Meaningful learning and artistic adventure.
Carefully crafted by our Director of Family Education Shira Kline along with our talented Teaching Artists and Advisory Circle, Lab/Jr. is experiential education at its best.
With Lab/Shul’s unique God-optional approach to tradition, text, and story, all families are welcome! We are a community of those who identify as Jewish, Jew-ish, and everything in between. We design our children’s gatherings to include soulful prayers for the young at heart, interactive theatre, storytelling, and thoughtful age-appropriate learning.
**Please register every child attending. Lab/Jr. programming (ages 14 & under) is included in their admission fee. Upon completing High Holy Day registration you will receive a confirmation email including the link to enroll at no additional cost.**
Let’s begin a better year – for all.
All ages. All faiths. All welcome.
lab/jr. programs
Filled with imaginative play, movement and music, our creative kids’ laboratory is inspired by this year’s theme, Holy Shift. Picture a kid curated backpack of tools for all the life changes… an activated invitation to see the same thing in a completely different way, a play space for processing all that is and all that can be.
PlayLab (entering Preschool – 2nd grade)
PlayLab (entering Preschool – 2nd grade) Jump along, sing along, and art along in our stupendous PlayLab led by Maria Lemire as featured in NPR’s “Teaching in the Pandemic,” and sociologist and educator, Mairéad Reo, Montessori-based spiritual, child-centered, outdoor Jewish educator Ari Monts, and play curator Linda White of the Imagination Project. Dive into gatherings of Creation and Storah of the highest heart.*Toddlers and infants 0-4 with an accompanying adult are invited to join us at any time for PlayLab activities.
*5, 6, 7 year olds are welcome to be dropped off and picked up by their grown up at the end of the dayKidLab (entering 3rd through 5th grades) invites our older elementary age children into a playful, multi-sensory, and creative morning. KidLab invites expressive imagination and empathy to connect deeply to self, others, and the world at large. Led by writer and choreographer Max Goldner and along with multimedia performance artist Keb Barshack and Learning Lab/Jr. Educator Nomi Kline Solmsen.
TweenLab (entering 6th, 7th, and 8th grades + Raising the Bar cohorts 15 & 16) Lab/Shul artist and educator Melissa Shaw and Raising the Bar’s Stephanie Kane lead a session designed for inquiry and creativity. TweenLab will visit the main sanctuary to join Storahtelling: Torah Ritual Theater.
Please pack for your children, labeled with your child’s name:
- 2 Nut-free Snacks
- Water bottle
- Blanket or cushion (the floor of our garden is astroturf!)
Lab/Jr. SCHEDULE
ROSH HASHANAH DAY // Saturday, September 12
| Time | Event Name | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00am – 9:45am |
Warm hearted and musical family-friendly ritual with Shira Kline. All ages welcome. |
In Person in the Lab/Jr. Tent |
| 9:45am – 12:30pm |
Lab/Jr. Programming:
|
In Person in the Lab/Jr. Tent |
| 11:00am(ish)* |
Storahtelling: Torah Ritual Theater for Rosh Hashanah |
In Person & Live Streamed |
| 12:00pm(ish)* |
Shofar |
In Person & Live Streamed |
| 1:00pm – 1:30pm |
Kiddush: Hugs & Honey, Challah & Wine |
In Person |
| 1:30pm-2:30pm |
Tashlich Ritual at the River |
In Person |
*Estimated times, give or take a tear or two.
YOM KIPPUR DAY // Monday, September 21
| Time | Event Name | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00am – 9:45am |
Warm hearted and musical family-friendly ritual with Shira Kline. All ages welcome. |
In Person in the Lab/Jr. Tent |
| 9:45am – 1:00pm |
Lab/Jr. Programming:
|
In Person in the Lab/Jr. Tent |
| 11:00am(ish)* |
Storahtelling: Torah Ritual Theater for Yom Kippur |
In Person & Live Streamed |
*Estimated times, give or take a tear or two.
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.”
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.
Nomi Kline Solmsen
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..
Ari L. Monts/Emet
Ari L. Monts/Emet is a Storahtelling-trained artist, a SVARA Teaching Fellow, and a 2021 ALEPH Kesher Fellow. They’ve been trained in the Montessori-based spiritual education curriculum Torah Godly Play through Rabbi Michael Shire and through the official (interreligious) Godly Play network. They are the founder of summer shul, a child-centered outdoor Jewish community in Prospect Park. Ari loves learning, creativity, and play!
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.
Linda White
Linda White is from Kansas City, Missouri and is based in New York City. She does pop-up projects around the country in a variety of learning spaces including museums, schools, and community centers. She is the founder and creator of Imagination Play Project. As a play curator, her focus began with young children and has grown to working with people of all ages and abilities. Drawing inspiration from the schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and the rich aesthetic landscape of cities, she creates experiences using a variety of objects that encourage exploration, engage the senses, and inspire creativity.
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high holy days