Alison Adler has served at Temple Aliyah since August, 2000. As Ritual Assistant she teaches the trope (cantillation) class to sixth graders and works with b'nai mitzvah students together with Cantor Gelman to prepare Torah and Haftarah readings. She also helps them develop divrai Torah, through which they add their voices to generations of Torah study and commentary.

Alison also worked for three years as our prior Youth Director, and she has been a teacher in the Prozdor classes held at Temple Aliyah.

Alison earned an MA in Counseling Psychology at Northwestern University and was a therapist in social service agencies. She studied and worked in Israel for sixteen months. She then attended The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, where she completed an MA in Jewish Studies. While in Philadelphia she worked with congregations, led services for kids, families and adults, and traveled to New York for an internship with CLAL - The Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.

Alison is an experienced and creative educator. She has taught an array of subjects, from introduction to Talmud and midrash to Jewish mysticism. She has also led workshops on body image, food, and Judaism for teens, college students, and adults. She was the coordinator of and presenter at a conference on this subject in 1998 in Philadelphia. She has been creator and facilitator of Rosh Hodesh groups for teen girls, and she is currently co-authoring a book for Bat Mitzvah age girls.

She serves on the Board of the National Havurah Committee, an organization dedicated to Jewish learning and community building. She is also involved in Mistabra, a think tank for developing “textual activism” through intense study of Jewish texts.

If you have questions or want to find out more information about these programs, please contact Alison@templealiyah.com