Children's Learning Program Staff

Hadar Ahuvia (she/her)

I’ve had the pleasure of accompanying students in their B’nai Mitzvah journeys for the last five years. I bring a love of language, poetry, song, and movement to my teaching. I center students' interests and curiosities as I support them in defining their own spiritual and political identity in relation to Jewishness and Jewish community. An artists and Jewish educator, I have danced in NYC for the last 10 years, currently with Reggie Wilson/ Fist & Heal Performance Group, and have created three evening length works, including the Bessie nominated "Everything you have is yours," which grew out of a curriculum I developed for Kolot B’nai Mitzvah to teach a history of Israel/Palestine through folk dance. I love Kolot, where I am a Student Rabb i and have been a long time Kolot teacher, a former Assistant Director of Youth Education, led family services, and created puppet shows for the High Holidays with my partner. I studied at Sarah Lawrence College, and completed the 2020 Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture. hadarahuvia.com. Contact: hahuvia@gmail.com.

Note: I am only available to tutor via Zoom.

Amanda Miller

is a Jewish educator, writer, actor, yoga instructor, and licensed massage therapist who has been teaching in New York City’s Jewish community since 2011. She seeks to uncover what matters most to her students and connect that to the content they explore together.
Since 2010 Amanda has served as an educator at Kolot Chayeinu in multiple capacities. In addition to her work as a B’nai Mitzvah tutor, she tutors students in Hebrew and teaches *What’s Up* and multiple classes in the B’nai Mitzvah program including *A History of Israel/Palestine, Yoga and Judaism, Living Torah, God Talk* and *Hebrew*. Amanda also co-leads Kolot’s early childhood family programs K’tanim and Torah Tots, develops and facilitates High Holiday youth and family programs, and for many years taught Kitah Bet. She has also co-created and performed Kolot’s annual Purim Spiel for a number of years.
Outside of Kolot, Amanda trains B’nai Mitzvah students for Lab-Shul, performs original family-friendly Torah-themed scripts for Temple Emmanu-El, and leads early childhood family programming at Union Temple. She has taught Jewish values through drama and yoga at Sprout Brooklyn Day Camp and JCC Manhattan.
Amanda is also the creator of the interactive solo play *The Jew in the Ashram* (www.thejewintheashram.com), about traveling to an ashram in India to study yoga and ending up reconnecting to her own cultural roots. She has performed the show in a variety of spaces around the country including Temple Beth Shalom in Hastings, The Kings Bay Y in Brooklyn, Brandeis Collegiate Institute in Simi Valley, CA, Whitefire Theatre’s Solofest in Sherman Oaks, CA, and Minnesota Fringe in Minneapolis.
Amanda has performed her original theater and comedy in venues and festivals across NYC, nationally and internationally. She has writing forthcoming in JewishFiction.net and in 2013 published her memoir *One Breath, Then Another* on Lucid River Press. Amanda’s writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Freerange Nonfiction, Quaranzine, Cratelit, Runaway Parade and more. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and a BFA in Acting from NYU. She lives in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. Contact: amandaerin25@gmail.com

Ilana Levinson

I am an educator, radio producer, and foster dog mom. I have taught the second grade class as Kolot's Community Learning Program for the past two years and I've been tutoring B'Nai Mitzvah students since I moved to Brooklyn in 2015. I see the year-long B'Nai Mitzvah preparation as a journey of self expression and spiritual exploration rather than an obligatory performance. The first thing I tell each of my students is that a B'Nai Mitzvah is something every Jewish adult becomes, as opposed to an event that can be done "right" or "wrong." My goal is to help facilitate a meaningful journey for my students as they decide how they want to mark this moment. I like to keep a warm and approachable atmosphere in my sessions, with much room for questions and adjustments, while staying attuned to my students' specific needs and strengths. When I'm not tutoring, I can be found making Unsettled, my podcast about Israel-Palestine and the Jewish Diaspora, playing with my foster pups in the park, and biking around brooklyn in search of a flavor of Ben and Jerry's I haven't yet fully absorbed. I look forward to working with you and your family. Contact: ilana@levinson.me

Shalva Wise

Originally from Cincinnati, I have been tutoring at Kolot for 14 of the past 15 years that Brooklyn’s been my home.

I’ve worked with students across a wide range of ages, gender identities, home settings and cultural backgrounds, drawing upon my Masters in Social Work, my own Jewish upbringing, and over 2 decades of experience with youth development and social justice organizing to cultivate warm, respectful, dynamic learning environments with my students and their families.

In addition to working with Kolot’s community, I also regularly work with families who are unaffiliated with congregations— guiding a bespoke learning process that begins with learning to read Hebrew and culminates in a service which I plan and produce collaboratively with the student.

Balancing responsibility, flexibility, creativity and structure, my work with B’nei Mitzvah students strives to engage them in questions of Torah through a lens of self-exploration, seeking meaningful connections between our ancient stories and our contemporary lives—including/especially the justice struggles of our city, country and world.

I take seriously and get great joy from the role of preparing students for this milestone celebration of community and individual growth. Contact: shalvawise@gmail.com

B’nai Mitzvah Tutors

Hadar Ahuvia (she/her)

Amanda Miller

Ilana Levinson

Shalva Wise

Tahel Wise