Our mission:
Tiferet’s mission is to strengthen the inner lives of Jews and seekers, promoting balance and growth, through Jewish spiritual practices. We believe that contemplative spiritual practices grounded in Jewish wisdom offer a path to creating lives of deeper meaning and happiness, as well as supporting our ability to do good in the world.
Vision Statement:
We aspire to encourage balance and growth through engagement with Jewish spiritual practices as part of a modern life. We aim to expand awareness and appreciation for contemplative and embodied practices that can lead to a fuller human experience. Through teaching and our own practice, we envision bringing people together in communities of practice within and beyond existing Jewish institutions. Tiferet operates in the space between synagogues and “the wilderness.” We work towards creating localized communities of practice.
OUR BOARD
Cantor Julie Newman – President
Jane Liebschutz – Board Member
Jane Liebschutz is a primary care and addiction medicine physician, substance use researcher, educator, and administrator at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC. She is a practicing Jew who enjoys exploring both traditional and nontraditional ways of experiencing Judaism, including yoga, movement and meditation. She, her husband Roger and their young adult children, Eli, Abigail and Maya have been anchored in different Jewish communities- synagogue, Jewish summer camp, Hillel and larger community groups. She is an active volunteer at Congregation Beth Shalom and serves on the boards of local substance use nonprofit organizations. She has enjoyed taking part in all of Tiferet’s offerings and looks forward to seeing it grow to the next level.
Barbara Shuman – Board member
Barbara Shuman has been an active lay leader in the Jewish community locally and nationally for decades. A past president of both Temple David and the Agency for Jewish Learning she also served on the Board of Temple Sinai and chaired its Neshama Center. Barbara served on the board of JESNA (Jewish Education Services of North America) and was a longtime member of the North American Board of Trustees of the Union for Reform Judaism. For eighteen years she coordinated the Kallah program of study and spirituality retreats for the URJ.
Barbara has a BA from Brandeis University and an MA from Columbia University. She is a Jewish Spiritual Director, having completed the Morei Derekh training program. She also participated in the Mindfulness Leadership Training program at Elat Chayyim.
She was founding Director of Wise Aging, a project of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS), and now works as the IJS Retreat Coordinator. She is also a graduate of the IJS KIVVUN program, an intensive retreat-based learning program for community leaders focusing on cultivating mindfulness, prayer, middot and learning as spiritual practices.
Barbara lives in Squirrel Hill with her husband Larry and travels frequently to see her daughter Jessica, son-in-law and 3 grandchildren who live in Doylestown, PA and less frequently to visit her son Zak in Ubud, Bali.
STAFF
Edie Raphael – Program Coordinator
Edith “Edie” Raphael, PhD, RYT 500, is a Wexner Heritage Alumna and an experienced educator passionate about finding, creating, and sharing meaningful spiritual connections to Judaism. Edie is a recipient of the Dorbrecht Grant for Judaic Yoga and was named one of Baltimore’s favorite yoga teachers in Baltimore Magazine’s “Best of Baltimore.” She is the founder of Off The Grid Yoga and Camping, and has taught yoga for the Jewish Theological Society’s Rabbinic Training Institute and the Wexner Foundation’s Heritage Program retreat. Edie is the author of Mussar Yoga (Jewish Lights, 2014), and The Art of Being Present (Red Lizard Press, 2018) and she has over 19 years of experience leading yoga and mindfulness around the country. In 2022, she happily returned to her hometown of Pittsburgh. She has two adult children who also love Pittsburgh.