Rav Amelia is a native of Portland, Oregon and a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary where she received rabbinic ordination and a Masters in Jewish Studies with a concentration in Talmud and Rabbinic Literature. She has served as Rabbinic Intern at a congregation in Riverdale, New York; Rabbinic Fellow and Sole Clergy at a congregation in Oneonta, NY; and co-founded Minyan Atara, the Crown Heights Egalitarian Minyan.

During her years in rabbinical school, Rav Amelia has worked in hospice chaplaincy, Jewish climate advocacy, and, of course, educational settings, teaching and coaching B-Mitzvah students, undergraduates, and adults alike. Throughout her congregational, pastoral, and educational experience, Rav Amelia has focused on drawing out Jewish texts and traditions that speak to the lives of her students and congregants – spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally.

Whether it be through teaching the Torah of climate sustainability, offering a word of comfort at a bedside, or wrestling in class with a particularly thorny text, Rav Amelia is passionate about bringing our Jewish tradition’s wisdom to bear on the full range of individual, Jewish communal, and planetary needs.

In her free time, Rav Amelia is often found reading fantasy novels, discussing fantasy novels with her wife Elise, or in the woods – or all three at once.