Rabbi Xava De Cordova

Rabbi Xava De Cordova is a disabled, Sefardi, Mizraxi trans woman and co-host of the world’s first Queer Talmud podcast, “Xai, how are you?”. She is a long-time SVARA-style Talmud learner and SVARA teaching kollel fellow who got her start as a teacher by creating Beit Midrash Behind Bars, an organization that facilitated Jewish learning opportunities for incarcerated people in Washington State. She is also the co-founder of Shel Maala, an online-first queer yeshiva , which she co-founded as a SVARA fellow with Binya Koatz. She lives in Providence, RI, where she regularly produces Jewish ritual theatre (or did, before the pandemic), studies for private ordination and does her best to steward the radical tradition she’s been blessed to inherit.