Deb Gaffin (she/her)
Interim CEO | debg@mayyimhayyim.org
Deb is an organizational leader who has served on the Board of Mayyim Hayyim since 2020. With a background in EdTech and strategic planning, she has more than 20 years of experience leading teams, cultivating and managing partnerships, and delivering innovative learning programs. Deb is involved with many Jewish institutions in Greater Boston, including JCDS and Temple Beth Zion. She loves kick-boxing and gathering people around her Shabbat table for delicious meals. She lives in Brookline with her family.
Bev Klau (she/her)
Director of Programs and Partnerships | bevk@mayyimhayyim.org
Bev is an educator, facilitator, and connector who has been facilitating the Beneath the Surface program at Mayyim Hayyim for over a dozen years. She has been a classroom teacher in Jewish day schools, a religious school principal, and part of the URJ Eisner Camp staff. She’s also an entrepreneur and a community activist who has launched multiple programs to build community in her town. Bev holds a master’s degree from Bank Street in Museum Education. Bev met her husband Max at Pardes in Jerusalem. She loves to cook vegetarian food and support her two teenage children through their performances in community theater productions. Bev lives in Natick with her family and two cats.
Arielle Kaplan (she/her)
Program Manager, Mikveh | ariellek@mayyimhayyim.org
Arielle has immersed multiple times at Mayyim Hayyim, with the most recent occasion being the day before her 2017 wedding. She is a proud graduate of Brandeis University, where she received her BA in Theatre Arts. Beginning as a songleader at Eisner Camp, Arielle has been a cantorial soloist in the Boston and Southern New Hampshire since the early 2000s, elevating simchas and chagim through song. In 2021, she originated the titular role in Miriam : A New Musical, which was written on a boat trip between Cyprus and Israel by her father in partnership with Debbie Friedman z”l. She is an award winning costumer/sewist, and can be regularly seen as Princess Leia with the Rebel Legion charity costuming group. This July, she will begin her journey to cantorial ordination at Hebrew Union College’s School of Sacred Music.
Soreh Ruffman (she/her)
Director of Rising Tide | sorehr@mayyimhayyim.org
Soreh comes to Mayyim Hayyim with over ten years of experience as an educator and community organizer, with a background in sustainable Jewish farming, trauma and disability informed special education, and transformative justice. Mikveh has been instrumental in marking several critical life transitions in Soreh’s life. She is honored to be part of the team making mikveh accessible and welcoming to those seeking to mark one’s own important life transitions.
Michaela Wagner (she/her)
Director of Administration | michaelaw@mayyimhayyim.org
Michaela first learned about Mayyim Hayyim through Temple Beth Elohim in 2007 and immersed prior to becoming bat mitzvah. Michaela was a Judaic studies major at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She forged a strong Jewish identity through her upbringing at Temple Beth Elohim as a cantorial mentee, assistant teacher and youth choir director, personal tutor, and congregant Shabbat service leader for 14 years. She attended URJ Eisner camp and traveled to Israel, where she connected with Jews of all denominations and gained a deep understanding of and love for the broader Jewish community. In addition to her work within the Jewish community, Michaela has a decade of customer service experience and classical musical training, earning accolades as a top scoring soprano at the Massachusetts’s All State Choir festival. She is passionate about mikveh and its ability to uplift the soul, to heal, and to foster joy in life’s transitions. Michaela lives in Quincy and is raising a Siberian Husky puppy, as well as two Blue and Gold Macaw Parrots.
Becca Heisler (she/her)
Hebrew College Rabbinic Intern | intern@mayyimhayyim.org
Becca is an outdoor educator, ritualist, folk herbalist, and rabbinical student who loves to be outside, and loves to laugh. Originally from the Chicago area, she spent six years making home in Lisjan Ohlone territory (Berkeley/Oakland, CA) where she served the community by facilitating Jewish outdoor education programs and guiding earth-based rites of passage for youth K-12 and adults of all ages. In 2022, she relocated to Cambridge, to start rabbinical school at Hebrew College. She is a devoted student of the waters, learning transformation, renewal, and interconnectedness. Becca has been leading individuals and groups in mikveh in wild places for many years, and believes deeply in the power of immersion. She is humbly excited to continue learning at Mayyim Hayyim this year!