What would it feel like to claim Judaism in a way that feels alive, creative, and deeply personal?
What if your Jewish heritage held a key to uncovering hidden stories, spiritual depth, and a renewed sense of belonging?
This 7 month program is for you if you have been feeling drawn to explore your Jewish lineage but haven’t known where to go or how to begin.
About the Course
SHOOV (SHÜV/ hebrew for 'Return' / 'Restore') was birthed out of witnessing the increasing number of people who, in this time of deep ancestral reconnection and healing work, are turning back towards their lineage in order to better understand their own stories, spirituality, traumas, and gifts. It is for people who carry Jewish lineage and are hungry to explore this part of themselves. It is for folx who are ready to take a journey of ancestral reconnection in community with others.
This 7 month container is for people who want to feel closer to Judaism and who seek an inclusive community of practice to take their next step in building an alive sense of connection to Jewish ancestral culture.
SHOOV offers an initiatory journey that calls upon Jewish ancestral pathways to help us reclaim exiled parts of ourselves. Through a vibrant online platform we co-create a temporary Jewish community where belonging, authenticity, and learning thrive.
No matter where you are in this journey,
you are welcome.
Photo by: Aliko Weste
Course Content
Our course weaves tradition with personal exploration. It offers a meaningful path to deepen your understanding of Jewish heritage and spirituality.
Foundations of Judaism
Explore the essence of Judaism: its origins, evolution, and meaning in today’s world. Engage with diverse perspectives on G-d and G-d language and develop a more personal and dynamic relationship with the divine. Develop tools for staying with the unresolved tensions in our study.
Ancestral Connection and Diaspora
Trace the stories of our ancestors—their journeys, struggles, and triumphs—and uncover how these narratives shape our identities today. Reflect on the complexities of carrying our cultural traditions in diaspora; the gifts and wounds. Engage with the evolving story of Israel/Palestine while honoring the indigenous lands we inhabit.
Jewish Time
Discover the Hebrew calendar as a bridge between spiritual practice and the natural world. Unpack the cycles and rhythms of Jewish time and explore how festivals, Rosh Chodesh, and traditions help us stay connected to the sacred by tethering to something bigger and more ancient.
Photo by: Aliko Weste
Exploring Jewish Prayer
Dive into the rich traditions of Jewish prayer, embracing both ancient practices and modern innovations. Develop familiarity with the siddur (prayer book) and other tools for prayer, while cultivating authenticity and creativity in your spiritual expressions.
Ritual and Practice
Learn how rituals and mitzvot serve as meaningful pathways to connection and transformation. Discover the beauty and depth of Jewish customs, and adapt them into rituals that resonate with your unique life and values.
Shabbat and Creation
Immerse yourself in the magic of Shabbat, exploring songs, customs, and profound teachings on creation and rest. Experience the transformative power of this sacred time, and prepare for your self guided final project.
“All of us have ancestral knowledge in our blood about what it was like to live on a healthy planet. That medicine is still in me and you. It’s in all of us.”
-Amy Bowers Cordalis
A Note on Race and Jewish Diversity
This program is open to all who feel called and resonant, regardless of background or identity. As white Ashkenazi facilitators, we approach this work with humility and the recognition of our own limitations. Our lived experience shapes what we can authentically teach and we acknowledge the blind spots this may create, particularly regarding the experiences of Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Jews of Color/Global Majority. We welcome open dialogue and invite you to connect with us if you’re unsure whether this program is the right fit for you. Your perspectives and questions are deeply valued.
A Statement on Israel/Palestine
A Statement on Israel & Palestine and Radical Diasporism
We acknowledge the deep significance and complexity of the Israel & Palestine conversation, recognizing it as a vital topic in a Jewish ancestral connection program. We acknowledge the ways this subject brings us into contact with profound questions of history, identity and responsibility. As facilitators, we hold that all life is sacred. As difficult as it is to imagine at this time, we stand behind a vision of shared flourishing, safety, and liberation of Palestinians and Israelis. We hold the deep grief felt by many in this moment, while recognizing that the current violence and loss of life weigh disproportionately on Palestinians.
We aim to approach this topic with humility, understanding that the path of peace is long and the legacy of war and trauma is immense. Our framework is grounded in ideas of Radical Diasporism (Kaye/Kantrowitz) - a politics that queers the distinctions between home and exile, where we act from a sense of ‘here-ness’, and work in diverse coalitions towards equality and justice. We are interested in sharing stories of how our ancestors moved across time and space, who their neighbors were, how our traditions were shaped by these movements and what inheritances/burdens we carry today.
This program isn’t for everyone and that’s OK! For some people it is essential that their Jewish integration study is deeply connected with a clear political orientation around Israel and Palestine. We are aware of some beautiful programs addressing that need. SHOOV is for folks who value these topics as doorways into unresolved tensions and intimate dilemmas that, when engaged with thoughtfully, are able to deepen our sense of wholeness and purpose.
“When we reconcile with ancestors who experienced different types of persecution or who enacted violence and oppression, we make repairs in our personal psyches and family histories that, in turn, mend cracks in the larger spirit of humanity.”- Daniel Foor, PhD
Is This Course Right for You?
