Our People

Our Staff

  • Rachel Nussbaum co-founded Kavana in 2006 and serves as its Rabbi and Executive Director. Thanks to her leadership, Kavana has received lots of recognition for its innovative approach to building Jewish community, and Rachel’s responsibilities run the gamut… from teaching and counseling, to dynamic prayer leadership, to re-working the synagogue model for the 21st century. Originally from Charleston, South Carolina, Rachel holds degrees from Duke University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. She has been a recipient of the Bronfman Youth Fellowship, the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, the AVI CHAI Fellowship, and the Joshua Venture Group Fellowship; more recently she helped to found the Jewish Emergent Network and serves on its executive committee. Rachel resides in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood with her husband Noam Pianko and their three children, and the whole family enjoys the outdoorsy, low-key vibe of the Pacific Northwest.

  • Rabbi Jay Asher LeVine is a life-long learner and seeker of wisdom and beauty. He is married to Rabbi Laura Rumpf and together they have two children, Ami and Nava. Rabbi Jay grew up the son of two music teachers in Willcox, Arizona, attended college at the University of Arizona where he earned dual degrees in Finance and Judaic Studies, and then entered rabbinical seminary at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. For the past six years, he has served as one of the rabbis at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette, CA. He has been trained in community organizing and mussar facilitation, and is a trained Jewish Studio Project Facilitator, using a Jewish art methodology promoting healing and belonging.

  • Liz is proud to serve as Kavana's Director of Operations. She joined Kavana’s staff in 2010, bringing a background in human development, a certificate in nonprofit management, work experience from the arts and culture world, and personal warmth to bear as she took on the management of Kavana's day-to-day operations and the high-level administration of our organization. Liz has a passion for building authentic community, and this shines through in the work she's done to create and professionalize organizational systems that are people-centered and relationship-based. She jokingly calls herself “an accidental Jewish professional”; although Liz isn’t Jewish herself, after all these years, Kavana has become her community too! She resides on Bainbridge Island -- a short ferry ride away from Kavana's Seattle office -- with her husband and two active boys, and enjoys beach-combing year-round.

  • Rachel Lena Osias, or “RLO '' serves as Kavana’s Director of Education. RLO strives to build communities in which teaching, learning and the pursuit of educational equity are derived from challenging systemic norms and embracing the identities, experiences and stories of all individuals. Her exploration of Judaism and Jewish identity is cultivated through question-asking, relationship-building, story-telling, and play. RLO's professional and educational background has been an intentional interweaving of environmental sciences, educational equity, social and environmental justice, and experiential education. She holds a B.S. in Environmental Science, Technology, and Policy; a K-5th grade Teaching Credential; and a Master’s Degree in Urban Environmental Education.

  • Avital Krifcher is passionate about community building, network weaving, and relational engagement. She is proud to bring this energy to her role as Director of Community Engagement at the Kavana Cooperative, where she supports community members in creating the experiences that they want to lead, and connects community members to one another. Avital holds a degree in community building and disaster studies from NYU and brings her unique expertise in data-driven relational engagement to the table. When she's not directly studying community building in a Jewish setting, she is exploring community through movement, vegan junk food, and post-apocalyptic media.

  • Yoela is joining the Kavana team as a Teacher and Program & Communications Coordinator. They have a background in environmental education from sailing on Tall Ships in the Puget Sound and on the East Coast. Yoela is currently working on their Master's Degree in Communication Leadership and can often be found with a good book, a new craft, or playing DnD.

Our Board Members

  • Seeking a contemporary Judaism that included reflection, discussion, and personal engagement, Dana found Kavana in 2010 and became a partner in December of that year. She was an early host for Kavana's home hospitality program, and still enjoys any excuse to gather in community, especially around food. Dana is a past co-chair of the Communications Committee and has continued to be involved in conversations around how we communicate our information and values. During the first part of her professional life, she worked as an architect in NYC and Seattle, and then spent twelve years teaching an array of fine arts courses as a full-time faculty member at University Prep. She also taught as an adjunct instructor with Seattle University's Master in Teaching program, working for six years with pre-service graduate students. Dana holds a B. Arch from Pratt Institute, an M. Arch from Yale University, and an MIT from Seattle University. She believes the point of our time here on earth is to live a life of purpose, connection, and empathy. She lives in Phinney Ridge with her young daughter.

  • Sharon found Kavana in 2008 when looking for a place to celebrate Purim with her two kids. The cooperative spirit, excellent children’s programming and strong community have kept her actively involved. She served on the original Mission, Vision and Values committee in 2009, and consulted as Kavana’s Strategic Planning Adviser for both the 2015 and 2020 Strategic Plan. Sharon has spent most of her career in the environmental arena and currently works as the Development Director for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Investments & Partnerships. She lived and worked for 4.5 years in SE Asia, both as a Peace Corps volunteer and for the World Wildlife Fund. She has a B.A. in Geography from UC Berkeley, and an MS in Geography from Oregon State. Sharon lives in Maple Leaf with her two kids, Frieda and Rowan, her partner Brian, 2 cats and 7 chickens. Sharon loves to dance, bike, read and spend time with her family.

