For Jews from diverse backgrounds, the struggle is real when it comes to finding a place where they fit in. Help Asiyah create a spiritual home–through a community and café space–where everyone is welcome just as they are.
You’ve heard this story before. A young kid grows up with mainstream American Judaism, but does not connect with it. They gradually distance themselves from Judaism until a point in their adulthood when they start to seek out more meaningful and spiritual connections. As they search, they find many folks with a shared zeitgeist: a desire for living in community and supporting each other spiritually, physically, and emotionally. Perhaps they find it, but something is missing: something Jewish.
Sound familiar? For me, the answer is a resounding yes! I started off as a statistic that worried institutional Jews: a “Spiritual None,” turned off by mainstream American Jewish practice as I had received it. Through an unexpected turn of events (ask me about that sometime!), I found Jewish Renewal—a daring approach to Judaism as a spiritual practice—and realized not only that this Jewish thing was for me, but also that I needed to become a rabbi. I wanted to help others, as I had been helped, to connect to their spiritual yearnings, to understand that the tradition they had grown up in, and maybe even turned away from, could be incorporated into their lives in new ways—through ecstatic prayer, deep contemplation, and invigorating study in the context of a deeply caring and embracing community.
Another part of my story is that, like many Jews today, I am the product of an interfaith marriage. (A few generations of them, actually!) I see this as a strength of my upbringing and–more broadly–an opportunity for the Jewish community. I took this understanding and my experiences with non-mainstream Jewish life, and created Asiyah.
What is Asiyah?
Some of us might have lots of different communities we have fallen into—formed by school, work, or a common interest—but they might only give us space to express certain parts of ourselves. The public square often suppresses expression of deep spiritual longing or inquiry. And “religious” institutions often don’t allow the totality of who we are through the door.
Through data and conversations with people in Camberville (the Cambridge/Somerville area of Greater Boston), we saw that there was a need for a hub that provides a way of accessing Judaism and spirituality that’s not explicitly a synagogue. Asiyah is a place where everyone, no matter who their parents are or how they were raised, is warmly welcome. We daven (pray) ecstatically, sit mindfully, learn deeply, and eat deliciously.
Our mission
Asiyah’s mission is to establish a spiritual home for Jewish seekers and fellow travelers in the Cambridge/Somerville area of Massachusetts through an engaged community and a café.
The Asiyah community is an open and inclusive community of Jewish practice and experimentation, in the lineage of Jewish renewal, supporting personal growth and transformation while living the change we want to be in the world.
The Asiyah café is this community’s regular meeting space—a wisdom café, rooted in the wisdom of Jewish tradition and open to all spiritual paths, where study, art and culture, and deep inquiry come to coexist, along with ethically sourced, consciously served coffee and food.
We need your help to grow the Asiyah community and open the wisdom café
Currently, we meet in living rooms and public spaces. But we want a place to call home. The café will be that place. A place that feels comfortable and familiar, where the community can come together to explore and deepen their Jewish practice. Once we have your support, we can begin our mission to find the perfect space for Asiyah, as well as launch twice-monthly Shabbat services and expand our program offerings.
The café will be…
- A space that houses and embodies the prayer community, yet extends beyond it into the broader Jewish and non-Jewish seeker community.
- The rabbi’s office, where anyone can come for spiritual guidance and companionship.
- A place to encounter Jewish practice and tradition that doesn’t necessarily start with prayer.
- A beit midrash (house of learning and yearning), where anyone, regardless of prior knowledge and experience, can access the wisdom of Jewish texts and their intersection with other wisdom traditions.
- A hub of Jewish and interfaith arts and cultural programming.
- A place where anyone can come to wrestle with the deepest questions of their heart or just get a great cup of coffee or a meal with a friend. (We are exploring the possibility of making this a kosher cafe, to enable broader access for the Jewish community.)
- A third space for everything from shmoozing to organizing.
Photo credit: Adrianne Mathiowetz for Scout Cambridge
Why support us?
