We are honored to rise to our roles as co-creators of a healthy, healing ecosystem of sacred, sustainable and systemic love and justice with an ensemble of renowned guest artists, activists and faith leaders from around the world.
ritual leaders & artists
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie
Social activist and storyteller, writer and community leader, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie (he/him) is the Co-Founding Spiritual Leader of the Lab/Shul community in NYC and the creator of the ritual theater company Storahtelling, Inc.
Israeli born, he’s been living in New York since 1998. He received his rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2016, the 39th generation of rabbis in his family — the first one to be openly queer.
Rabbi Amichai is the subject of Sabbath Queen, Sandi DuBowski’s documentary film, 21 years in the making, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2024.
Rabbi Amichai serves on the Executive Board of Rabbis for Human Rights, is a co-founding member of the Jewish Emergent Network, a founding faculty member of the Reboot Network, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Sulha Peace Project for Israeli and Palestinian peacemakers, the Leadership Council of the New York Jewish Agenda, the Advisory Council for the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and as an advisor to Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance.
In 2022 Rabbi Amichai began publishing Below the Bible Belt a daily digital project extended over 42 months, critically queering and re-reading all 929 chapters of the Hebrew Bible.
Amichai is Abba to Alice, Ezra and Cai-Hallel.
Shira Kline
Shira Kline (she/her) is a queer performance and ritual artist, recognized as a revolutionary educator and named one of the new re-engineers of Jewish life today. Co-founder of Storahtelling and Lab/Shul, she serves as our Spiritual Leader weaving liturgy, text, story and song. Known in the sanctuary as a spiritual adventurist , Shira practices in the field of sacred play. She tours extensively locally and globally with a vibrant invitation to connect, for a new and realized conscious world and is a frequent guest faculty of numerous international leadership conferences including Hava NaShira, SLBC, PJ Library, HUC-JIR Seminary and Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music. Shira is a very grateful and proud 2024 recipient of the prestigious Covenant Award, recognizing her strength as a creative catalyst for change and innovation in Jewish education across all denominations and settings.
Expansive and imaginative, Shira is here to nourish and ignite expression of the spirit. At home in Brooklyn, unceded Lenape lands, she lives to cook, dance, and play with her beloved and their daughter.
Naomi Less
Naomi Less (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based, internationally celebrated singer, composer, musician, ritual artist and experiential educator. A co-founder of Storahtelling and ultimately Lab/Shul, Naomi has enjoyed the many hats she’s worn in this sacred work – trainer, facilitator, worship leader, officiant, fundraiser and of course singer/musician. She tends to individuals and families in different life stages, particularly the B mitzvah cohorts and trainers and the Kaddish Club for grievers and mourners. Naomi’s original music is sung in worship communities worldwide, including many she has visited as an artist in residence. Naomi is a critical part of the Jewish music ecosystem, hosting Jewish Women Rock, a show on JewishRockRadio.com, and as a Core Educator at Songleader Boot Camp. She has studied formally and informally music, education and spiritual training through mentors and programs including the Rising Song Institute Fellowship,Northwestern University, Jewish Theological Seminary, Institute for Informal Jewish Education at Brandeis University, Institute for Jewish Spirituality and ChangeCraft. Listen to Naomi’s songs wherever you stream music.
Ben Freeman
Ben Freeman (he/him) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator/facilitator, and ritual leader based in Brooklyn. His work as a facilitator has found organizational homes like Lucasfilm; the childcare workers’ union of Rhode Island; FriendshipWorks, and Lab/Shul, where he is Program Director for GENerate and Pass/Age, two cohort-based rite of passage programs for adults. Ben holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, a BA in Theater Arts and Performance Studies from Brown University, and a certificate in nondenominational spiritual direction from Still Harbor.
