Clergy
While Ahavat Olam is a volunteer community and does not have any staff clergy, we do have associations with several Vancouver area spiritual leaders:
Our Cantor, Cantor Shira Stanford-Asiyo, is committed to creating vibrant, inclusive community. In addition to leading services for Ahavat Olam, she is the co-founder of Hamakom, a progressive Beit Midrash (community of learning), which provides fun and unconventional progressive Jewish programming. Cantor Shira Stanford-Asiyo was invested by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and has 15 years of experience as an educator, clergy person, and community organizer. She loves working with individuals, couples and families to create meaningful life cycle rituals. She is happy to provide individual tutoring, as well as spiritual counseling. Cantor Shira can be contacted at cantorshira@gmail.com. For more information please go to www.cantorshira.com.
Rabbi Dina-Hasida Mercy is an independent, liberal rabbi who offers her warm and capable services for life cycle events, teaching and spiritual counselling. Currently she serves as the Chaplain of the Jewish Chaplaincy Society and as the Jewish Chaplain for the federal prisons in the Pacific region of Canada. Many of the people she has worked with do not belong to synagogues or have needs that cannot be met in most synagogue settings. She believes that everyone should have access to their traditions regardless of the directions our lives sometimes take. To learn more about Rabbi Mercy please visit her website at http://rabbi-mercy.com/
Rabbi Susan Shamash is a progressive, independent rabbi, passionate about “open tent” Judaism. She was ordained as a rabbi by ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, which is part of a worldwide effort to fully embrace a contemporary egalitarian Judaism as a profound spiritual practice and social transformer, reaching beyond religious boundaries and institutional structures. She uses her voice to share this vibrant form of cutting edge Judaism with the metropolitan area of Vancouver, BC through her various events and engagements. To learn more about Rabbi Shamash, please visit her website at https://www.rabbisusanshamash.com/.
