“May God bless you and keep you; May God make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; May God lift up his face upon you and give you peace.”
Hi, I’m Naomi.
I was born into an intensely patriarchal, ultra-orthodox Jewish community, and grew up completely segregated from mainstream society. Though challenging the established order was considered heretical, I found myself wrestling with big philosophical, religious, spiritual, and cultural questions. I eventually left my family and community, and gave up all religious observance. I spent years backpacking alone in Asia and Latin America searching in earnest. I spent time in Buddhist monasteries, Hindu temples, Amazonian malokas, Native American tipis and sweat lodges. I rejected tribal isolationism, and embraced multiculturalism, and formed meaningful connections with people from around the world. After returning to the States, I trained in a vast array of healing arts, got ordained as minister, and certified as a celebrant. I’ve spent the last decade officiating weddings and funerals for people of all colors, cultures, countries and creeds. I believe, above all, in our inherent oneness, and I devoted my ministerial career to reanimating the sacred inter-connectivity of all life without the overlay of doctrine, dogma and deities. However, the pogrom in Israel on October 7th and the rampant rise in antisemitism that followed changed the blueprint of my soul. It has been a rude awakening, but also a powerful initiation. In this fraught moment on the planet I aspire to be a voice of truth, love, clarity and sanity.
“I am an animist in an age of machines; a poet-of-sorts in a dictatorship of merchants; a believer in a culture of cynics. Either I’m mad, or the world is. My most strongly-held belief is this: that our modern crisis is not economic, political, scientific or technological, and that no ‘answers’ to it will be found in those spheres. I believe that we are living through a deep spiritual crisis; perhaps even a spiritual war. My interest these days is what this means.” -Paul Kingsnorth
Lately, I’ve been devoting time and energy to writing about antisemitism, a labor of both love and necessity in a time of rising Jew hatred. This work is unpaid, but vital. If my words have moved, helped, or challenged you, and you’d like to support me in continuing, this is a beautiful place to do so. Every contribution helps me keep going.