Cheder Religious School Staff

Batya Podos, Lead Teacher

Batya Podos is an ordained Maggid, and has been a professional storyteller, dramatist and educator for over 35 years. Believing that the strands of story connect us all, she is committed to interfaith work, and was the co-founder of Abraham’s Tent, a summer camp for Jewish, Christian and Moslem children. She has been teacher and director of Simcha School, P’nai Or of Portland’s education program, and was the director of education for Beit Haverim Reform congregation before she returned to her roots in the southwest last summer. She has been on the faculty and has been Dean of the Maggid-Educator Program offered by the Institute for Jewish Spiritual Education (JSE) for the last 5 years. She is delighted to be working with the Cheder Religious School at Nahalat Shalom. Her novel, Rebecca and the Talisman of Time, was nominated for the Oregon Spirit Book Award. She has just completed her second novel for young people, and will be hosting a series of community storytellings thanks to a grant from NMFederation this year.

Cantor Beth Cohen

Tefillah (prayers), folk songs and dance with Cantor Beth Cohen during Simcha Religious School.

Message from Cantor Beth:

Dear parents, students and members of our community, I am so excited about teaching in Nahalat Shalom’s (Cheder) Simcha Religious School! We are going to have a great time learning songs and prayers for Shabbat services in Hebrew, Ladino and Yiddish as well as special songs, nigunim (wordless melodies) and prayers for our Jewish holidays and festivals. We will be dancing Yiddish and Israeli folkdances, and we will learn some traditional drumming. I will also be working separately with our pre-B’nai Mitzvah students on trope/ta’amim (to chant from the Torah) as well as helping them to lead the Shabbat morning prayers. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Click here to read Cantor Beth Cohen’s Bio

Noach Bloom

"I'm Noach, and I love Jew stuff.  I want to help other people understand it better and love it too.  We come from a tradition that values individual differences while seeking to maintain community, that operates in the real world and connects the past to the present and future.  It's so much fun to help students become more Jewishly knowledgeable and engage with the tradition in their own unique ways."