Ben is a musical artist whose discography includes the tenth anniversary edition of his debut EP, Providence (2025), the EP Baby Mine (2023), and the full-length album Quiet Fury (2022). He is currently working on his second full-length studio album and performs regularly around the city. As a theater artist, Ben’s work includes, This Is a Play I Wrote in the Fifth Grade and I’m Still Waiting for My Pulitzer, a riotous tragedy that was, in fact, written in fifth grade; and The Shape of the Entire, developed in conjunction with The Skeleton Rep(resents), a company exploring modern myth.
Galeet Dardashti
As vocalist, composer, anthropologist, and culture creator, Dr. Galeet Dardashti has earned a reputation as a trail-blazing performer and educator of Middle Eastern & North African (MENA) Jewish Culture. She has received numerous commissions and awards for her artistic and academic work (including two Fulbright Fellowships and a Six Point Fellowship) and was named among NY Jewish Week’s 2024 “36 to Watch.”
Galeet is widely known as leader/founder of the renowned all-woman powerhouse Sephardi/Mizrahi Jewish ensemble, Divahn. In her newest celebrated solo release, Monajat, Galeet remixes samples of her famed Iranian grandfather’s recordings to create an original soundscape with an acclaimed ensemble. Time Out New York has described her music as “urgent, heartfelt and hypnotic;” The Huffington Post called it “heart-stopping.”
The Nightingale of Iran—the new hit documentary podcast series Galeet co-created and co-produced with her sister, Danielle—explores their family history, including the story of their Iranian grandfather, Younes Dardashti, known as “The Nightingale of Iran.” The podcast has already won numerous awards and has been downloaded more than 250,000 times by listeners in more than 160 countries.
Dardashti specializes in Mizrahi culture and music and her current book project explores the Mizrahi piyyut (sacred song) phenomenon in contemporary Israel. She has held Assistant Professor positions at NYU and JTS and was most recently a Fellow at University of Pennsylvania. As founder/director of Da’anoor, Galeet helps institutions, educators, and communities integrate MENA Jewish culture and traditions to foster inclusivity. She offers residencies, performances, and workshops throughout the world.
Sabrina Hayeem-Ladani
Sabrina Hayeem-Ladani is a multi-genre performer, somatic practitioner, and native New Yorker of Mizrahi-Jewish ancestry. A former founding member of the Resistance Revival Chorus, she has performed her work internationally, using voice and embodied practice as tools for creative expression and connection. Her poetry has appeared in publications including So Much Things To Say: One Hundred Poems of Calabash and The Wide Shore, a journal of global women’s poetry. Sabrina maintains a somatic healing practice in Brooklyn, NY, supporting individuals in nervous system care and attunement.
Ritual Musicians
Jeremy Brown
Jeremy Brown (he/him) is a Brooklyn, New York based performer, recording artist and educator. Jeremy’s original sound merges the technical mastery of a lifetime of classical study with deep knowledge of traditional violin styles including bluegrass, klezmer, arabic and blues. Jeremy is also a fierce improviser in New York’s downtown style. Jeremy performs around the world with a wide range of artists including klezmer-rock legends Golem; the Jewish noise-rock quartet Pitom, with whom Jeremy released 2 records on John Zorn’s Tzadik Records; the Moroccan Jewish ensemble Asefa; and international Jewish music star Eitan Katz.
Martin Shamoonpour
Martin Shamoonpour is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, actor, and visual artist from Tehran. He plays daf, tombak, flute, and Iranian folk woodwind instruments, and began performing in galleries and theaters across Iran. Much of his early career centered on audio art performances and sound installations in Tehran’s contemporary art spaces — including Parkingallery, Fravahrgallery, Tehran House of Artists, and Laleh Art Gallery — where he combined ambient soundscapes, folk instruments, and the raw noise of city life to create immersive sonic environments.
He has released three experimental albums, including 8-Bit (2014), which reimagines Iranian folk melodies through retro 8-bit textures, and Tehransaranieh (2010), which blends urban field recordings with traditional instruments. In later years, he expanded his practice to electro-folk concerts and performances of Klezmer music with acclaimed clarinetist David Krakauer.
