Keshira haLev Fife is well known in the Jewish community of her native Pittsburgh, where she conducts Shabbat services and Hebrew school classes. But she’s not your average prayer leader or educator.
As a self-described “proud Jewish woman of color,” she said she “sprinkles, sparkles, disrupts expectations and offers blessings in the service of the Divine.”
She is a kohenet (Hebrew priestess), part of a small but growing international movement of mostly queer women, including self-defined witches, who emphasize the feminine aspects of “earth-based transformative Jewish ritual.”
Kohenet Keshira, as she is known, is the founder and leader of an independent, post-denominational community, Kesher Pittsburgh. Many of its devotees are previously unaffiliated multifaith or multiracial individuals, couples or families drawn to its message of openness and acceptance.