Kallah: An Oral History
In July of 2016, around 500 members of the Jewish Renewal community congregated at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO for their annual Kallah gathering. The weeklong convocation is a time where community members celebrate their core principles which include eco-consciousness, davvenology (an experiential form of prayer), age-ing to sage-ing, and deep ecumenism (a strong call for religious unity). To enhance the robust Post Holocaust American Judaism collections at the University of Colorado Boulder, I, along with a team of three others, interviewed around 30 members of the community. Most of the interviews focused on each individual’s path to Renewal Judaism and also their personal history with the late Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, known as the father of the movement. After facilitating each interview, I captured their portraits. Here are a few faces of Renewal Judaism: