Rabbi Nadya is Co-Founder and Chief Programming Officer of Yerusha, a spiritual director, and congregational leader. She received joint Rabbinic smicha [heb: ordination] in 1998 with her partner of over 50 years, Victor Gross, from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the P’nai Or religious fellowship, recognizing their unique relationship paradigm.

Nadya grew up in her father’s hometown of Rishon Leziyyon, as well as Be’er Sheba, Israel, before settling in her mother’s home state of California at 12 years old. As a teenager, she was trained in Hazzanut [heb: liturgy] by her mentor, Cantor Phillip Moddel.

Nadya completed a BA in the department of Near Eastern Studies at U.C. Berkeley with an emphasis on Rabbinic and Modern Hebrew literature. During these years, Nadya was a Hebrew School teacher and youth activities coordinator in various Conservative Movement synagogues. She also worked in Jewish summer camp programs. She then earned an MA in Sociology of Education, also at Berkeley.

She and Victor moved to her home of Israel after graduate school, in order to start a commune for educators and other child-development professionals. At this time, she worked for the Ministry of Education and as a guidance counselor and English department head in an agricultural high school. While teaching, Nadya discovered that many of her students were not receiving the government funds meant to directly support their wellbeing. When she attempted to expose this corruption in the Ministry and support her students, she was fired and blacklisted, ending her ability to work as a teacher in Israel at that time.

Upon returning to Southern California, Nadya went into school administration, first as the founding director of a Hebrew Day School, then directing a synagogue education program. She left to join Victor on the pulpit, as Cantor of the Conservative Synagogue where he was serving as Rabbi. At the same time, she began to develop her own consulting practice. Years later, her passions led her to train in past life therapy, Soul Memory Discovery, childbirth education, and labor support, before beginning her Rabbinic studies. After their joint ordination, Nadya and Victor led synagogues in Berkeley, California, and Boulder, Colorado.

In 2004, Reb Nadya created a program to train volunteers to provide end-of-life spiritual support for dying persons and their families, and formed the End-of-Life Doula Association in cooperation with the Boulder JCC. She went on to become Associate Director, and later Director of the ALEPH Ordination Program’s training for Jewish Spiritual Directors.

Since 2009, she has transmitted the indigenous, matriarchal, Canaanite wisdom tradition taught to her by her paternal grandmother in a two-year initiation program called Secrets My Grandmother Told Me: A Wisdom School.

She currently serves on the faculty Yerusha's Sage-ing® Mastery Program, as well as the Anamcara Project of the Sacred Art of Living Center.

Nadya co-founded Yerusha with Victor and their two friends, Reb Bahira Sugarman and Rabbi Shaya Isenberg z’’l, in order to create and enhance programs inspired by the legacy of their mentor, Reb Zalman, and to carry their collective vision forward into the future.

Rabbis Nadya and Victor bring to their community-building work a spiritual and professional partnership of over 50 years. They have taught and offered counseling together, created communities in Israel, Los Angeles, Berkeley and Boulder, studied and grown together spiritually, shared the gift of four beautifully awesome children and one rascally grandchild, and are always learning what it means to be two halves of a whole – experiencing the joy and the responsibility that comes with that reality each and every day. They complement one another, weaving a tapestry of their individual strengths and abilities. Both are passionate teachers, and are particularly engaging when teaching together.