Va'tichtov: She Writes
Va'tichtov: She Writes, elevates Jewish women's voices within a year-long fellowship which offers scholarship through building a diverse cohort of scholars and providing the skills, support, and resources necessary to produce new content. The 2024-2025 cohort features 10 women who are passionate about elevating Jewish women’s voices.
As part of our updating the Va'tichtov Fellowship, the program will operate on a three year cycle, with each year's cohort focusing on a particular area of writing. The 2025-26 fellowship will focus on teshuva writing, the 2026-27 fellowship will be for op-ed and popular writing, and the 2027-28 fellowship will focus on essay and long form pieces.
Meet the 2024 fellowship coordinator: Dr. Rachel Rosenthal
Dr. Rachel Rosenthal is Gemara faculty and Director of External Affairs. Before coming to Maharat, she was an adjunct assistant professor of Rabbinic Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary and served as a Research Fellow and faculty member at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. She received her PhD in Rabbinic Literature from JTS, where her dissertation focused on how rabbinic analysis of the case of the stubborn and rebellious son provides models for moral education and development. During her time in graduate school, she was a Graduate Fellow in the Center for Law and Jewish Civilization at Cardozo Law School, a David Hartman Center Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and a Wabash Teaching Fellow, and she was the first graduate student ever to be voted List College Professor of the Year. Rachel has served on the faculty of the Academy for Jewish Religion, the Maimonides Scholars Program, Nishma: A Summer of Torah Study, Drisha, the JCC of Manhattan, the 92nd Street Y, and Central Synagogue. Her writing has been published by Tablet, the Forward, and eJewishPhilanthropy. She serves as the co-chair of the Ritual Committee at Darkhei Noam, where she is also a frequent gabbai and teacher. Rachel is a graduate of the Drisha Scholars Circle and holds a BA in religious studies from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and daughter.
Meet the 2024 Fellows
Rabbanit Shalhevet Cahana teaches Judaic Studies at the Jewish Leadership Academy and, together with her husband Rabbi Dvir Cahana, they create a vibrant young professionals community in their home through Moishe House Base Miami. Additionally, she serves as a Community Scholar in Beth Jacob Congregation in Oakland, CA and is a Kallah Teacher, trained by Merkaz Eden in Yerushalayim. To date, she has taught Torah in over 75 synagogues and campuses in North America, France, and Israel. Rabbanit Cahana previously studied in Maimonides School, Migdal Oz, Stern College for Women and their advanced Gemara program called the Graduate Program for Advanced Talmudic Studies (GPATS). She lives with her husband Dvir Cahana in Miami, FL.
Born and raised in Toronto, Dr. Yedida Eisenstat Advanced Kollel '25 is a scholar, writer, and editor,
currently based out of Washington, D.C., where she lives with her family. She holds a Ph.D. in Midrash and Scriptural Interpretation from the Jewish Theological Seminary, where she wrote about Rashi’s use of Midrash in his Torah commentary, better understood as a medieval midrashic anthology. At Sefaria, she works as a project manager in the Learning Department, before which she served as an editor at the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. She has also taught religion, history,
and Jewish studies at Colgate University and York University. She also served briefly as an interim clergy person at Ohev Sholom and is the Maharat scholar at Congregation Beth Shalom Congregation in Potomac, Maryland. She is passionate about Jewish tradition and history — its richness and complexity — and helping others to understand, know, and appreciate it in all its depth.
Sofia Freudenstein '25 is an incoming fourth year at Yeshivat Maharat and an incoming fourth year
Jewish Philosophy Masters student at the Yeshiva University’s Bernard Revel Graduate School.
She is wrapping up spending the past year at Yeshivat Drisha, a pioneering institution for
women to learn Gemara at the highest level. Sofia has participated in the New Voices Resilient
Writers Fellowship, was a senior fellow in Rabbi Aryeh Klapper’s Summer Program, and was the rabbinic intern at Anshe Sholom Bnai Israel in Chicago. Sofia is excited about thinking how halakhah and Torah can provide a sense of feeling profoundly seen, when recognizing that a lot of today’s crises have meaningful frameworks in millenia old ideas and texts. She loves spending time outside, sending voice notes to family and friends, and listening to music. She is deeply excited and humbled by the project of more women adding to the canon of Jewish text.
