Reed Kolber

Pleasant Hill, CA

Queer Cohort 2022-2023

About Reed

Reed Kolber (they/them) is a passionate teacher, spiritual counselor, and musician. With over ten years of experience across Jewish movements and interfaith settings, Reed completed their chaplaincy residency at St. Mary's Medical Center where they enjoyed bringing yoga, music, and spirituality practices to the adolescent psychiatric ward. Reed is a hospice chaplain, certified massage therapist and yoga teacher, and has had a spiritual counseling, life cycle facilitation, and Craniosacral Therapy bodywork private practice for the past decade. Reed received their Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis University in Women's and Gender Studies. They studied at Pardes in Jerusalem in a Year Fellowship Program and for two years at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. Reed completed a Masters in Judaic Studies, specializing in Jewish Values, Ethics and Action from the Academy of Jewish Religion of California. Their master's capstone project "Rainbow Lev, Jewish LGBTQ+ Teen Leadership Program Empowering Through Creative Ritual" received Jewish Innovation grants from Reconstructing Judaism and Clal to launch the first two cohorts in 2020-2021. Reed received the Mintz Family Foundation award for Creative Jewish Education and an award from The Levinson Foundation. They were a recipient of a grant from The Jim Joseph Foundation to launch the community program "We Are Stardust, A LGBTQ+ centered workshop celebrating the wisdom and magic of our bodies through creative practice." Reed currently leads Moving Traditions' National Tzelem Group for Jewish Gender Expansive Youth and serves as an interfaith home hospice chaplain. They live in the San Francisco Bay Area of California with their partner Maggie.