The Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS) has created the Rachel Cowan Scholarship Fund to celebrate the legacy of Rabbi Rachel Cowan, who passed away last year. The fund will focus on bringing more activists and underrepresented constituencies in the Jewish community into its programs and retreats.

Seeded in part through a $180,000 grant made by the Nathan Cummings Foundation (NCF) and individual donations made in Rabbi Cowan’s memory (including a bequest from Rachel herself), the fund will offer scholarships to IJS’s retreat-based programs, making them more accessible to young people, Jews of color, LGBTQ Jews and activists. Additional scholarships will be available for IJS programs through 2022.

Honoring Rachel’s commitment to social justice and supported by the grant from NCF, IJS will also offer a special three-day retreat for twenty-five activists in 2019. This contemplative retreat will give activists the opportunity to pause, tend to their own souls, and see the deep connection between tikkun hanefesh (healing ourselves) and tikkun olam (healing the world). Participants will learn new tools of spiritual practice so that they may return to their work with renewed motivation, perspective, and resilience – hallmarks of Rachel Cowan’s legacy.