About

Rabbi Ariel Stone is Rabbi Emerita of Congregation Shir Tikvah, an independent shul on the East Side of Portland Oregon. Her widely popular weekly Torah study has brought together Jews and others from all over Portland Oregon, the east coast of the U.S., and Europe for over twenty years; her posts are a distillation of the teachings that emerge from it.

Rabbi Ariel teaches about Jewish identity, sacred community, and finding the self through thoughtful engagement in the world, guided by the insights of Torah. Her doctoral degree in Jewish mysticism was the starting point for her book Because All Is One, available from Xlibris Publishing*. Her second book, The Alef-Bet of Death, Lulu Publishing, is recommended by Kavod v’Nihum.

Career:

In 1993 the World Union for Progressive Judaism appointed her the first progressive rabbi in Ukraine, where she served as Rabbi of Congregation HaTikvah of Kiev and assisted in the establishment of multiple Progressive congregations in Ukraine that continue to flourish today. It was in Ukraine that she first began to appreciate the deeper significance of Jewish community in the struggle to create personal and communal meaning in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s dissolution.

During a two-year fellowship at the Mandel School for Educational and Social Leadership in Israel she explored aspects of sacred Jewish community, which led her to investigate mystical teachings. Returning to the United States in 2003, Stone helped to found a new post-denominational Jewish community, Congregation Shir Tikvah of Portland Oregon. She participated in the creation of Portland’s Hesed Shel Emet in 2009, ensuring that no Jew be left unable to afford a Jewish burial, the Portland Community Mikveh, and the Jewish Free Loan of Greater Portland in 2015. She served as President of the Oregon Board of Rabbis 2007-2009 and for another two year term 2015-2017. During that time she envisioned and rallied collaboration for what became the Eastside Jewish Commons of Portland Oregon, which opened its door in 2021.

In 2018 she was awarded the Emily Gottfried Human Rights Lifetime Achievement Award of the City of Portland; in 2023 she was given the 2023 Reverend Dr. Paul Smith Compassion and Choices Faith Award for leadership in the cause of the right to die. She is a foremost Jewish advocate for Queer and Trans identity celebration within Jewish tradition and an activist for justice for the socially vulnerable.

*NOTE REGARDING ERROR IN BECAUSE ALL IS ONE: Unfortunately there is missing text on p. 190 of the paperback; p. 189 ends with an incomplete sentence and p. 190 is blank. What is missing is only the end of a sentence. Here is the the  final clause of the sentence, with the last words on p. 189 appearing here in parentheses:

(and as individuals who seek a place) to belong, to find wholeness through attachment to a sense of self as part of All.

This concludes that section of the book. Apologies for the mistake.