TORAH STUDIO TEAM
Liana Wertman
Founder & Executive Director
she/her/hers
Liana first fell in love with Torah at the Shabbat dinner table, hearing and discussing the stories with her family.
Liana graduated with a BA in History from USC (2016) and has a Masters in Educational Leadership from Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute Of Religion (2022). She spent the best fourteen summers of her life at Gindling Hilltop Camp (clap clap), from camper to counselor to CIT Director and was Youth Director at Temple Israel of Hollywood. She now spends summers at the Brandeis Collegiate institute (BCI) as a Beit Midrash educator and created their newest 10 Day Program. She spent a year at The Pardes Institute for Jewish Learning, the Classic Talmud Program from Yashrut, and was an inaugural fellow of the SVARA Pedagogy Chaburah. She is a recipient of the 2022 Pomegranate Award from the Covenant Foundation. Oh, and sometimes she's a Mikveh attendant.
Currently, Liana runs The Torah Studio from her home in Los Angeles, where you can also find her making pottery, creating art with yarn, or getting ready for Shabbat.
Lexi Kohanski
Director of Online Learning
she/her/hers
As a descendant of the Lover and Pursuer of Peace, Aharon, and the line of priestly tenders of Temple, Lexi’s ancestral mission lies in sanctifying the offerings of all our hearts so that the Presence can dwell in this world. In her work as a queer, white Ashkenazi, trans female Jewish educator, Lexi focuses on empowering those of us who have not felt at home in Judaism to own our texts and traditional lifeways.
Lexi is a thought leader in the realm of trans Torah; in her essay Be Whole: A Halakhic Approach to Gender and Transition, published as part of SVARA’s Trans Halakha Project, Lexi lays out a pathbreaking halakhic framework for relating to Jewish gender transition as a sacred undertaking. She has given talks on trans identity in Torah at synagogues on both coasts and in Scotland. Her YouTube channel, T4Torah, is likely the only active, public Torah-learning space on the Internet entirely by and for transgender Jews. She is designing Worlds To Come, a first-of-its-kind tabletop roleplaying game to teach Biblical Hebrew.
Lexi’s also the Director of Online Learning at the Torah Studio, which means she gets to bask in all your incredible Torah insights and questions as her job! Find Lexi watching video game livestreams or on the bench between the flowers and the river.
TEACHERS
Shaiya Rothberg
Liana Wertman
Lexi Kohanski
PAST TEACHERS
Avigayil Halpern
Rebecca Chess (they/them) is a proud Torah Studio educator who loves to match, whether that means a monochrome outfit or a cup of rich and deep coffee to match Torah study. They're also happen to be fourth year Rabbinical Student at HUC-JIR. When they aren’t making pasta for their friends you might catch them on a sunny afternoon eating sour gummy worms in a park.
Hannah Bender
Rebecca Chess (they/them) is a proud Torah Studio educator who loves to match, whether that means a monochrome outfit or a cup of rich and deep coffee to match Torah study. They're also happen to be fourth year Rabbinical Student at HUC-JIR. When they aren’t making pasta for their friends you might catch them on a sunny afternoon eating sour gummy worms in a park.
Rabbi Bluth
Rebecca Chess (they/them) is a proud Torah Studio educator who loves to match, whether that means a monochrome outfit or a cup of rich and deep coffee to match Torah study. They're also happen to be fourth year Rabbinical Student at HUC-JIR. When they aren’t making pasta for their friends you might catch them on a sunny afternoon eating sour gummy worms in a park.
Sofia Freudenstein
Rebecca Chess (they/them) is a proud Torah Studio educator who loves to match, whether that means a monochrome outfit or a cup of rich and deep coffee to match Torah study. They're also happen to be fourth year Rabbinical Student at HUC-JIR. When they aren’t making pasta for their friends you might catch them on a sunny afternoon eating sour gummy worms in a park.
Sophia Zohar
Rebecca Chess (they/them) is a proud Torah Studio educator who loves to match, whether that means a monochrome outfit or a cup of rich and deep coffee to match Torah study. They're also happen to be fourth year Rabbinical Student at HUC-JIR. When they aren’t making pasta for their friends you might catch them on a sunny afternoon eating sour gummy worms in a park.
Aki Yonekawa
Rebecca Chess (they/them) is a proud Torah Studio educator who loves to match, whether that means a monochrome outfit or a cup of rich and deep coffee to match Torah study. They're also happen to be fourth year Rabbinical Student at HUC-JIR. When they aren’t making pasta for their friends you might catch them on a sunny afternoon eating sour gummy worms in a park.
Chava Shapiro
Rebecca Chess (they/them) is a proud Torah Studio educator who loves to match, whether that means a monochrome outfit or a cup of rich and deep coffee to match Torah study. They're also happen to be fourth year Rabbinical Student at HUC-JIR. When they aren’t making pasta for their friends you might catch them on a sunny afternoon eating sour gummy worms in a park.
Rebecca Chess
Rebecca Chess (they/them) is a proud Torah Studio educator who loves to match, whether that means a monochrome outfit or a cup of rich and deep coffee to match Torah study. They're also happen to be fourth year Rabbinical Student at HUC-JIR. When they aren’t making pasta for their friends you might catch them on a sunny afternoon eating sour gummy worms in a park.
Jay Smith
Rebecca Chess (they/them) is a proud Torah Studio educator who loves to match, whether that means a monochrome outfit or a cup of rich and deep coffee to match Torah study. They're also happen to be fourth year Rabbinical Student at HUC-JIR. When they aren’t making pasta for their friends you might catch them on a sunny afternoon eating sour gummy worms in a park.
