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.

**All participating children must be registered for the High Holy days to attend our High Holy day programming. Registration entitles children and parents entrance to BOTH the main ritual programming as well as the children’s programming in the outdoor tents.**

Let’s begin a better year – for all.
All ages. All faiths. All welcome.

Reserve your spot

Lab/Jr. Programs

Filled with imaginative play, movement and music, our creative kids’ laboratory is inspired by this year’s theme, Tikkun: Return to Repair. Picture a kid curated Museum of Broken Shards, an invitation into the reparative justice belly of Jonah’s whale, and a repair toolkit crafted by our very youngest.

PlayLab (entering Preschool – 2nd grade)
Jump along, sing along, and art along in our stupendous PlayLab led by children’s theatre artist Meghan Grover, along with Maria Lemire as featured in NPR’s “Teaching in the Pandemic, “ and sociologist, educator and caretaker, Mairéad Reo. 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 day
KidLab (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 seasoned Judaics teacher Laura Thein along with multimedia performance artist Keb Barshack.
TweenLab (entering 6th, 7th, and 8th grades + Raising the Bar cohorts 12 & 13) 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 // Tuesday, September 23

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: -PlayLab -KidLab -TweenLab	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 // Thursday, October 2

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: -PlayLab -KidLab -TweenLab	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
KidLab
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
KidLab
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
PlayLab
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
TweenLab
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
PlayLab
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
PlayLab
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
TweenLab
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
KidLab
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.