  • Steve is from the Seattle area and attended Garfield High School, Whitman College and the Evans School of Public Affairs at the UW. He and his wife discovered Kavana in their search for a community that was a good fit for their energetic young family that was searching for a catalyst for their own self-discovery about their own faith and traditions. Steve is currently on hiatus from his role as a non-profit Executive Director to pursue volunteer travel in Saipan with his family. He is father of two (son, Noah, 10, Anya, 12) and husband to Sarah Bergman Lewis, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital. Steve is also an avid kayaker, aspiring off-hours marine zoologist and is training for an Olympic triathlon.

  • David has been a partner with Kavana for about 10 years but has been involved since its inception. He grew up in Southern California in a liberal but very Jewishly identified family: Hebrew school, Reform Bar Mitzvah, Jewish summer camp and even living in Israel for a year of high school. After college, David moved to Seattle and worked in the Jewish community for years before moving to the private sector. He spent much of his 20s & 30s building his own Jewish community informally. After having kids (Justine, now 13 & Nathaniel, now 9), David and his wife, Sharon, felt compelled to plug back into a more structured Jewish community. Jewishness is infused into every part of their family's backdrop and is not based on prayer as much as on cultural identity, ideals, practices and rituals. They celebrate family Shabbat most weeks and talk about the holidays regularly - especially about Jewish culture and how it fits into their secularly-based lives. David loves Kavana’s range of activities and how they appeal to such a broad swath of the community. One doesn’t have to be a liberal Jew in practice to be comfortable at Kavana, but has to respect the practices of others. That range and respect is what has kept him so connected to this community.

  • Marni discovered Kavana in 2008 when the guy she was dating invited her to a Wednesday night Living Room Learning. Both relationships blossomed, one into a marriage and the other into a Kavana partner household in 2010. As their family grew, they became active participants in Kavana’s family programming, enjoying Shabbat in the Park, Prep & Practice, Kids Club (Moadon) and Havdalah Club. Marni, her husband Dan and two boys live in Northeast Seattle. An aerospace engineering graduate of the University of Michigan and Georgia Tech, her work as an engineer brought her to the Pacific Northwest. In her free time, she enjoys playing tennis and ultimate frisbee as well as family activities including hiking, swimming and visiting state capitols.

  • Betsy is married to Kavana partner Stephen Rosenman. Together, they have three adult children. She is delighted to have found a spiritual home that is inclusive, provocative and fun. Betsy represents people seeking political asylum in legal proceedings, writes about immigration and tutors refugees. For some strange reason, she adores ponies and horses.

  • Callista has been an active member of the Kavana community since 2015, when she and her family moved to Seattle from southern Africa. She loves the diversity of our community and that it truly welcomes Jews of color and interfaith families. She also appreciates how much the programs and focus of Kavana are driven by the needs and interests of community members, in partnership with the Kavana staff. Before joining the Board, Callista co-chaired the Communications Committee. Professionally, Callista is the Senior Director of Programs at Reboot Representation, a coalition of major tech companies working to support Black, Latina, and Native American women in computing. Her professional experience includes roles in nonprofit leadership, international development, and management consulting. Callista holds a BA from Stanford University in Human Biology, as well as an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. She is an active community volunteer and served as the President of the Beacon Hill International School Parent Teacher Association for the last two years, where she led a successful effort to raise funds to be distributed equitably across a coalition of Title-1 public schools in South and West Seattle during the COVID-19 pandemic. Callista lives in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle with her husband Peter, their kids, Aviva and Franklin, and their adorably small cat, Mao.

  • Chuck and his wife Ronnie Levitt are relative newcomers to the Kavana family. They’ve been partners for only 3 years but have felt a connection to the Kavana community for some years prior to becoming partners. Chuck is a retired pediatrician, and was a specialist in children’s developmental problems and autism at Seattle Children’s. Chuck and Ronnie have two grown children. Chuck has also had the privilege of workingon a number of non-profit boards and looks forward to bringing this experience to Kavana. He and Ronnie have been especially excited about all their new friends from the “Second Stage”group that prior board member Diane Hostetler helped organize and are looking forward to using that experience to help Kavana expand its community to include more “Second Stagers”.

  • Katie is passionate about building intentional, interdependent community and strives to create spaces where we can all feel comfortable leaning on each other just a little bit more. She joins the Kavana board because this community's value-driven approach aligns with her personal mantra that how we do the work is just as important as what work we do. Raised in Texas, Katie has made Seattle her home so that she may have the privilege of being near the Pacific Northwest mountains, trees, and water every day. Alongside her wife Robin, who introduced her to Kavana, she is proud to be a partner and raise their young daughter Madrone among such a loving community. As someone who is not Jewish, she is deeply grateful for the warm welcome she's received as she continues her lifelong journey to live an open-hearted life. Katie is a writer, an educator, and a people-person. Professionally, she currently works as an educator with young people and is in the midst of a career pivot from non-profit policy work into environments where she can teach and write every day. Her happy places are on the dance floor with her LGBTQIA+ country-western and line dancing community, digging in her garden, and singing nigunim by a campfire.

  • Joe & his wife Gaby have been members of Kavana since 2018 when they moved to Seattle to start their family which includes Zadie (4) and Stella (2). Gaby is a Psychiatrist specializing in women's mental health, and Joe is the CEO of Union Studio, a product design & engineering firm specializing in Healthcare technology. Joe is excited to support the Kavana community to continue its mission of supporting a diverse, inclusive, and personalized Jewish experience for individuals and families at all stages of life. As a Jew by Choice, Joe is inspired and energized by Kavana's dedicated perspective to making the spiritual & community aspects of Judaism accessible, personal, and authentic to those who want it.