Keynote

Creativity offers us a portal to transformation, spiritual connection, and revelation. It is there for us when we feel stuck, divided, or disconnected. In her highly anticipated first book, Rabbi Adina Allen delivers a paradigm-shifting and powerfully accessible reading of Torah as a contemporary guidebook for creativity and invites us to rethink and transform ourselves, our lives, and the world around us.

“Bravo for this renewal of the possibility and purpose of arts and artful living.”

• Lisa Miller, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University and bestselling author of The Awakened Brain
  

“Rabbi Adina Allen invites us to become creators of worlds… [the book introduces] a wonderful method and a remarkable teacher.”

• Rabbi Shai Held, author of Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life
  

“Rabbi Allen encourages readers to ‘peel back layers of what we think we know’ to construct new understandings of their faith and themselves. It’s a unique and invigorating lens on Judaism.”

• Publisher’s Weekly

“To open this book is to open oneself to hope.”

• Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, President of Hebrew College

Rabbi Adina Allen is a spiritual leader, writer, and educator who grew up in an art studio where she learned firsthand the power of creativity for connecting to self and to the Sacred. She is cofounder and creative director of Jewish Studio Project (JSP), an organization that is seeding a future in which every person is connected to their creativity as a force for healing, liberation and social transformation. Based on the work of her mother, renowned art therapist Pat B. Allen, Adina developed the Jewish Studio Process, a methodology for unlocking creativity, which she has brought to thousands of organizational and community leaders, educators, artists, and clergy across the country.

Gala Party Band

Adam is a Twin Cities based musician and songwriter who frequently performs in New York City, Nashville, New Orleans, and tours around the country. His music draws from soul, jazz, funk, and R&B. His influences include: Stevie Wonder, D’Angelo, Donny Hathaway, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, and others.

In 2024, he was a semi-finalist on Season 26 of The Voice. On Team Reba, he was known for his “dirty soul” style and fun-loving attitude. 

Born on Long Island, NY, Adam was mostly raised by his mother, an English, Jewish writer. He moved all over the world with his mother and two siblings. He lived in Israel/Palestine as a young child and went to school in England. He did a stint in Houston before moving back to New York City in his 20s. After almost two decades in New York, he moved to Minneapolis with his wife where he resides today.

Program Emcee & Drag Queen

Blanche the Jazzy Jewess of South Minneapolis is here to kvetch, kvell, and belt her heart out! A dazzling drag performer, she blends Jewish cultural pride with the glamour of Broadway’s golden age, serving rich vocals, sparkling wit, and bubbie-approved mishigas—what’s not to like?

Instagram: @blanchethejazzyjewess 

Klezmer Band