Pronouns: He/Him
Avi Rose, Spiritual Leader, first joined Kehilla in 1993 when he gave a Yom
Kippur sermon about full inclusion and welcoming of lesbians and gay men.
He has offered spiritual leadership in the congregation since the mid
1990’s.
Avi is a longtime nonprofit leader who continues to serve many
organizations; for fifteen years he served as Executive Director of Jewish
Family & Community Services East Bay. He received his B.A. degree from
Brandeis University in 1976 and later earned his MSW from the University
of Southern California and an M.A. in Jewish Communal Service from
Hebrew Union College. Much of Avi’s career has been devoted to
HIV/AIDS work as well as community-based health care for low-income
people.
Avi is also known for having co-edited a groundbreaking anthology, Twice
Blessed: On Being Lesbian or Gay and Jewish, published in 1989. He has
been highly involved as a writer, speaker and organizer with efforts to
address LGBT and HIV/AIDS issues in religious communities and was a
founding board member of the AIDS National Interfaith Network.
In recent years Avi has become an End of Life Doula. He is involved in
several Death Cafes and participates in Kehilla’s Chevra Kadisha.
Avi has spent much of his adolescent and adult life in the East Bay and has
lived in Oakland since 1992.