About me

Having grown up a Jewish kid on a horse farm west of Saint Louis, with a B.A. in history from Grinnell, and work experience in outdoor, experiential education, I moved to Minnesota from New Mexico in 1999. Why Minnesota? Well, Paul Wellstone (z'l) was senator and Hamline University was committed to public interest law. I still haven't adjusted to winter. As a lawyer, youth worker, Jewish educator, sex and sexuality educator, author, and volunteer, I have been intensely involved in the Jewish and broader community in the Twin Cities.

My middle-grade chapter book, Friends Forever, won the Gelett Burgess award for Religion in 2012. 
I live in Saint Paul with my wife, Liddy Rich, and our dogs Koty and Nashi. Our son lives in Austin, TX.

In the late fall and early winter of 2010 when all seemed to be going swimmingly, I couldn't kick a sinus infection. Diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia in December, I had several rounds of chemo and thankfully matched with an unrelated adult donor in Germany and had a bone marrow transplant May 12, 2011.  (Want to join the registry or need to update your contact information with Be the Match?) Baruch HaShem, since then, so far, I have been cancer-free. I have been healing, recovering, and living with chronic illness ever since. I have a lot of experience as a patient and patient advocate. 

You might have seen me at places like JPRIDE, hanging out at Lake Phalen with the Karen refugee family my wife and I mentored through Lutheran Social Services and have stayed in touch with, teaching Hebrew at Mount Zion, davening at morning minyan at Beth Jacob, collecting books or trying to find more reading buddies for Northeast College Prep, or digging in our garden. If you have, please remind me know how you know me when you reach out!