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- Tell us more about Honeymoon Israel and your role there: In a nutshell, my job at HMI is to support young couples in asking questions about the role, if any, that Judaism plays in their lives. We do this by immersing cohorts of 20 couples each, all from the same city, in a 10-day trip to Israel where they are exposed to a sensory-overload of Jewish thought, time, place, and people. Then we take them home and support their Jewish journeys for years, connecting them to amazing community, learning, and lifecycle support. Most of our couples identify themselves as very Jewishly unconfident/unknowledgeable, so HMI is a huge risk for them. By treating them with profound respect and cultural competence (70% of our couples are interfaith, lots of folks are POC, LGBTQ, etc.), we work to widen the entire Jewish community tent. Additionally, I create all of the educational content for HMI!
- What drew you to this curriculum development role? My academic background is in clinical social work and gender studies, and my professional background is in experiential Jewish education with young people. Literally, you could not design a more compelling job for me than developing Seven Circles! I knew I'd be able to wear all my favorite hats, and I loved the entrepreneurial aspect of getting to build something from scratch.
- How were you inspired to create this curriculum? Honestly, I built a lot of this from personal experiences in my own marriage. I thought about what would have been useful to my partner and me as we were deepening our commitment to each other in the early days, figuring out how to establish healthy patterns to last a lifetime. I know it had to be fun and experiential, and I knew there had to be an emphasis on lifting up couples' own voices, helping them to speak to each other rather than being spoken to by some sort of authority. I wanted it to be a romantic, flirty, date night sort of atmosphere that felt nourishing and bonding.
- What is important for the audience to know about Seven Circles from you, the curriculum developer? You don't have to do everything we tell you to do! For real, use the prompts and suggestions as jumping off points to get close to your partner. We built it all really thoughtfully, so if you do follow it exactly, you'll get a lot out of it. But if you end up spending way more time on a prompt than what we recommend, great! If you'd rather talk aloud than journal, great! As long as you are connecting and communicating, you are doing it right
- Why is this an important and unique opportunity for couples? I feel like we all know what it feels like when our relationships go through healthy and unhealthy periods, but most of us aren't socialized with useful language to actually articulate and describe our needs, desires, fears, and goals. Seven Circles gives couples a shared language from which to operate, setting them up for a really sweet life together. When you can communicate, you can grow. When you take the time to establish norms like gratitude and "healthy conflict," you get deep, soulful partnership. Seven Circles is like a way to supercharge your relationship in the earliest days, so that you can bring your fullest, most authentic selves to it as you grow together.
- What do you think is missing in Jewish programming for relationships? More accessibility. More cultural competence. More respect for folks exactly as they are. More recognition of the value that diversity brings into our communities!
- What do you do for fun? I love hiking with my dog, Marvin, and cooking elaborate meals for my partner and friends. Also, I got into embroidery early on in the pandemic and it really takes the edge off ;)
