Rachel Barenblat, the "Velveteen Rabbi," is an American poet, rabbi, chaplain and blogger who was ordained as a rabbi in 2011 and as a spiritual director in 2012. In 2013 she was named a Rabbis Without Borders fellow by Clal, the Center for Learning and Leadership, and in 2015 was named co-chair of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal along with Rabbi David Markus. In 2016, The Forward named her one of America's most inspiring rabbis. Background Born in San Antonio, Texas in 1975 to Marvin and Liana Barenblat, Rachel moved to New England in 1992 to attend Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She holds a BA in religion from Williams and a Masters of Fine Arts in writing and literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars, as well as rabbinic ordination from ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal and a secondary ordination as a mashpi'ah, also from ALEPH. Work In 2000 Barenblat co-founded Inkberry, a literary arts non-profit organization, with Sandy Ryan and Emily Banner. From 1999-2002 she was a contributing editor at Pif Magazine and for several years in the early 2000s served as contributing editor at Zeek magazine, a Jewish journal of thought and culture. Her book Massachusetts: The Bay State was published in 2002 by World Almanac Library, along with books about Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington and Texas. From 2009-2011, she served on the board of directors of the Organization for Transformative Works. Beginning in 2014 she served on the board of directors of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, which she co-chaired from 2015-2017. In 2018 she co-founded Bayit: Building Jewish. Barenblat is author of several book-length collections of poetry, including 70 faces: Torah poems (Phoenicia Publishing, 2011), Waiting to Unfold (Phoenicia, 2013), and Texts to the Holy (Ben Yehuda Press, 2018), as well as a variety of liturgical works, most notably her haggadah for Pesach and a volume for mourners called Beside Still Waters co-published by Ben Yehuda Press and Bayit: Building Jewish in 2019. Her first full-length collection of poems, 70 Faces—a collection of poems which arise out of a full year's cycle of weekly Torah portions—was published by Montreal-based Phoenicia Publishing in 2011. 70 faces received critical praise: "These poems are so out there, so radical, and at the same time so gentle and inviting. Barenblat manages to do work that has passion and truth behind it, without ranting. I love the simple and confident way