first-generation college graduate. They hold a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University, where they were a Pforzheimer Fellow, and received rabbinic ordination from the Aleph Ordination Program in the lineage of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. They teach Torah on Instagram @thealef.
Noah Aronson
Noah is a Brooklyn-based recording artist, composer, and performer, Noah Aronson is widely recognized as one of the top touring Jewish performers in the United States. With twenty years of experience, Noah tours worldwide with his band and as a solo act, creating engaging music events that blend wellness, spirituality, and creativity. His immense musicality combined with his lighthearted yet deeply intentional approach inspires audiences time and time again.
Zvika Krieger
Zvika is the Spiritual Leader of Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley, CA. He formerly served as Facebook/Meta's first-ever Director of Responsible Innovation, created and led the World Economic Forum's Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and served as the US Department of State's first-ever "Ambassador to Silicon Valley." He has taught courses on design and social impact at Stanford, UC Berkeley, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Zvika has served in board and leadership positions for Milk+Honey camp at Burning Man, Jewish Studio Project, and other organizations dedicated to nourishing the mind, body, and soul. He is ordained by the Aleph Ordination Program in the lineage of Reb Zalman Schachter Shalomi.
Shira Abramowitz
Shira stewards Or HaLev's new Brooklyn Hub, a local community of wisdom and practice for Jewish mindfulness and meditation. Formerly the director of programming at Summit Series and founder of its nonprofit arm, Summit Impact, Shira follows the thread of how we learn in unconventional communal settings. She studied social neuroscience and adult learning in the Harvard Mind, Brain, and Education master's program and has completed teacher training with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and Or HaLev. As co-founder and producer at Up & Up Creative, she designs events and programs that increase our capacity for complexity and compassion, honesty and action.
Lawrence Dreyfuss
Lawrence is a movement facilitator, ritualist, and ecstatic dance DJ devoted to awakening the body as a sacred site of Jewish memory, meaning, and joy. He is the founder of The Jewish Embodiment Lab, an ecstatic dance and somatics community in New York City grounded in Jewish mysticism. A 500+ hour certified yoga teacher, Lawrence weaves somatics, storytelling, and ancestral wisdom into spaces of collective transformation. He teaches regularly at Othership, leads seasonal retreats, and is passionate about renewing seasonal rhythms through embodied practice.
Noah Appel
Noah is a percussionist and handpan artist with training in jazz, afro-cuban, and West African drumming. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, Noah has spent his time as a musician touring around the world with a rock band, forming his own funk/hip-hop group, accompanying DJs around the world on djembe, and expanding into the world of immersive sound-producing, sound-designing, and multi-instrumental live-looping. Noah currently lives in Brooklyn, drumming for dance events such as Daybreaker, The Get Down, and Ecstatic Dance, recording with artists such as Grammy Award-winner Arooj Aftab, and spending his time composing and producing live handpan looping arrangements for sound journeys and meditations
Elian Zach
Elian is the founder of WOOM CENTER, New York's first multi-sensory yoga and meditation studio, based primarily on the therapeutic and psychedelic properties of sound vibration. She received her formal training in sound therapy under the guidance of world-renowned sound researcher, practitioner and ethnomusicologist, Alexandre Tannous.
An advanced, E-RYT yoga teacher, Elian completed her movement and breathwork trainings and continuing education in New York with a variety of master teachers from different yogic disciplines, including Nevine Michaan of Katonah Yoga, Colleen Saidman and Rodney Yee of Yoga Shanti, Leslie Kaminoff, Ramanand Patel, Francesca Bove, Sam Chase and Kevin Gardiner.
These days, Elian is focused primarily on being the voice, guide and mystic behind Lila Journey, an electro-acoustic voyage through extraordinary states of consciousness, which she co-creates all over the country and the world with masterful musician, Noah Katz-Appel.
Elian delights in melding all of her passions into transformative practices that invite a holistic participation of our fullness; physical body, philosophical mind, emotional landscape, sense of humor, creative expression, and spiritual essence.
