Rabbi Mychal Copeland speaks and writes about the inclusion of LGBTQI people and interfaith families in religious life. She is the co-editor of Struggling in Good Faith: LGBTQI Inclusion from 13 American Religious Perspectives [Skylight Paths Publishing, 2015]. Prior to joining Sha’ar Zahav, Rabbi Copeland was the Director of InterfaithFamily Bay Area, where she helped couples navigate a diversity of religious and cultural backgrounds.

She served for thirteen years as a university Rabbi, first at UCLA and later at Hillel at Stanford University. She earned a Masters in Theological Studies and Secondary Teaching Credential from Harvard Divinity School in 1995, and a rabbinical degree from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2000. In 2005 she was recognized as an Exemplar of Excellence by Hillel’s International Center, the highest individual honor for Hillel professionals.

She served as the Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinic Intern at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York City, the world’s largest Jewish LGBTQ community, and has carried that work into her career with college students. Mychal is a certified yoga instructor and fuses Jewish spirituality with movement in her yoga teaching.

Photo by Norm and J.

Cantor Sharon Bernstein, a native of California, grew up in Palo Alto, where she frequented Conservative synagogue Kol Emet and graduated from Palo Alto High School. An avid musician from a young age, she studied piano and voice, performing in concerts, operas, and musicals through junior and high school. Her musical studies continued at the University of Redlands, where she graduated in Voice and Piano.

While in college, she took an active role in the local Jewish community and Hillel, sparking an ever-growing interest in Jewish music and prayer. After graduating, she served as the High Holy Day cantor for Arizona State University, and then as part-time cantor for Temple Beth Haverim in Agoura Hills and Congregation Sha’arei Torah in Arcadia while working for Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. as their International Sales Manager. During this time, she studied with local cantors, worked at her Hebrew, started writing music on Jewish themes, and became increasingly more interested in Jewish music and liturgy.

Her life took a turn in 1999, when she enrolled in the H.L. Miller Cantorial School at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She spent a year in Jerusalem and the two following years in New York City. In 2002–2003 she devoted her last school year to research for her MA thesis, The Italian System for Chanting the Torah According to the Torino Tradition, and served as an instructor in Hazzanut for the JTS Cantorial program in Jerusalem.

Israel and Jerusalem proved extremely inspiring to her, both in discovering the richness of Jewish musical traditions and in shaping her parallel career as a Yiddish performer. Through the resources of the Hebrew National University, she learned melodies from a wide array of traditions—Sephardic, Ashkenazi, Italian, and Hasidic—to teach and sing with the congregation, and to perform lesser-known Yiddish songs.

As a Yiddish performer, she has appeared at venues including RAI National Italian Radio, the Ancona Klezmer Music Festival, the Center for Jewish History, the Berkeley Jewish Music Festival, and Yung YiDish in Jerusalem. She has taught in the Vilna Summer Yiddish Program and KlezCalifornia, and recorded several of Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman’s songs on her album Af di Gasn fun der Shtot.

Her compositions include ditties on Jewish themes, music for the synagogue, and settings for several Yiddish poems. She has a particular love for teaching and mentoring people of all ages. She joined Sha’ar Zahav in 2007 and is thrilled to have the opportunity to work and grow with such a warm, vibrant, and passionate community.