MEET THE TEAM
HELEN BENNETT
Co-founder and Co-Director ~ Director of Spiritual Care & Network Weaving
Helen Bennett likes to do things that help people remember how much it’s worth it to trust and depend on each other. She is passionate about building resilient community rooted in ritual and focused on social justice, which has been the foundation for her work as a community organizer, facilitator, network weaver, and spiritual director for over 10 years. Helen provides coaching, training, culture and infrastructure support for Kavod House in Boston and for IfNotNow at the local and national levels. Helen organized a transformative workshop for Jewish young adults on the Intersections of Antisemitism and Racism which built a base of young Jews with a vision and tools for reclaiming trust, connection, and resilience. Helen organized trainings with the Ayni Institute/Momentum Community and has worked with JOIN for Justice, in addition to founding and facilitating four iterations of the Lefty Shabbaton. Helen speaks and consults nationally on decentralized organization, leadership development, and liberatory movement culture and is featured on the Irresistible Podcast and How We Gather. Helen grew up in Seattle, WA where she studied Community, Environment, and Planning at the University of Washington with a focus on cooperatives. Her ancestors came from Romania, Russia, Lithuania, and Poland. Explore Spiritual Direction with Helen.
KAT MACÍAS
Co-Director ~ Managing Director
My name is Kat Macías (they/them). I am part of the Cuban and Puerto Rican diasporas and a guest on Cherokee and Muscogee land here in Winterville, Georgia. AND I could not be more excited to join the Tzedek Lab staff as Managing Director! To share a bit about me, I come from a long lineage of spiritual seekers and leaders. Carrying this legacy, I’ve worked with others to build the Jewish communities I most need in the world - including Lefty Shabbaton, the New Synagogue Project, JVP Havurah Network, the Radical Jewish Calendar, and most recently I served on the bargaining committee of JOIN Workers Union. When it comes to paid work, I most recently worked and served as the Co-Director of the Jews of Color Organizing Fellowship at JOIN for Justice and have worked in the Jewish social justice field since 2014. You can peep my Linkedin if you are curious about my other roles. I’m excited to continue to carry my ancestors with me as I work with you all to shape the future of Tzedek Lab. I’m eager to geek out about ethical fundraising models, organizational tools and systems, and what fun things we could cook up together on calls and at the next Network Gathering!
SOL WEISS
Co-Director ~ Director of Communications & Resource Sharing
I’m Sol (they/them), a white nonbinary artist, ritualist and cultural organizer based on Nipmuc Pocumtuk lands in Northampton, MA. I grew up in the Bay Area, California, and come from German, Polish, Romanian, English and Ashkenazi lineages. I’m thrilled and honored to join the team at Tzedek Lab as Director of Communications and Resource Sharing!
A little backstory: from 2017-2021 I was Co-Director at Linke Fligl, a collective queer Jewish chicken farm & cultural organizing project, where I managed communications and operations and led programs for anti-colonial land connection, healing and liberation. Since 2015, I’ve worked as an illustrator and graphic designer collaborating with inspiring folks all over the radical Jewish ecosystem. All of my work is led by the question of how land, community and tradition can guide us in overcoming oppressive systems, healing from colonization and building new worlds.
I’ve been inspired by Tzedek Lab for a long time and I am grateful for the opportunity to help steward the communications strategy and uplift the work of Tzedek Lab’s members. Looking forward to connecting and learning from all of you in cultivating this network together.
SHIRLY BAHAR
Past Co-Director
These days, Shirly is working on her first book, Relating Pain: Documentary Cinema from Israel/Palestine, 2002-2012 (working title) forthcoming with IB Tauris, and originally written as a dissertation at New York University. Shirly teaches Critical Issues in Contemporary Art and mentors artists in their studio practice as part of the MFA program at Columbia University's School of Visual Arts. Shirly served as the Director of Public Programs at the American Jewish Historical Society at the Center for Jewish History in NY (2015-2019), where she was the first to curate art shows, and to introduce programming related to Israel/Palestine, Mizrahi Jews, Jews of Color, and the multitude of diasporic connections and antiracist solidarities stretching between the US and the Middle East. Previously Shirly founded the Mizrahi Film Series at NYU (2014-2017). Shirly has been curating member-based and public programs about Mizrahi cultures and activism with Jewish Voice for Peace’s NY Chapter and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice’s Mizrahi caucus since 2014.
KOACH FRAZIER
Co-founder
Koach Baruch Frazier, Au.D. is a healer and musician who is working towards the day everyone experiences liberation. He spent 14 years helping people reconnect with the world around them through better hearing. He currently spends his days providing love and support through revolutionary listening and spiritual leadership, traveling the country facilitating healing and transformation through music and workshops at the intersection of antisemitism and antiblackness. He earned his undergraduate degree from Saint Louis University and his doctorate from Central Michigan University. Dr. Frazier has served on the boards of the Missouri GSA Network and the Central Reform Congregation (CRC), where he is also a cantorial soloist. He lives in Philadelphia with his fiance, LaJuana, where his heart beats to the rhythm of tikvah, t'shuvah and tzedek.
DOVE KENT
Co-founder
Dove Kent, Senior Strategy Officer at Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice, has two decades of experience in grassroots organizing, political education, and movement building. As the executive director of Jews for Racial & Economic Justice from 2011 through 2016, Dove supported the organization to triple in size and win game-changing legislative victories for police accountability and workers rights through powerful local coalitions. Under Dove’s tenure, JFREJ grew into one of the strongest and most effective progressive Jewish organizations in the country, creating significant culture shifts within the Jewish community, New York and nationally. She has been published in What We Do Now: Standing Up for Your Values in Trump’s America (2017), Towards the “Other America”: Anti-racist Resources for White People Taking Action for Black Lives Matter (2015), Understanding Antisemitism: An Offering To Our Movement (2017), and in the Guardian, Ha'aretz, Tikkun, and other media outlets. Dove trains nationally on antisemitism and racism, and is the co-founder of Tzedek Lab, a national network of political educators, organizers and spiritual leaders, Jews and allies, building collective competency to politicize, transform, and inspire the Jewish community into collective action against racism, antisemitism, and white supremacy. She lives in Durham, North Carolina. https://dovekent.squarespace.com/