Many people carry questions, challenges, and yearnings when it comes to their Jewish identity and connection. SHOOV is designed to address some of the common struggles that many people face:
• Desire for Meaningful Ritual and Practice: You are looking to weave Jewish rituals, stories, and practices into your daily life in ways that feel alive, creative, and personally relevant.
• Disconnected Ancestral Identity: You feel distant from your Jewish lineage due to family histories of assimilation, trauma, or hidden identity and are longing for a way to reconnect.
• Yearning for Belonging: Traditional Jewish spaces haven't resonated for you and you are hungry for a way to engage authentically with Jewish community and culture.
• Fragmented Relationship with Spirituality: You are looking for a soulful, earth-based, inclusive approach to Jewish tradition that aligns with your personal values and lived experience.
• Inherited Traumas and Unhealed Stories: You carry the weight of ancestral trauma in your being (unacknowledged grief, feelings of displacement, fear etc) and you seek a path of healing and transformation.
• Navigating Complexity in Jewish Identity: You feel overwhelmed by the intersection of personal Jewish identity, collective history, and the contemporary realities of Israel/Palestine.
If any of these resonate with you, SHOOV provides a supportive and inclusive space to explore. This journey is an invitation to reclaim what feels most authentic and meaningful in your Jewish identity and practices.
MEET THE FACILITATORS
Tali Dov Weinberg
Born and raised in the Canadian prairies, Tali is the first generation in her lineage to be born on Turtle Island on the lands of the Anishnabe, Cree, Dene, Métis, and Dakota peoples. Her grandparents on her mother's side were Ashkenazi Polish Jews who migrated to Canada as holocaust survivors in the early 1950s in search of a place to recover, heal, and start life anew. Her father's side of the family, also Ashkenazi Polish Jews, are from a socialist-marxist community (called a kibbutz), that centered equality and working the land together. She comes from hard-working, idealistic, community oriented people. People who carried their trauma along their strength.
She has worked as a leader and educator at the intersection of Jewish earth-based spirituality, intentional community, and food security. She worked as farm manager and educator for the ADAMAH fellowship and later co-founded and designed Urban Adamah, an urban farm in Berkeley, CA. With Salt Spring Seeds, she fell in love with seed saving and studied permaculture as an intern at the Bullocks Permaculture Homestead as well as served as intern coordinator for their renowned internship program. Tali was project coordinator for the Tel Sheva Desert Medicine Learning Site with environmental justice organization BUSTAN in the Negev desert, working with Bedouin project partners to create a traditional medicine site rooted in their traditional knowledge around desert plant medicine and natural building. She has coordinated Permaculture Design Certifications and taught countless workshops pertaining to earth-tending including seed saving, soil building, fermentation, grafting and fruit tree propagation. As a cultural architect, she worked for 2 years as the Director of Community Programs for Wilderness Torah, helping to design and oversee inter-generational, community scale gatherings, festivals, and rituals.
As a practitioner of earth-based medicine, Tali is a Registered Acupuncturist and holds a 4-years Masters degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine. In her 1:1 work, she practices a mix of TCM and psycho-therapeutic healing, having completed Gabor Maté's Compassionate Inquiry program, Zachary Feder's Trans-Discplinary Healer Training program, and recently trained in community Rites of Passage facilitation through Darcy Ottey and Shay Sloan's Rites and Responsibilities program.
Tali lives on the coast Salish territory, on Salt Spring Island BC.
Daniel Schindelman Schoen
Shoov Co-Founder | Mentor | Wilderness Guide | Father | Seeker
Daniel brings to Shoov a life deeply engaged with the interplay of exile and belonging. In exile, he practices yearning, humility, and the profound wisdom of emptiness. In belonging, he weaves vibrant circles of community, creates joyful celebrations, and finds solace beneath the shelter of ancient trees. His devotion to this dance between longing and connection informs his contributions to the Shoov cultural space.
Daniel’s Jewish journey began in a childhood enriched by “Jewish-light” traditions and the blessings of summer camp but truly came alive after hearing an Alaskan Indigenous elder’s call to “find your roots.” This awakening set him on a path of lifelong inquiry and study, exploring what it means to “be Jewish.” He has studied with transformative organizations such as the School of Lost Borders, the Animas Valley Institute, and Rites and Responsibilities, which have shaped his understanding of rites of passage and spiritual depth.
Through Shoov, Manna Pilgrimages, Wilderness Torah, and Medicine Minyan, Daniel creates imaginative and spiritually dynamic Jewish spaces. His passion for authentic and creative Jewish community manifests through music, mythology, poetry, ritual, and the diverse teachings that support a fulfilling life. Grounded in ancestral roots yet inspired by diasporic experiences, Daniel embraces a post-denominational and evolving approach to Judaism that continues to unfold.
As a wilderness guide, Daniel facilitates profound immersions into the more-than-human world, guiding individuals toward inner stillness, clarity, and a deeper sense of purpose. His work integrates transformational study of rites of passage, ancestral wisdom, and the sacred relationship between humans and nature, inviting participants to reconnect with the wholeness of their lives.
Daniel resides between the quartz mountains of Córdoba, Argentina, and the redwood coast of Northern California. He is a devoted father, a lover of piano, and a Shabbat enthusiast who cherishes the opportunity to rest, reflect, and connect.