December 3-5, 2022
Soferet Julie Seltzer joined us for our second Torah Weekend beginning with with First Friday Community Dinner and Shabbat Services with a D’var Torah by Soferet Seltzer. On Shabbat morning, Soferet Seltzer led Torah Study with Rabbi Kraus and participated in our Shabbat service, before leading our community in a Q&A Lunch & Learn about her journey to become a scribe. Shabbat concluded with Havdalah and Soferet Seltzer’s program “What’s the Point? Crowns, Dots, and Other Scribal Intrigues” sponsored by Adult Learning. On Sunday, our Religious School students learned with Sofer Seltzer, and our community scribed 88 letters in our scroll.
Soferet Julie Seltzer, based in New York city, was trained by Jen Taylor Friedman and several scribes in Jerusalem. She recently completed her fourth Torah scroll and is writing a memoir about her spiritual journey. She is excited to be part of a growing network of women and progressive scribes. Julie is one of the first women known to have written a Torah. In 2009, she was commissioned by the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco to write her first Torah as part of an exhibit entitled “As it is Written: Project 304,805.”
After that two-year project, Julie wrote a Torah for Congregation Beth Israel in San Diego, while also leading a series of educational workshops and letter fill-in ceremonies with that community. She was also part of a collaborative effort by five female scribes to write the book of Bereishit as part of City Shul in Toronto, Canada. Julie is originally from Philadelphia, PA and a graduate of Brown University. She previously worked in theater, Jewish education and as a baker. Her specially-shaped challot are notably inspired by the weekly parsha. Julie specializes in writing Torahs, Megillot, and Mezuzot as part of community engagement and education in synagogues across the country. Julie’s workshops range from Fix-it-Yourself Torah repair to the evolution of Hebrew Scripts.