Also active as an actor, Shamoonpour appeared in over twenty theater productions in Tehran and in several feature films, including the award-winning Melbourne (2014) and Bending the Rules (2013). In 2010, he joined Berlin’s Charivari Circus, and in 2018 performed in the acclaimed Off-Broadway play The Jungle at St. Ann’s Warehouse under director Stephen Daldry.
Eleonore Weill
French-American vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Éléonore Weill creates and performs soulful interpretations of Klezmer, Yiddish, French, Occitane music as well as original compositions. In addition to her acclaimed socially-conscious Yiddish music ensemble Tsibele, she performs and records internationally in a variety of ensembles, from klezmer to Romanian and Occitane folk musics with the Baroque Music Center of Versailles (C.M.B.V.), Frank London, Orchestre National de Toulouse, Joey Weisenberg, Midwood, Les Saqueboutiers, and many others. She has performed at leading international festivals including Yiddish New York, the Ashkenaz Festival (Toronto), Kleztival (São Paulo), and KlezKanada (Quebec) on recorder, wooden flutes, piano, accordion hurdy-gurdy, and as a lead singer. With performance degrees from France’s National Conservatories in Paris and Toulouse, Weill holds a Master’s Degree in ethnomusicology from the Sorbonne and Columbia University. Weill’s music is informed by her conviction that traditional songs have great power to create social change.
Lab/Jr. Educators
Keb Barshack
Keb Barshack (he/him) is a queer trans Vietnamese-Jewish multidisciplinary artist and spiritual leader from the Bay Area, California. These identities are vital to his art and being. He explores through movement, sound, and crochet/knitwear, all infused with transgender based theology – digesting their intersections through dance. Keb recently graduated from The New School with a BA in Contemporary Dance with a secondary focus in religious studies. All of Keb’s mediums come together in his performance art and community leading. He is committed to a lifelong exploration of the intersections of queerness, transness, prayer, and performance and how the queer can be the most sacred thing in the world. Keb is so excited to be returning to Lab/Shul for another High Holidays of learning, leading, and playing.
Max Goldner
Max Goldner (he/him) is a writer, educator and designer based in Brooklyn. He has been a Raising the Bar B-Mitzvah Trainer with Lab/Shul since 2020 and is thrilled to be back for the High Holidays again this year. His work examines ways of decolonizing and expanding Jewish memory through the built environment, archives, curatorial practices, and performance. He completed a Master of Architecture and M.S. in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices from Columbia GSAPP, where he was a Dean’s Scholar recipient and awarded honors for his outstanding thesis “Shooting and Crying: Constructions and Translations of (Para-)Jewish Subjecthood.”
Meghan Grover
Meghan (she/they) is thrilled to join Lab/Shul again where we get to co-create immersive, multisensory experiences for young people to express themselves, learn from each other, and connect to the power of the high holidays. Meghan loves theater– whether it’s performing, devising theater with young people, creating immersive theater, or clowning around! Their work as a theater-maker includes Hook & Eye Theater Company, Brooklyn Free School, Flying Leap Productions, and Bluelaces, to name a few. Meghan graduated from the Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program and the MA Applied Theatre Program at CUNY.
Stephanie Kane
Stephanie Kane (she/her) is a professional theatre artist and educator, and is so excited to be joining the Lab/Shul team full time as the Raising the Bar Coordinator. As a Jewish educator and eternal camp counselor, she has worked with kids of all ages and abilities at Camp Ramah in California, JCC Pittsburgh, and most recently as a trainer here at Lab/Shul. Her theatrical homes past and present include Center Theatre Group, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, The Public Theater, and The Workshop Theater. Stephanie holds a BFA in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University and currently lives in Brooklyn on sovereign Lenape land, although she was born and raised in Los Angeles, a fact that shocks people because she’s pale, walks fast, and hates the beach.
