What happens at Beloved?
For our local community, Beloved creates warm, creative, accessible Jewish experiences held in our home in Brooklyn. We host Shabbat meals, creative rituals based on the Jewish calendar, meditation circles, learning for families with young children, and lots more.
For leaders, Beloved is a nurturing home base. We offer space, support, and training to clergy, activists, ritual leaders, artists, students, and educators designed to provide nourishment for those who nourish others and support leaders on their spiritual journeys.
Why Beloved?
Your stories inspired Beloved.
Stories of parents trying to raise children with a sense of history and community. Leaders struggling to reimagine spiritual community. People asking the deepest questions about their lives yet without a Jewish framework that resonated for them. Activists burning out. Those of us with quiet struggles and no one to talk to.
Despite the incredible diversity of options in Jewish Brooklyn, too many of us struggle to find spiritual roots and a sense of authentic belonging. We hope Beloved responds to these needs.
What's in a name?
Beloved’s name hearkens to the Song of Songs (Ani l’dodi v’dodi li; I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine).
The name emphasizes the reality of our interconnectedness, and the authentic and urgent need that many people have to experience belonging, connection, and love.
Our people
Beloved was founded in September of 2017 by Rabbi Sara Luria and her husband Isaac. They live at Beloved with their three young children.
Rabbi Sara Luria
Co-Founder
The seed of Beloved was planted for Sara on the bus home from the Women's March in DC when she realized that what we need in the Jewish community may not be more education, more trips, or more worship options, but instead places where we can learn, using the tools of our powerful tradition, to open our hearts to each other, share our grief and our longings, and break bread together. Nothing less will allow us to awaken ourselves to the transformation we are seeking.
Prior to Beloved, Sara's experiences as a community organizer, birth doula, and hospital chaplain inspired her to found ImmerseNYC, a pluralistic, feminist, grassroots-energized community mikveh project. Sara has published poetry and essays on motherhood, Jewish innovation, and healing in various Jewish books and publications. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she was ordained as a rabbi from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 2013, and also served as the program director for HUC's Tisch/Star Leadership Fellowship.
You can reach Sara at sara@belovedbk.org
Isaac Luria
Co-Founder
Isaac's journey towards starting Beloved with Sara began when he realized he wanted more from life than his career in progressive politics. As a child of an interfaith family, it wasn't always easy to find a spiritual or religious home. In many ways, he's still seeking, though he has put down roots at Beloved.
Professionally, Isaac is a faith-rooted social change organizer, leadership coach, strategist, and writer committed to bringing the transformational power of spirituality and faith to bear on the biggest challenges facing our society. He is currently the Director of Voice, Creativity, and Culture at the Nathan Cummings Foundation in NYC.
On the weekends, you'll find Isaac cooking, playing with his kids, or trying to perfect his jump shot.
You can reach Isaac at isaac@belovedbk.org
