This past week, whileRabbi Amichai was on the road with the Sabbath Queen film at the San Francisco Film Festival, the rest of our professional team spent two full days on retreat in the woods to reflect on the past year and plan for what’s next. This week’s newsletter offers a peek “inside the Lab” to share what our staff is working on this summer in preparation for the 5785 programmatic year. We are acutely aware of the impact of each day’s global news and how it underscores everything we do. We hope that in addition to the pain and grief you may be experiencing, you have also been able to soak in some sunshine and find some time for personal re:creation.
Here at Lab/Shul it is on us / Aleinu to do the long term, deep work that deepens community and creates societal shift.
Here’s what we’re working on this summer toward these goals:
Sarah Sokolic Co-Founder & Executive Director
This summer, Sarah is hard at work with a small Task Force of board and staff members finalizing a business plan for BECOMING, a new strategic program for the organization that is a pivotal component in shaping the next chapter of Lab/Shul’s strategic vision. BECOMING makes meaning of life’s sacred milestones, creating space for Jewish and Jewish-adjacent seekers to nourish their thirst for spirituality, connection and community in this world. Small cohorts of seekers encountering ages and stages of life together engage in study, conversation, and ritual creation, witnessed by and in the context of the community at large. Participants become their own storytellers, creating original culminating rituals to mark their rites of passage and transformative journeys.
We are excited about the transformative potential of BECOMING, as it lays the groundwork for a more connected and meaningful way of gathering in Jewish spiritual community for generations to come.
Humbled by the accolades that the Sabbath Queen documentary has garnered, R. Amichai is coming off of his west coast excursion including closing out the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival at the Palace of Fine Arts. Stay tuned for more film festivals and special screenings of Sabbath Queen across the US, Europe, and beyond that will be announced in the coming weeks.
As the horrific current events unfold around us, as always, our Rabbi is deep in thought and prayers of healing as well as encouragement for a better world. Please see his latest message here.
Shira Kline Co-Founder & Spiritual Leader
In preparation for the High Holy Days of Awe, Shira is happily getting lost and found in this year’s focus: the final segment of our multi-year reimagination of Shiviti, “L’Negdi Tamid – Face to Face, Forever/Now.” Shira is in conversation with mental health professionals, musicians, artists, ritualists and storytellers, deeply investigating “face to face” as the divine space in between. This potent exploration will inform our ritual time together this October as we enter into the new year. In July, Shira spent several days immersed in musical learning with Let My People Sing! followed by a trip to the west coast with Rabbi Amichai for the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival’s screening of Sabbath Queenwhich included a rich SoulSpa with the Sha’ar Zahav, San Francisco’s queer community.
Naomi Less Co-Founder, Associate Director & Ritual Leader
Lab/Shul’s lifecycle programs make meaning of our community members’ life milestones through study, conversation, storytelling and ritual creation. This summer Naomi is doing a deep dive into two of our lifecycle programmatic areas: Raising the Bar and Kaddish Club.
In Raising the Bar – Lab/Shul’s re-imagined, innovative and highly-personalized B Mitzvah program – Naomi will be designing curriculum upgrades and training new educators who will work one-on-one with students in the Storahtelling Maven methodology.
In Kaddish Club, Naomi is working with our volunteer circle holders to evaluate our 5784 grief and loss programs that support our community year-round, and plan for 5785 – starting with Yom Kippur’s ReCollect/Yizkor event. If you are interested in learning more, please reach out to Naomi.
Ben Freeman Associate Clergy
After spending the past six months upgrading GENerate’s curriculum and program design with the help of a dedicated volunteer Task Force, Ben – together with co-facilitator Sam Hipschman – launched Cohort 4 on June 13. Ben is also preparing for the launch of cohort 2 of Pass/Age in January of 2025. Both GENerate and Pass/Age are core programs under the BECOMING umbrella, exploring rites of passage for adults of all ages and stages.
In addition to his work at Lab/Shul, Ben is currently writing a new play through his artist fellowship with LABA: The Laboratory for Jewish Arts and Culture at the 14th Street Y. The play is very much still in formation, but it’s revealing itself to be about a group of Jews who come to a retreat center for a weekend focused on healing intergenerational trauma and find themselves in confrontation with the question of what it means to be Jewish in the first place. Ben’s personal Jewish journey has so frequently involved feeling “not Jewish enough,” and certainly in the wake of everything that’s happened since October 7 of last year, he feels his own Jewishness is front and center in many complex, contradictory, and uncomfortable ways. Ben’s hope is for this play to provide a forum for folks to gather around the messiness of what it means to be inheritors and purveyors of our tradition.
Sam Hipschman Director of Community and Culture
Designed to create a deeply engaged, cross-connected community, Partnerhood is Lab/Shul’s lifeblood. This summer – with the help of a dedicated Task Force of volunteers – Sam is putting much of their time and energy toward implementing new programs, systems and methods of communication for our Partners. You can expect to hear from Sam soon to see what is new and updated with Partnerhood for 2024-25.
Stephanie Kane Manager of Youth & Family Programming
Stephanie’s recent promotion to Manager of Youth & Family Programming has inspired her work with all of our Lab/Shul families with children. This summer Stephanie is leading our efforts to upgrade and expand our Raising the Bar programming with a focus on Lab/Shul’s everybody friendly, God-optional mission and dedication to social justice. What continues to pique her interest most is working directly with her students to approach an age-old Torah story with a new perspective – it is nothing short of mindblowing!
We still have a few spots available for the 5785 Raising the Bar cohort: Contact Stephanie by clicking here.
Luis Burgos Operations Manager
When considering the nation in which we live, Luis focuses on fostering and building his own communities. Luis intentionally aligns Lab/Shul’s values of justice and Love in his operational work managing our financial health and creating effective and fluid work flows. In supporting our staff and artists, Luis actively considers intersectionality and liberation as key components of his work. Personally, Luis has been leaning into his artistry. He recently flew to Colorado to shoot his next photo story, “ImageNation: The Adventures of Pedro Pan” – a visual and poetic exploration of the conception of Nation, as part of his fellowship with The Workshop.
After nine months on staff at Lab/Shul, Lauren has been gathering intel and strategizing our goals for communications across all of our in-person and digital platforms. This summer, it is her mission to line up our programming messaging with new, captivating content that will be released throughout the year. Together, we will introduce a new newsletter design that will create a snapshot view of happenings in and around our community. Keeping a close eye on metrics, Lauren will be utilizing data and Lab/Shul’s KPIs to streamline efficiency and effectiveness when it comes to internal and external points of contact. For Lab/Shul specifically and the marketing industry in general, storytelling is paramount; With this in mind, you will notice upgrades to the consistency in our look and communication across all the platforms where we connect with you.
