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Community Educators

The team of Community Educators lives with the BIMA participants. They guide and inspire participants in the challenging work of understanding and creating community, focusing on diversity, Shabbat, and the relationship between Jewish identity and artistic expression.  Community Educators come from diverse geographical, artistic, and Jewish backgrounds and are graduate students and professionals with expertise in experiential Jewish and arts education. Community Educators receive specialized training in working with teens, teamwork, pluralism, and community-building. They will inspire participants to find their voice, take on leadership roles, and contribute to a vibrant, creative community.

Meet the 2013 Community Educators

Timna Burston (Lead CE)
Timna Burston is a visual artist and is returning to BIMA for her fourth summer. Born in Israel to American immigrants, she began her art studies at an early age and graduated from the Charles E. Smith School for the Arts in Jerusalem. She later joined a year-long social leadership program, followed by service in the Israel Defense Forces. She has a B.A. in Art History and a teaching certificate in Art and Art History from Hebrew University, where she received the Zehava and Eliyahu Eilat Fund prize for excellence in the field of Art History. After moving to NYC, she and Jonah Rank co-founded Jewish Eyes on the Arts, a group devoted to exploring Jewish thought and ideas through art. During this time, she also began working as the Youth Director at Congregation Kol Ami in Westchester, NY, where she led activities for high school students, including Social Justice trips to Costa Rica and a 6-week trip to Israel and Europe. For the past year, Timna has been working toward her MA in Art and Art Education at Columbia Teachers College. Timna is proud to be coming back to BIMA as lead Community Educator, and cannot wait to spend another summer with wonderful staff and participants!

Ezra Burke
Ezra can't wait to return to BIMA after a four year hiatus. Ezra was the BIMA Music Intern in 2008 and 2009. Ezra has a degree in Music and Education as well as a teachers qualification from Cambridge University and a Masters in Creative Producing from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Since 2009 Ezra has been teaching Music in public schools, running Choirs, and working as a Chazan and Educator at a synagogue where he started an Arts Camp inspired by BIMA. Most recently Ezra worked in the education department for the international theatre company, Complicite. Ezra is from London, England.

Rita Muradova
Rita is from Kiev, Ukraine. She is a a contemporary dancer, yoga teacher and a proud yogi and vegeterian. Whatever she does, she is very passionate about it, and she loves experimenting! She is an experienced madrich and educator, having worked for years at Hillel in Kiev. Rita currently works as a director at a modeling agency. Rita's personal motto is "Seize the Day!" This will be Rita's second summer at BIMA.

Jonah Rank
A rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary (beginning his 4th year in the fall of 2013), Jonah is excited to spend his 5th summer at BIMA. In 2005, Jonah was a BIMA participant, playing (rudimentary) jazz trumpet and (way better) classical piano; in 2010, Jonah returned to BIMA as the Instrumental Music Intern, and he has been a BIMA Community Educator each summer since then. Jonah’s musical activities range from several albums of his own comedy-pop and instrumental music, a hip-hop album he produced for Ghanaian poet Osekre, and accompaniment for different films and movement pieces (one of which can now be heard and seen on the website of The New York Times). In college, Jonah studied Music at Columbia University and Jewish Music at JTS. Recently, Jonah’s been busy with being the Creative Co-Director of Jewish Eyes On The Arts, serving as student rabbi at Congregation Sons of Israel in Amsterdam (NY—not Holland), writing articles on liberal Jewish life, recording his next album The Smell of Rank, and eating ice cream.

Jordan Shaner
Jordan is a native of Denver, Colorado. Currently a second year cantorial student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City, Jordan also holds a Master's of Music from the University of Memphis in opera performance. While pursuing that degree, Jordan discovered a calling for service, community and synagogue life; he became involved with organizations such as Facing History and Ourselves, which provides resources on holocaust and genocide studies and awareness for local teachers. His career on the stage includes such roles as Count Almaviva in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and the title role in Kirke Mechum's operatic adaptation of Tartuffe. In November 2011, Jordan made his debut at Carnegie's Weill Hall in a concert performance of Figaro. In 2012, Jordan began his work at HUC in Jerusalem, Israel. While there, he served as a guest cantor for the High Holy Days at congregation Ohel Avraham in Haifa, and organized Passover seders in Minsk and Baranovichi, in Belarus. Beginning this fall, Jordan will serve as the cantor for Reform Congregation Oheb Sholom in Reading, Pennsylvania.