Gashmius: Towards A Progressive neo-Hasidism is an online magazine dedicated to Jewish mystical thought, practice, and culture. As the inaugural Gashmius Holiday Fellow, Avidan Halivni spent the past year writing essays and other pieces on the Jewish holiday cycle through a neo-Hasidic lens, placing the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Nahman of Breslov, and other Hasidic masters in conversation with Emmanuel Levinas, Judith Butler, and Rabbi Adina Allen. Join Avidan for a night of celebration of a year of creativity and reflections on the deep spiritual arc structured by the flow of the Jewish calendar. Read Avidan’s holiday pieces here.

Avidan Halivni is the associate director of the Jewish Learning Collaborative, a new platform for Jewish professional development that offers customized, one-on-one Jewish learning for professionals and lay leaders at Jewish organizations. He served as a Ramah Service Corps Fellow in Berlin for two years in a Hebrew-German bilingual school and on the Jewish Education team at Hillel Deutschland. Avidan has studied at Yeshivat Ma'ale Gilboa and Yeshivat Hadar, and was a Fellow with the Nachshon Project. He graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University in 2019 and holds an MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School in the History of Judaism.