You’re probably here because you want to be a part of a new and different model for our collective Jewish future. Together, we can create new alternatives to conventional Jewish practice that benefit a diverse population.
Your support…
- Provides a spiritual home for people who haven’t found theirs yet.
- Produces programming—including Shabbat and holiday services, beit midrash events and other classes, and song circles—that isn’t available elsewhere.
- Provides financial support for rabbinic and musical staff. (As of now, running Asiyah is a full-time, unpaid job.)
- Establishes a space for people from diverse backgrounds to meet and learn from each other.
- Helps Asiyah community members and at-large community folks make new Jewish connections.
- Provides seed money for the rent and design of the café, and legal advice on business structure.
- Promotes and supports a café with ecologically sustainable practices.
Who we are
David Curiel, Founder and Spiritual Director
Before I became a rabbi and founded Asiyah…I worked at Apple Computer, earned an MBA at Indiana University, and moved to the West Coast to work in the wine industry. As you already know, I then reconnected with Judaism and began my journey to become a rabbi. My wife, Amberly, and I made our home in Boston, where I began my rabbinic studies with Aleph, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, while also working at Nehar Shalom Synagogue in Jamaica Plain and at Kesher Hebrew School in Cambridge/Somerville. We spent the 2014-15 school year in Jerusalem while I studied at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, and then moved to New York City for the next two years as I served as rabbinic intern at Romemu, arguably one of the most vibrant synagogues in the country right now. In the course of my studies, I earned ordination as a Mashpi’a Ruchani/Spiritual Director, a practice of spiritual companionship to help people investigate their relationship with Divinity/Source/the Eternal. I’m now on track to receive rabbinic smicha/ordination in January 2018.
Amberly Polidor, Vision Partner
I began co-creating the vision for Asiyah along with David while we were living in Jerusalem a few years ago. My motivation was a yearning to be in community with people who, like me, want to explore Jewish practice—prayer, study, contemplation, fellowship—in creative, innovative, and spirited ways.
I didn’t come to my Judaism through my parents—I found it as an adult, in tandem with David’s rediscovery of Judaism. Jewish Renewal was our shared access point; in it, I found the kind of spiritual home I had been longing for, where I could bring a love of song and spiritual expression, which sprung from the Christian tradition I grew up in, along with a spirit of deep inquiry, exploration, and open-mindedness.
I’m a professional copyeditor and writer, so I’ve naturally slipped into the role of managing the Asiyah website and other communications. I’m also in the current cohort of Kol Zimra, Rabbi Shefa Gold’s two-year Hebrew chant leadership training program. I’ve found tremendous power and inspiration in this practice of melodic and rhythmic repetition of a sacred phrase from Torah or liturgy, and I’m excited to bring the practice to the Asiyah community.
As David’s wife, I’m often fielding this question: Do you consider yourself a rebbetzin? While I’m not entirely comfortable with the traditional associations and expectations that might accompany this title for the rabbi’s wife, I do appreciate the idea that the role deserves a title! So, yes, as rebbetzin, I also serve as behind-the-scenes supporter, fact-checker, and reality-checker. And I truly love to host—you’re welcome to our house for a meal anytime!
Noah Weinberg, Musical Prayer Focalizer
Noah is filled with gratitude to have the opportunity to bring the Asiyah community together in song. On weekdays, you can find him working as a Jewish and Student Life Fellow at Gann Academy, engaging students in raising their voices as Jews in this unique moment. Noah’s connection to Camberville Jewry stems from his recently completed undergraduate years at Tufts University (occupied Massachusetts and Wampanoag land), where he studied Peace and Justice Studies and Education and founded a Jewish meditation group and minyan called Kavanah (hebrew for “intention”). Noah’s reverence for all life finds expression is his passion for permaculture as well his commitment to organizing for justice. Noah hopes that our communal songful prayer can stir us and spur us to live out our most authentic selves and build a world of peace and justice.
Timeline
Asiyah is my dream of bringing people together in a community to support each other, not only in our basic needs but also in our deepest yearning for connection and wildest version of who we might become. Join me in making the dream reality.