Maria Serach Lemire
Maria Serach Lemire (they/them) is a teacher and artist with a wealth of experience in early childhood, special education, Judaic programming, and labor relations. Over the last six years, they have proudly served the families and children of the 14th Street Y and Lab/Shul as well as the private, public, and religious schools of New York City. With degrees from NYU and Hunter College, Maria integrates inclusion, the arts, and literacy into their child-centered pedagogy..
Mairéad Reo
Mairéad Reo (they/them) is a sociologist, educator and caretaker who prioritizes empathy, patience and curiosity in everything they do! With a Bachelor and Master of Arts in sociology from The New School, their work has focused primarily on the LGBTQIA+ community, the intersections between mental health, race, disability and neurodiversity. For mairéad, maintaining an intersectional approach is essential for providing and ensuring safety and care to our community. They are incredibly excited to be returning for the joy of High Holy Days this year!
Melissa Shaw
Melissa Shaw (she/they) is a facilitator and educator who offers a unique consultancy based in social justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, social emotional learning and the arts. She has facilitated for school districts, school boards, universities, theaters, congregations, summer camps, detention centers, yeshivas, corporate offices, and long-term temporary housing centers. She has led workshops for Israelis and Palestinians, tech professionals, Rabbis, Imams, security guards, chaplains, non-profit managers, video game designers, Buddhist monks, school principals, NGO leaders, and the NYPD. Melissa facilitates a variety of anti-bias, anti-oppression, and anti-racist programs for the New Jersey State Bar Foundation, Building Cultures Group, the Anti-Defamation League, Powerful Communications, and Avodah. She has been a Teaching Artist and Creative Coach for various community-based organizations, including Community Word Project, Brooklyn Arts Council, Energize Your Voice, and the Lulu and Leo Fund. She is the Arts and Communication Advisor for the Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee and was part of the 2019 Nahum Goldmann Fellowship cohort and a member of the 2022 Leadership Seminar cohort. Melissa is an experiential Jewish educator and peacebuilder who has brought dialogue and listening practices through a ‘Jewish lens’ to Jewish organizations such as Hebrew Union College, Lab/Shul, the Foundation for Jewish Camp, UJA, Temple Ner Tamid, and more. She is a certified Ethno-Religious mediator, Restorative Justice practitioner and Interfaith Minister. She was recently EDI coordinator for the Tony Award-winning Broadway production of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. Melissa holds an M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College.
Laura Thien
I am a Renewal Rabbinic student with the Aleph Ordination program. Recently, I started a business, Living Torah LLC, where I officiate and prepare people for all types of lifecycles and rituals. I am a proud Mom to two adorable babies and a giant Bernadoodle in New Jersey. I was the spiritual director of Beloved Brooklyn and worked for 8 years as a middle school Judaics teacher at Hannah Senesh Community Day school in Brooklyn. My passion is Jewish mindfulness for all ages and helping create spaces where our tradition gives us language, connection and support to deepen our lives.
High Holy Days of Awe 2025
Yamim Nora’im 5786 // ימים נוראים תשׁפ”ו
Join us at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in NYC or online, to co-create community and activate a new year with renewed focus on what matters most.
TIKKUN / תיקון
Return to Repair.
In 5786, we rise again, guided by our people’s age-old resilience, ready to restart the annual journey of reflection and return to our best selves, to show up and to repair. Much more than a familiar quote or cliche – Tikkun or Tikkun Olam does not just mean that it’s on us to fix the world – it’s a more complex and nuanced concept that has evolved along with us over millennia, challenging us to course correct with courage and compassion, towards the transformations that will nurture trust and hope, bring peace and justice – for generations.
Immerse in meaningful, musical and meditative celebrations that fuse our oldest liturgies with contemporary art, engaging learning programs, and communal conversations.
Monday, September 22, 2025
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Thursday, October 2, 2025