Meet Our People

Yoreshet Ruach D’vorah Grenn, Ph.D
[she/her]

Department Chair, Institute For Deep Ecumenism
Faculty, Secrets My Grandmother Told Me

Jewish Renewal & Feminist Spirituality

Publications

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2022. “The Journey Home for This Divine Spark, Flying Free.” In Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma. Girl God Books.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2021. Spiritual Brokenness and the Healing Presence of the Sacred Feminine Interview by Rebecca Vincent. Femspec.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2019. “The First Resister.” In Original Resistance: Reclaiming Lilith, Reclaiming Ourselves, edited by Pat Day, Trista Hendren, and Monette Chilson. Girl God Books.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2018a. “Lilith.” In The Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture across History, edited by Susan de-Gaia. Vol. 2. ABC-CLIO.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2018b. “Priestesses.” In The Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture across History, edited by Susan de-Gaia. Vol. 2. ABC-CLIO.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2014. “The Kohanot: Keepers of the Flame.” In Stepping into Ourselves: An Anthology of Writings about Priestesses, edited by Anne Key and Candace Kant. Goddess Ink.

  • Grenn, D’vorah, ed. 2009. Talking to Goddess: Powerful Voices from Many Traditions. Napa, CA: The Lilith Institute.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2008a. “Claiming the Title Kohenet: Examining Goddess Judaism and the Role of the Priestess.” In Women in Judaism Multidisciplinary Journal.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2008b. “Metaforms of a Monotheistic Religion: The Menstrual Roots of Jewish and African Rites of Passage.” Metaformia: A Journal of Menstruation and Culture.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2007. “Lilith’s Fire: Examining Original Sources of Power Re-Defining Sacred Texts as Transformative Theological Practice.” Feminist Theology 16, no. 1 (September): 36–46.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2005. “How Women Construct and Are Formed by Spirit: She Who Is Everywhere in Women’s Voices, Kol Isha, Maipfi a Vhafumakadzi.” In She Is Everywhere, Volume 1, edited by Lucia Birnbaum. Authors Choice Press.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2003. “For She Is a Tree of Life: Shared Roots Connecting Women to Deity - an Organic Theological Inquiry into Identities, Beliefs and Practices among South African Lemba and European-American Jewish Women.” PhD Dissertation, California Institute of Integral Studies.

  • Grenn, D’vorah. 2000. Lilith’s Fire: Reclaiming Our Sacred Lifeforce. Boca Raton, FL: Universal Publishers.

Awards, Certificates, and Degrees

  • Certificate, Yoreshet [Lineage Holder]
    Rabbi Nadya Gross, Yerusha (2023)

  • Ordination, Mashpi’ah Ruchanit [Spiritual Guide]
    ALEPH Ordination Programs, Hashpa’ah Program (2023)

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Integral Studies
    California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco (2003)

  • Master of Arts, Humanities: Concentration in Women’s Spirituality
    New College of California, San Francisco (1998)

  • Bachelor of Arts, Integral Studies
    California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco (1996)

Ruach D’vorah is an educator, writer, Mashpi’ah Ruchanit [heb: Spiritual Guide] and Yoreshet [heb: Legacy Carrier], an inheritor of Kabbalistic Motherline teachings. She founded The Lilith Institute, A Center for Feminist Spirituality in 1997, Co-Directed the Women's Spirituality MA Program at ITP/Sofia University for eight years, and was a founding theorist of the Kohenet movement. She has taught Jewish Magic & Folklore, The Sacred Feminine in Judaism and Women’s Sacred Conversations with G’d for Hebrew College, classes at Ner Shalom/Cotati and Beth Shalom/Napa, and a range of Humanities/Philosophy classes at Napa Valley College. She teaches on the Tree of Life with Rabbi Nadya Gross as part of Yerusha’s Secrets My Grandmother Told Me: A Wisdom School and is Department Chair Yerusha’s Institute for Deep Ecumenism Chaplaincy Certificate Program.

Publications include: Lilith’s Fire; Talking to Goddess, an anthology of sacred writings from 72 women in 25 spiritual traditions; "The Kohanot: Keepers of the Flame" in Stepping into Ourselves: An Anthology of Writing on Priestesses; Jewish priestess and Lilith entries in Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions and “Spiritual Brokenness and the Healing Presence of the Sacred Feminine” in FEMSPEC, an interdisciplinary feminist journal. She co-hosted the “Tending Lilith’s Fire” broadcast with Kohenet Annie Matan, and created and led The Lilith Institute’s Women’s Intuitive Leadership Program in 2022.