Welcome
I’m a woman of many names … Alison Avigayil Carmel Ramer—an activist, an artist, a mystic, a friend.
My work is rooted in tikkun olam—repairing the world—and includes spiritual activism, political organizing and radical ritual care.
I am the descendent of Jewish, Angelican, Quaker and Catholic missionaries, mercenaries and mystics.
I was born on Munsee Lenape land (New York City), grew up in Duwamish territory (Seattle), studied Politics and Jewish Studies at Mount Holyoke College on Nonotuck land (South Hadley).
I spent 15 years living and working in the Levant (Palestine & Israel) and Iraq, before returning to Turtle Island (North America) and Ohlone land (Bay Area) in 2023.
How has this journey unfolded?
Childhood (1986 - 2004)
As a child I could be found leading rituals in the backyard or protests in the schoolyard. I grew up in a community of artists, spiritual seekers, interfaith and indigenous leaders and political activists.
When 9/11 happened, I was 16 years old. I held my first grief ritual for my classmates and started organizing large scale protests as the US launched into war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I also experienced my first round of deep grief and burnout from activism at 17.
A year later, I was organizing demonstrations against the democratic and republican national conventions in 2004. I decided to go to college and gain some of the power and privilege I thought I would need to create social change.
During my first year as a student, I led a campaign team for on John Kerry’s presidential campaign in an effort to stop George W. Bush from being re-elected. In the wake of the electoral loss, I focused my activism more locally, and I helped create a community coalition to respond to plans to build a biological-weapons laboratory in a historic black neighborhood in Boston.
After failing to put a stop to the lab at a community level, I became an intern in the Massachusetts State House with Representative Gloria Fox, who sponsored a bill intended to at the least, regulate the laboratory.
The corruption, greed and racism I witnessed in this work, led to my second experience with burnout at 19.
Israel (2006 - 2010)
I looked deeper into who I was as an American-Jewish person and my relationship with the Middle East, and in particular Israel and Palestine. I was invited on a Birthright Israel trip, which I took in 2006, during one of Israel’s wars on Lebanon, to better understand my role in the conflict.
I came back to the USA with more questions than answers. Study did not suffice. Rarely could I find a Jewish-American scholar who spoke Hebrew and Arabic. It was hard to trust the narratives of American-Jews, so I set out to build these skills in myself and become a better bridge builder.
I studied abroad at Tel Aviv University, interned at Haaretz, Israel’s largest newspaper, and immigrated to Israel after I graduated from college and received a B.A. in Politics and Jewish Studies from Mount Holyoke College in 2009.
In Tel Aviv I started working as a writer and a freelance journalist. I travelled to Nabi Saleh, in the West Bank. I witness the harshness and inhumanity of Israeli occupation and apartheid. I started to support the Palestinian popular struggle with media and international relations.
Upon an invitation of Palestinians in the popular struggle, I moved to the occupied Palestinian territory where I spent over a decade years living and working alongside Palestinians.
Palestine
(2010 - 2022)
Grassroots Organizing & Human Rights
After the 2008 attack on the flotillas, I started to deeply question Israel’s rhetoric. I was invited by a journalist to the West Bank to meet a group of Palestinians resisting Israeli settlement and confiscation of their water…
After seeing the Israeli occupation first hand, and building relationships with Palestinians in Nabi Saleh, in 2010, I moved to the West Bank to live and work.
I joined Nabi Saleh’s popular struggle and supported the Tamimi family in their nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation for many years.
This is an article in Mondoweiss I wrote about some of our work together in 2024.
I also worked with bereaved Israeli and Palestinian family members who lost their loved ones from violence at the Parents Circle Family’s Forum.
In 2011, I designed and implemented a child rights advocacy project for World Vision and collaborated with artists Issa Freij & Ahed Izhiman to train communities on the front lines to use photography and video for human rights advocacy.
In 2012, I was a part of the founding team at Grassroots Al-Quds and helped create Palestinian led political tours, community stories and maps of Jerusalem.
In 2014, I led the development and implementation of a executive leadership development program for Oxfam and worked with sixty NGO executives on campaigns, advocacy and organizational development.
In 2015, I started to support the development of a Palestinian youth center in Gaza with Ayman Abu Rouk and Youth Without Borders.
