Isabel is a queer, disabled creative working at the intersections of art, faith, philanthropy, and justice. For a decade, she has served landmark cultural institutions while developing and curating programs in diverse faith communities. Isabel currently serves over 160 Jewish Community Centers and Camps across North America, connecting them to each other, cultural arts partners, and vital funding.
Isabel’s body of work plays with ancient text and traditions as vehicles for collective storytelling and liberation. Her writing and music touch on both physical and spiritual survival. She is deeply rooted in traditions drawn from her Balkan lineage, woven with great care into the scholarship of her Black, Indigenous, and Queer teachers. She has dedicated her life to uncovering prophetic voices in scripture, society, and self.
Isabel resides on Lenape land with her wife, daughter, cat and dog, alongside the many residents and visitors in their garden. Her Dharma name is Faithful Rest of the Heart.
Isabel’s body of work plays with ancient text and traditions as vehicles for collective storytelling and liberation. Her writing and music touch on both physical and spiritual survival. She is deeply rooted in traditions drawn from her Balkan lineage, woven with great care into the scholarship of her Black, Indigenous, and Queer teachers. She has dedicated her life to uncovering prophetic voices in scripture, society, and self.
Isabel resides on Lenape land with her wife, daughter, cat and dog, alongside the many residents and visitors in their garden. Her Dharma name is Faithful Rest of the Heart.
Lineages & TeachersIsabel's Balkan lineage and life weaves Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, and Romani stories, ancestral healing and reparations. As with so many family stories, hers are full of griefs, secrets, gifts, and sacred re-memberings. She honors her ancestry through song, dance, divination, urban farming, and the countless daily creative acts we might miss if we don't pay attention.
In pursuit of her Master's in Theology and the Arts from Union Theological Seminary, Isabel studied ritual transformation, feminist biblical criticism, ecotheology, and interreligious dialogue. She grew under the guidance of leading feminist theologians, Hyun Kyung Chung, Janet R. Walton, and Brigitte Kahl. Other influential advisors include James Hal Cone, Cornel West, Barbara Sproul, and Sara Jolena Wolcott. Isabel has been deeply embedded and engaged in Jewish Life and Learning across North American communities for almost a decade. She has frequently drawn on the mysticism and visionary works of Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l, Dori Midnight, and Hadar Cohen. Isabel was an inaugural Mahloket Matters Covenant Fellow at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. As a three-year Covenant Foundation grantee (via her work at JCC Association of North America), she studied with Rabba Shani Gross, Zvi Hirschfield, and Rabbi Mike Uram. In this work, she has explored the generative and sacred power of civil discourse. Mahloket Matters methodology has influenced her Jewish communal work and inclusion efforts, with deep gratitude to its conceiver/initiator, Rabbi Dr. Daniel Roth. Isabel is a classical singer, trained in the bel canto style. She has studied with Catherine Malfitano, Ashley Putnam, Maitland Peters, and Andres Andrade. Isabel has spent significant time in Thich Nhat Hanh's intentional community at Blue Cliff Monastery, where she became a mindfulness practitioner. |
CollaborationsIsabel has performed and presented original work in cultural institutions and communities across North America, including:
13th Street Repertory Theater, Atlas DIY: Immigrant Youth Empowerment Network, Althea Center for Engaged Spirituality, Center for Earth Ethics, Church of the Village, Columbia University, Gibney Dance, Good Shepherd Services, JCC Buffalo, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, MINKA Brooklyn, NYU Gallatin, The Rubin Museum of Art, Union Theological Seminary, YWCA EducationMaster of Arts in Theology and the Arts, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, 2014-2016
Thesis: Meeting Our Mother: A Reintroduction to Eve through Creative Exegesis Advisors: Brigitte Kahl, Cornel West Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Religion, City University of New York, Hunter College, 2011-2014 Thesis: Music of the Outsider: The Romani Lăutari Reclaiming Their Humanity Advisor: Barbara Sproul Classical Voice & Opera Performance, Manhattan School of Music, 2008-2010 |
Awards & FellowshipsThe Mahloket Matters Covenant Fellowship, The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, 2021
An educational leadership cohort exploring the generative power of civil discourse for a limited number of Pomegranate Prize recipients, Covenant Foundation grantees, and associated artists Yale Travel Grant Award, Graduate Conference in Religion and Ecology, Yale University, 2018 Robert E. Seaver Award, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, 2016 Awarded annually to a graduate who has done distinguished work in worship and the arts Recipient of the Five Mindfulness Trainings in the Zen Tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, Blue Cliff Monastery, 2016 Union Scholarship, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, 2014 The Scholarship and Welfare Fund Graduate Scholarship, City University of New York, 2014 |
Photograph: Zivar Amrami