Both in her writing and from the pulpit, Naomi Levy has drawn upon her own experiences of weathering crisis to give others the tools to survive. Part of the first class of women admitted to the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1984, Levy graduated in 1989 to become the West Coast’s first female Conservative rabbi at Congregation Mishkon Tephilo in Venice, California. In 1998 she published her bestselling book, To Begin Again, describing her reaction to her father’s murder when she was fifteen and offering insights about resilience and faith. She developed those ideas further in her 2010 book, Hope Will Find You, which described her rejection of her daughter’s potentially fatal diagnosis and her decision to live in the present and not assume the worst. In 2004 she founded Nashuva, an experimental synagogue for unaffiliated and previously disengaged Jews. Both in her synagogue and at the Academy of Jewish Religion in Los Angeles, Levy teaches lay people and rabbis to craft personal prayers and reach for a more engaged spiritual life. She has regularly been honored as one of the Forward 50 and Newsweek’s 50 most influential rabbis.