In 2018, I helped develop the first internship program for psychologists in Palestine with the Guidance Training and Counseling Center and Dr. Caesar Hakim.
Throughout my time in Palestine, I also consulted on the development of several art, economic development and environmental organizations.
I also was a part of several research teams for international organizations like FHI360, UNICEF, UN Women and UNDP.
Technology & Human Rights
Technology & Human Rights
From 2019 - 2022 I helped grow the first Palestinian digital rights organization, 7amleh, from a organization with an annual budget of $250,000 to an annual budget of $1 million.
In my role as International Relations manager, I also collaborated on international campaigns that led to successful boycotts and divestments from technology companies invested in companies profiting from human rights violations.
In 2023, I produced research about AGI for the Existential Risk Observatory, contributed to Meta’s first Human Rights Report and the first human rights assessment of social media companies in the sector and supported SEEN in their strategic development of citizen mobile-journalism and augmented reality designs to increase empathy and understanding.
Rest & Return (2022 - 2023)
After sixteen years of work in Palestine and Israel, I decided that it was time to rest. I called it a Shabbatical—a sabbath stretched across a year, inspired by the ancient Jewish practice of shmita, the seventh-year release. In the tradition of shmita, the land is left fallow, debts are forgiven, and people are invited to rest, relinquish control, and trust in sufficiency.
I embraced this as a personal and spiritual reset—a time set apart from work, volunteering, leadership, and consuming media. I unplugged and returned to a quieter rhythm: walking in nature, living simply, spending time with children, and letting go of who I thought I was supposed to be. It became a season of forgetting and remembering—an invitation to slow down enough to rediscover what was really true to me.
I discovered that I could be deeply healed and nourished by simple, spiritual ways of being and that my activism was sorely missing a spiritual practice. I was lucky enough to find the Taproot Immersion Program, which helped me reconnect with Judaism as a part of that process and develop my skills in ritual leadership in 2022 - 2023. It was there that I studied with Rabbi Diane Elliot, Shulah Pesach Rabbi Irwin Keller, Rabbi Eli Herb and Adam Horowitz. I also started to connect to the larger Jewish Renewal movement and earth-based Judaism, through Wilderness Torah and other initiatives and started to support local Jewish gatherings and holiday observance.
Renewal (2023 - 2025)
When my one year commitment to my Shabbatical ended the week of October 7th, I responded to the massacres in Israel and Palestine by opening a space for collective mourning. Over the course of the weeks and months following, I held space for hundreds of people in mourning with some of my spiritual companions, including Gabi Jubran, Hadar Cohen, Amanda Nagai, Morgan Bach, Ore Ganin Pinto, Coby Lieberman and others. This practice emerged into the Social Change Sanctuary, an inter-spiritual space to help us transform grief into gratitude, so that we can continue the work of social change.
To support this work, I trained as a Health and Wellness Coach with Headspace. I also paricipated in the School of Wise Innovation’s inaugural cohort and became a coaching student of Elizabeth Pinchot. I continued my studies in spirituality, and became a rabbinical student of Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb and her Shomeret Shalom denomination. I continued my studies with eco-theologian Sara Jolena Walcott, and indigenous Dine elder Patricia Anne Davis. I also joined Thrive’s 2024 - 2025 cohort Rooting in the Sacred where I continue to practice today.
In March 2024, I also accepted a Donor Organizer role with Jewish Voice for Peace. I spent a year supporting a group of donors to become donor organizers, maintaining and developing relationships with 120+ donors. I organized small, medium and large gatherings with 20 - 2,000 people that supported the organizations fundraising efforts.
In June 2025, amidst high levels political pressure on the organization and increasing momentum with several other projects, I left Jewish Voice for Peace and reoriented my work towards consulting and coaching.
Realign (2025 - Present)
Currently, as a co-founder of Social Change Studios, I provide coaching, facilitation and strategic consulting to individuals, organizations and social enterprises that are dedicated to making the world a better place. I also continue to have several passion projects that I support, some of which can be seen here.
I also share my writing, audio recordings and reflections on spiritual practice through my newsletter Hodaya: A Companion Through Chaos & Creation and speak to audiences worldwide about spiritual activism and entrepreneurship.