Keren Apfelbaum Riff
Keren Apfelbaum Riff is a manager, community and social entrepreneur, and an ordained rabbi from the Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis. She is one of the founders of Beit Prat – Israeli Midrasha, a network of Jewish Learning communities, where she worked for over a decade, most recently as associate director. Keren developed Beit Prat’s study programs, and was involved in community building vision development, and developing the organizational structure. In order to create meaningful institutions for the Israeli public, whose Jewish identity contains both religious and secular elements, Keren has worked on developing and expanding the idea of the synagogue as a central institution in the community, led an initiative to read Israel’s Declaration of Independence using Torah cantillation, and founded the Beit Midrash for Jewish Education at Beit Prat. Keren holds a bachelor’s degree in Jewish philosophy and a master’s degree in Jewish education, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is also a graduate of the Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis, a project of the Shalom Hartman Institute and HaMidrasha at Oranim. Keren is interested in developing a school model that engages in Jewish education in a way that transcends the dichotomous division between religious and secular, and enables the flourishing of meaningful Jewish and Israeli life.