Contact Information for MFSI Cohort 1
Binah Block       [email protected]
Joni Brenner      [email protected]
Richard Green   [email protected]
Eliana Lee          [email protected]
Joran Oppelt      [email protected]
​Lise Stern          [email protected]
Carl Viniar         [email protected]
Jay Weinstein    [email protected]
Rachel Wohl      [email protected]

Notes from Video about storytelling
  • Start at the end
  • Make a promise that it will give you a message
  • A well made promise pulls you through to the end
  • Hide the fact that you are making them work for their meal
  • Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty
  • Storytelling has guidelines, not hard fast rules
  • Invoke wonder
  • Unifying theory of 2 plus 2
  • Use what you know
  • Character has a spine (what is the character trying to do?)
  • Capture a truth you know in your core
  • Strong theme for well told story
  • Anticipation, have you made me want to know how it will end?

Books (so many books, so little time)

A Consoling Thought: Stories for Time of Mourning
Rabbi Zeev Greenwald

Because God Loves Stories, An Anthology of Jewish Storytelling
Edited by Steve Zeitlin

Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories
Loren Niemi and Elizabeth Ellis
This book is extremely valuable in helping us to see why we tell (or don’t tell) the stories in our lives that appear hard to tell.  It also helps us to see why others don’t tell those stories in our roles as spiritual director or chaplain.

The Healing Heart – Families
The Healing Heart – Communities 
Allison M Cox and David H Alpert
These books, written from the perspective of public story telling, have much to tell us about one on one story telling as well.  They contain a wealth of excellent stories and ideas for adaptation.  I recommend that you read both books, but you must read at least one.  

The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin
Idries Shah
Teaching stories from Persian, Afghan, Turkish, and Arabic cultures

Souls on Fire; Portraits and Ledgends of Hasidic Masters
Elie Wiesel

Tree of Souls
Howard Schwartz


Music (click on title to listen)
Go In Beauty (music/lyrics Mirabai Ceiba, sheet music available on request)
To Us All (music/lyrics Mark Novak, sheet music available on request)
We Are Marching in the Light of G!d


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OnLine Resources

• A few beautiful written midrashim by Rabbi Hanna Tiferet

​• A Year of Stories -  a collection of stories frim many traditions,  collected and re-imagined  by Rabbi Mark Novak
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• BTStories.com  - stories that cover the "main events" of the bible,  both old and new testaments

​• The Moth - true stories told by the storyteller, always told live


Storytellers