Shayna Herszage-Feldan is a graduate student in psychology at Queens College. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, she studied at Midreshet Nishmat and attended Yeshiva University. She has been a participant in the ORA Campus Fellowship, Machon Siach Graduate Fellowship, and the Halakha in Action Fellowship. Shayna lives with her husband in Manhattan, where she loves to organize programs and events within her community.
Talya Gordon is a fourth year PhD student in clinical psychology at Ferkauf Graduate School,
Yeshiva University. She will be interning at Nassau University Medical Center in the inpatient
and an outpatient facility in the fall. Talya is a proud traditional Jew and mental health advocate.
Raised in Atlanta by her South African Jewish parents, Talya’s hobbies include writing, poetry,
hiking and yoga. Talya has published articles in JOFA and the Blue Dove Foundation about
Jewish feminism and mental health in the Jewish community. Talya learned at Midreshet
Lindenbaum for a year and attended Yeshiva Atlanta for high school. Talya is actively involved
in the Based in Harlem community and the Moishe House on the Upper West Side.
Catherine ‘Cat’ Nist is a researcher and theatremaker based in Cambridge, MA. She recently
graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale College, where she majored in Humanities and
Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies; her two thesis projects involved an exploration of
women’s halakhic practice through the lens of performance theory, and a production of Angels
in America: Perestroika which she directed. She is currently a Master’s of Theological Studies
candidate at Harvard Divinity School, where she concentrates in Religion, Literature and
Culture. Cat became shomer shabbat in the middle of her time as a theatre major in college,
and since then has been interested in how her halakhic practice and her life as a maker and
student of theatre can both enhance and productively complicate/contrast one another. She
hopes to continue on to doctoral studies in the coming years, focussing on the interplay of
gender and theology in the Shakespearean canon.
Yael Roberts is a Jewish educator and visual artist based in London. She has a BA in English Literature /Studio Art, and an AA in Jewish Studies from Stern College for Women. Her MA is in Printmaking from Camberwell College of Arts. She has studied at the Pardes Institute and Nishmat and has taught at Limmud and Azara, as well as on retreats and at synagogues across the UK. She especially enjoys teaching and studying Chasidut, and currently works as Director of Community & Adult Education at
Westminster Synagogue. In her free time she enjoys baking vegan challah, spending time outdoors, going to galleries to see art, and drinking specialty coffee.
Bex Stern Rosenblatt teaches Tanakh as the North American Faculty-in-Residence for The Conservative Yeshiva as well as for The Leffell School. She has a B.A. in History and German from Williams College, persued graduate studies in Tanakh at Bar Ilan University, and received a Fulbright to teach in Austria. Her writing can be found in Mosaic Magazine, Washington Jewish Week, and other publications. She has taught Tanakh and Midrash to American, European, and Israeli rabbis and rabbinical students. Bex is fascinated by the women’s voices in Eicha and Shir HaShirim. When not reading Tanakh, Bex writes nonsense poems, gets lost running, and delights in her family.
Rabbanit Talia Weisberg ‘24 is a connector, passionate about facilitating rich Jewish experiences and helping people make informed Jewish decisions. She is currently pursuing a PhD in religion at Boston University. She received semicha from Yeshivat Maharat, where she completed shul internships at Congregation Sherith Israel in Nashville, TN and Beth David Synagogue in West Hartford, CT; worked as the Orthodox Educator at MIT Hillel in Cambridge, MA; and served as a student chaplain at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. She earned her AB at Harvard University and wrote a senior honors thesis about the Bais Yaakov girls’ school movement, of which she is an alumna, and its role in the evolution of Orthodox women’s formal religious education. In 2013, she was named as one of the Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” young visionaries reshaping and broadening the Jewish community. She is currently working on a book about animals in the Torah.