About Us
The SJC is Seattle’s home for secular Jews. We are a vibrant community that celebrates our Jewish traditions, history and culture in a non-theistic context. The SJC is a proud chapter of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, and aligns itself with the global Secular Humanistic Judaism movement, which focuses on the values of reason, justice, and personal responsibility over the belief in or dependency on any divine being.
Our welcoming community includes and supports multi-racial people and families, differently-abled people and families, intergenerational families, mixed-faith families, and the LGBTQ+ community. We welcome everyone who wants to include the Jewish values and secular humanism as part of their contemporary Jewish identity!
Learn about our Sunday School, B Mitzvah program, holiday celebrations, and more by contacting us today to see what you have been missing. We would love to meet you at our next event!
We are a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) organization.
The Secular Jewish Circle of Puget Sound is a proud chapter of the Society for Humanistic Judaism.
Why a circle?
Our name, Secular Jewish Circle, calls back to the roots of Secular Judaism in the Yiddishist movement of the late 19th century. Eastern European Jews were accustomed to self-run mutual aid and other civic/social groups as a sort of nation within a nation. They brought these types of organizations with them when they immigrated in large numbers to the USA. Most of these organizations were socialist, such as the Workers Circle, which was founded in 1900 and still operates a school and summer camp in New York to this day.
SJC uses the circle imagery as a nod to the Workers Circle, with whom we share many values as humanists.
Board Members
Jacob Kosman (he/him) President/Secretary
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Jacob grew up in an observant Jewish household outside Philadelphia, and went to a private Jewish day school, and then public school, before moving out west for college. Settling in Seattle, he sought a Jewish group that focused on the cultural, moral, aesthetic, and intellectual aspects of Judaism, not on the theistic aspects. That's how he discovered SJC and broader secular humanistic Judaism. Jacob was elected to the Board in 2021. |
Seth Levenson (he/him) Treasurer
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Seth is a trans man who was born and raised in an interfaith home (Conservative Judaism and Roman Catholicism) in Buffalo, NY. The push-and-pull nature of living under two strict religions simultaneously, which both insisted they were the correct one, drove him to question theism itself. He relocated to the Puget Sound in 2009 in pursuit of higher education, and brings more than a decade of financial services experience to the Board. Seth was elected to the Board in 2022. |
Jeff Treistman (he/him) Program Director
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Jeff grew up in a Secular Jewish household in the Philadelphia suburb of Springfield Township. He moved to Seattle in 1976 and has been involved with the Secular Jewish Circle for twenty years. He retired from teaching at Seattle Public Schools after 18 years, 14 as a school librarian. He is the Founding Director of the Jewish Comics Library of Seattle. Jeff was elected to the Board in 2017. |
Diamond Crawford (they/them) Social Media Manager
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Diamond is a patrilineal Jew raised in a non-Jewish household. They began learning about their culture as a teenager before returning to it decades later, after feeling the call of a secular cultural Judaism. They were born and raised in the Seattle area. They're a non-binary trans woman. Diamond was elected to the Board in 2023. |
Land Acknowledgement
The Secular Jewish Circle of Puget Sound recognizes that the region in which we operate, the Puget Sound, sits on land illegally and violently stolen from the dxʷdəwʔabš (Duwamish), dxʷsəq̓ʷəbš (Suquamish), Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, and bəqəlšuɬ (Muckleshoot) peoples in violation of the Treaty of Point Elliott.
For more information, please visit the dxʷdəwʔabš (Duwamish) tribe's website here.