Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope

     Rabbi and Nature Chaplain Katy Z. Allen               

Rabbi Katy Z. Allen is the founder and spiritual leader of Ma'yan Tikvah. She began her career as a biology teacher and later became a writer and editor of educational materials. Prior to her conversion to Judaism in 1989, she began to study, and has never stopped. She started teaching Hebrew school, then became involved in family and adult education, and for a number of years performed professionally as a storyteller. Katy received a Masters of Arts in Jewish Studies from Hebrew College in Newton, MA, in 1999, and rabbinic ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion in Riverdale, NY , in 2005. For three years she served as the rabbi of Temple Tifereth Israel of Winthrop before founding Ma'yan Tikvah. Rabbi Allen currently serves as a staff chaplain at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and writes about matters of the spirit and the world. 

Katy can be reached at rabbi@mayantikvah.org.


Nature Chaplain Intern


Lisa Greber has modeled paths to sustainability for policy makers, worked in energy conservation, led nature writing programs for people who are poor or homeless, and taught science to middle school students. She has lived on the boundaries between the scientific and spiritual communities, working with the Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life, InterFASE (International Faith and Science Exchange), Massachusetts Interfaith Environmental Network, the Tikkun Institute, and Earthrite. She continues this work as a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts / Boston in the Environmental Earth and Ocean Sciences Department (EEOS), where she can usually be found researching her local Malibu beach. 


Lisa can be reached at nature@mayantikvah.org.

Board of Directors

President               Robyn Bernstein                                 president@mayantikvah.org Treasurer               Marianne Doernis-Goldman                treasurer@mayantikvah.org                      Clerk                     Rabbi Katy Allen                                clerk@mayantikvah.org                 Board member        Gabi Mezger                                       board1@mayantikvah.org