New York, NY (Top40 Charts) This year COVID forced Sim Shalom's annual live event to move online. That offered a wonderful opportunity for Blane and Sim Shalom to create a rich online menu of services.
Rabbi Steven Blane continues to serve and inspire the world with online services. This year COVID forced Sim Shalom's annual live event to move online. That offered a wonderful opportunity for Blane and Sim Shalom to create a rich online menu of services. Along with special guest Cantors and Rabbis joining from around the country, Blane has gathered a trio (socially distanced) to perform live from Riverside Drive for its virtual congregation.
Joining Blane for the remainder of services are Pastor Robert Brashear, Cantor Kristin Gustavson and Cantor Marianne Styles. Cantorial soloist Even Kremin will return to inspire and blow shofar. His Tekiah Gadolah on Rosh Hashanah shook the planet. The trio includes bassist
Kevin Hailey and violinist Liz Taub and they join Blane on piano and guitar.
Presbyterian Pastor Robert Brashear studied at the Yale Divinity School and New Brunswick/Rutgers. Retired from West Park Presbyterian in New York, he travels extensively and serves as a guest preacher across the NY Metropolitan area and as a speaker and consultant in other countries. Bob makes a point of connecting people everywhere he goes and recently hosted an homage to Woodstock event in Harlem where Rabbi Steve Blane and other friends joined him for a night of music and fun.
Hazzan (Cantor) Marianne
Styles graduated from and was ordained by the Rabbinical and Cantorial Seminary of the Jewish Spiritual Leaders
Institute (JSLI) in NYC, and is a member of the Women Cantor's Network. A former native of Philadelphia's Western suburbs, now residing on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Cantor
Styles has served over the past 20 years as a Hebrew school teacher and music director, service and song leader, and Torah/Haftorah reader. She also served as a "weaver" for the Jewish Women's Archives Women of Valor project and on the Board and as a facilitator for the Anti-Defamation League's "No Place for Hate" program
Cantor Kristin Gustavson received her Cantorial Ordination in 2019 from the Jewish Spiritual Leaders
Institute in New York. Cantor Kristin is now in her fifth year of teaching Hebrew School and tutoring B'nai Mitzvah students at Congregation Shir Hadash in Los Gatos, CA, where she is a frequent Cantorial Soloist and Torah and Haftarah reader. She also reads Torah at Congregation Beth
David in Saratoga, CA. In addition to her teaching and Torah reading, Cantor Kristin serves as a Jewish Family Services chaplain aide (currently via Zoom) with the Chai House and The Forum retirement communities in the San Jose area. Cantor Kristin converted to Judaism in 1997 and became Bat Mitzvah at Shir Hadash in 2014.
Sim Shalom is an interactive online Jewish Universalist synagogue which is liberal in thought and traditional in liturgy. Created in 2009 by Rabbi Steven Blane on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Sim Shalom offers a means of connecting the unconnected. Rabbi Blane leads accessible and short Shabbat services every Friday night using a virtual interface and additionally Sim Shalom provides online education programs, Jazz concerts, conversion and life-cycle ceremonies along with weeknight services at 7:00PM EST.
Rabbi Blane is also the founder and director of the Jewish Spiritual Leader's Institute, https://www.jsli.net, the online professional rabbinical program and founder of the Union of Jewish Universalist Communities, https://www.ujuc.org.
Sim Shalom, a non profit 501 © (3) tax-exempt organization, nurtures a Jewish connection through its mission of innovative services, creative education and dynamic outreach to the global community.
