Poetry, Torah & Conversation

Poetry, Torah, and Conversation

A Machshavah salon presented with Yetzirah

Saturday, November 14, 2026 · Doors open at 7pm · Paramus, NJ

Join us for an intimate evening of poetry, Torah, and conversation.

Rather than a traditional reading, the evening will be a conversation about our work, our process, and our craft, especially how and why each of us turns to Torah in our poems. What does art add to Torah, and Torah to art? And what might this mean for anyone forging their own relationship with tradition, text, and God?

We'll read, we'll talk, and we hope you'll join in. The evening will also include live music from Nehedar, and we'll have kosher sushi, desserts, and plenty more to enjoy.

Space is limited, so please RSVP. The location will be shared with guests before the event.

You can also join remotely via zoom. Click here for zoom registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/PeZ1zahkRauqStnWEeF5rQ

This event is free, but please consider an $18 donation to help cover costs: https://www.machshavah.org/support

About the artists

Tikva Hecht is the author of Tashlikh (Ben Yehuda Press, 2024), a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and shortlisted for the Maya Poetry Book Awards. Her writing often engages with religious themes and texts, pulling from Torah and Talmud in content and form. Tikva holds an MFA in creative writing from UC Riverside, an MA in philosophy from the New School for Social Research, and a BA in Judaic studies from Yeshiva University. She is also the editorial director at Aleph Beta.

Hannah Butcher-Stell is a Florida-born poet based in New Jersey and a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College's MFA program. Her work has appeared in Vita Poetica, No Dear, A Door is a Jar, and The Lehrhaus, and she has received the Arden Goettling/Academy of American Poets Prize and the John B. Santoianni Award for Excellence in Poetry. In both her Jewish nonprofit work and her writing, she is drawn to language as a means of connection, attention, and care.

Shamar Hill is a poet and memoirist and a fellow of Cave Canem and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, The Missouri Review, Poetry Northwest, and Washington Square Review. His memoir in progress, In Defiance of All True Things, explores three generations of fatherhood and his Black and Jewish inheritance. He holds an MFA from NYU, where he studied with E.L. Doctorow, and has taught creative writing at NYU, The New School, Hunter College, and with incarcerated youth. He is the founder of Machshavah, a Jewish intellectual salon.

Nehedar is the musical project of New York City singer-songwriter, vocalist, and producer, Emilia Cataldo. Drawing on a rich blend of influences—from her father’s Nuyorican jazz roots to the NYC anti-folk and indie scenes—she creates genre-fluid music that is raw, witty, introspective, and fiercely independent. An active underground presence on the NYC music scene since 2003, she has self-released numerous independent albums exploring motherhood, philosophy, personal growth, and Jewish sources with honesty and creative energy.