About

I’m a writer, activist, and facilitator who bridges strategy and soul. My work lives at the intersection of personal transformation and collective change—helping individuals, teams, and movements stay grounded, connected, and aligned with what matters most.

For the past two decades, I’ve worked across sectors—as a leadership coach, organizational development strategist, fundraiser, and movement builder. I support mission-driven teams and social justice organizations to navigate complexity, build trust, and grow cultures rooted in care and accountability.

At the heart of everything I do is deep listening—to people, to the Earth, to the longings beneath our struggles—and a commitment to turning that listening into action, reflection, and renewal.

I create spaces where transformation can happen—whether through coaching, storytelling, strategic facilitation, or community ritual. Spaces where grief is welcome, imagination is fuel, and collective wisdom leads the way.

I believe healing and justice need each other. I believe leadership begins with self-awareness. And I believe that in these uncertain times, the most radical thing we can do is stay awake—to our aliveness, to possibility, and to one another.

I currently steward the Social Change Sanctuary, where I hold collective mourning spaces, and work as an organizer for Jewish Voice for Peace.

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, Quaker and Catholic spiritual entrepreneurs, mystics, artists and misfits. 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), and spent 15 years living and working in the Levant (Palestine & Israel) and Iraq, before returning to Turtle Island (North America).

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 leaders and political activists. I held my first grief rituals in high school after 9/11 and organized my first 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.

After my first sabbatical year, I returned to my work as an activist during the democratic and republican national conventions in 2004. My success with grassroots advocacy and media work that summer encouraged me to go to college and gain some of the power and privilege I thought I would need to be powerful in political spheres.

During my first year as a student, I worked on John Kerry’s political 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 helped form a community coalition to respond to plans to build a biological-weapons laboratory in a historic black neighborhood in Boston. The community elders endowed me with my first anti-racism training which helped me develop a wider understanding of myself in the wider world and shaped my work for decades to come.

After failing to stop the re-election of George Bush and 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.

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 of understanding.

I studied abroad at Tel Aviv University, interned at Haaretz, Israel’s largest newspaper, and immigrated to Israel after I graduated from college. I received a B.A. in Politics and Jewish Studies from Mount Holyoke College in 2009.

While living in Tel Aviv and working as a journalist, I deepened my understanding of zionism, the Israeli occupation and apartheid. I left Tel Aviv and joined the popular struggle for Palestinian liberation in the occupied Palestinian territory where I spent over a decade years living and working alongside Palestinians. In this time I learned from and supported several Palestinian activists, artists grassroots movements and organizations.

  • I grew up in the hills of Nabi Saleh, supporting the Tamimi family in their popular struggle and non-violent resistance — protecting a freshwater spring.

  • I worked with bereaved Israeli and Palestinian family members who lost their loved ones from violence at the Parents Circle Family’s Forum.

  • I collaborated with artists Issa Freij & Ahed Izhiman to train communities on the front lines to use photography and video for human rights advocacy with the support of World Vision.

  • 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.

  • I led the development and implementation of a leadership development program for Oxfam and worked with sixty NGO executives on campaigns, advocacy and organizational development.

  • I supported the development of several arts organizations including Al Mamal Foundation for the Arts and FilmLab Palestine, especially Palestine Cinema Days.

  • I helped develop the first internship program for psychologists in Palestine with the Guidance Training and Counseling Center and Dr. Caesar Hakim.

  • I supported the development of a Palestinian youth center in Gaza with Ayman Abu Rouk and Youth Without Borders.

  • 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.

  • I collaborated on international campaigns that led to successful boycotts and divestments from technology companies invested in companies profiting from human rights violations.

  • I contributed to Meta’s first Human Rights Report and the first human rights assessment of social media companies in the sector.

  • I supported SEEN in their strategic development of citizen mobile-journalism and augmented reality design to increase empathy and understanding.

I also spent time developing myself spiritually, emotionally and artistically. I spent tens of thousands of hours working with therapists, writing and photographing the world around me and developing short video art pieces.

Some of my writing was featured in the 7th Berlin Biennalle as a part of a anthology, “Forget Fear”. I also contributed to “What is Activism?” with Jack Persekian in 2018. My video art was also a part of The Wake Up Memorial in 2015.

Now

After sixteen years of work in Palestine and Israel, I returned to the United States to share my knowledge and experience with my community here. 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 was deeply healed and nourished by simple, spiritual ways of being and that my activism was sorely missing a spiritual practice.

When my one year commitment to my Shabbatical ended the week of October 7th, I knew that I had to respond to the disaster in Israel and Palestine in a different way. On the night of October 7th, I opened a space for grieving and started holding collective mourning space for hundreds of people over the coming weeks and months. 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. I currently steward the Social Change Sanctuary along with a small collective of companions.

I also returned to my work with NGOs and currently work primarily with Jewish Voice for Peace and select individuals and organizations to develop their social, spiritual and political work in the world.

This includes work with several indigenous elders developing large scale ceremonies and programs to help the next generation become sacred stewards of life on earth.

The balance of practice and preaching, sacred work and sacred study is also very important to me.

I have a daily spiritual practice that I’m always developing and which is supported by many teachers, students and sacred companions.

I am a current student of Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, eco-theologian Sara Jolena Walcott, and indigenous Dine elder Patricia Anne Davis. I’m a part of Thrive’s 2024 - 2025 cohort Rooting in the Sacred and the School of Wise Innovation’s spring cohort.

I regularly share my writing, audio recordings and reflections on spiritual practice through my newsletter Hodaya: A Companion Through Chaos & Creation. I also share some of the teachings, tools and art pieces that help me keep working for liberation in this chaotic and cataclysmic time.

You can follow my writings and receive updates via my substack.