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 Spiritual Leader weaving liturgy, text, story and song. Known in the sanctuary as a spiritual adventurist and on the kiddie rock stage as ShirLaLa, Shira practices in the field of sacred play. Outside of Lab/Shul 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. 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. 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.
Naomi Less
Naomi Less (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based, internationally celebrated singer, composer, musician, ritual artist and experiential educator. In 2000, Naomi met Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie and became a co-fonder of Storahtelling, later its Director of Education and Training, Director of Storahtelling and ultimately a co-founder of Lab/Shul. She directs ritual and education for both the Raising the Bar B Mitzvah program and Kaddish Club. Naomi’s original music is sung in worship communities worldwide, including Lab/Shul. She’s featured or commissioned by PJ Library, Transcontinental publications, Jewish World Productions, the Cantors Assembly, Foundation for Jewish Camp, and others across the Jewish community. When not at Lab/Shul, Naomi hosts Jewish Women Rock, a show on Jewish Rock Radio, serves as a Core Educator at Songleader Boot Camp and is a sought after artist-in-residence in Jewish communities world-wide. She is an alum of the musical, educational and spiritual training initiatives including the Rising Song Institute Fellowship,Northwestern University, Jewish Theological Seminary Davidson School, Institute for Informal Jewish Education at Brandeis University, Institute for Jewish Spirituality and ChangeCraft (formerly Center for Leadership Initiatives). Listen to Naomi’s songs wherever you stream music.
Ben Freeman
Ben Freeman (he/him) is a multi-disciplinary artist, educator, and spiritual care provider. He is excited to be back in New York City and deeply honored to join the ritual team at Lab/Shul. His prior work includes designing and facilitating an intergenerational storytelling program with LGBTQ+ elders and “youngers,” facilitating sections for a course on critical media literacy at Lucasfilm, and working in the spiritual care departments of Hebrew SeniorLife and Boston Children’s Hospital. He’s currently developing a chaplaincy practice for theater, film, and TV, the vision of which is to meet growing demands for mental health support and safe, caring, and culturally responsive working conditions through design and facilitation of creative process with deep attention to the spiritual needs and wellbeing of artists, audiences, and technicians. Ben is a graduate of Brown University, Harvard Divinity School, and the Spiritual Direction Practicum at Still Harbor, as well as a founding member of the Glitter Goddess Collective. You can find his music on Spotify, Apple Music and Soundcloud.
Richie Barshay
Richie Barshay is delighted to be back at Lab/Shul for these High Holy Day. He began drumming inside kitchen cabinets at an early age, and continues banging on things worldwide to this day. From his work with Herbie Hancock in the 2000s, to tours and recordings with Chick Corea, Esperanza Spalding, The Klezmatics, Fred Hersch, and Kenny Werner, he’s been dubbed “a major rhythm voice on the rise” by Downbeat magazine, and The Guardian (UK) praises “a major innovator who also knows how to have fun.” He’s also performed with Natalie Merchant, Bobby McFerrin, Joe Lovano, Lee Konitz, Donald Harrison, Lionel Loueke, Julian Lage, the Curtis Brothers, Gabriel Kahane, Pete Seeger, and the Tony Award winning musical The Band’s Visit on Broadway and national tour. Since 2004 he’s traveled across 5 continents as an American Musical Envoy with the U.S. State Department. Richie can be heard on over 90 recordings as a sideman, and two albums as a leader: Sanctuary featuring Chick Corea (2014), and Homework featuring Herbie Hancock (2004). Based in Northampton, Massachusetts and New York City, he is an AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher helping performing artists and others regain more body-mind coordination and ease of movement.
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.
Eitan Kedmy
Eitan Kedmy is a mandala artist who teaches others how to draw and paint mandala art as a way to develop personal and spiritual growth. He owned his own graphic design company in Tel Aviv for more than 20 years, designing logos, illustrating children’s books, creating cartoons for newspapers and teaching drawing and graphic design. He has also contributed to many drawing, sculpture and illustration exhibitions in various museums and galleries in Israel.
Check out his Instagram @eitankedmy.mandala
Rabbi Dahlia Shaham
Rabbi Dahlia Shaham (she/her) is an Israeli musician and peace activist, co-founder of “Women Creating Reality” – monthly Hebrew-Arabic gatherings of women in nature, and is on the Executive Board of Rabbis for Human Rights.
Born and raised in the city of Haifa, her maternal family coming from Iraq, and paternal roots deeply set in Jerusalem and the Galilee, Dahlia has always felt at home in shared spaces of Hebrew and Arabic cultures.
She holds an LL.B in Law and Latin American studies from the Hebrew University (2003), an M.A. of Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University (2009). Before embarking on her Rabbinic path, Dahlia worked in policy research and advocacy NGOs working to promote sustainability and peace in Israel and the Middle East.
Dahlia received her Rabbinic Ordination from the Hebrew Union College (2019). Her rabbinate is guided by passion for peace and justice, faith in the healing power of prayer and music. She has lead services and life-cycle rituals at “Or Hadash” congregation in Haifa and “Kedem” congregation in Melbourne, as well as to diverse and creative settings including women circles, playback theater, nature Minyan, and spoken word performance.
She lives in Haifa with her spouse Aran and their son Nouri (Plus Ostry the dog and Seiko the cat).
Dodie’s original compositions, heavily influenced by her biracial, Jewish background and inspired by classical, operatic, musical theater, rock and folk music, gained particular popularity during the pandemic by providing a space for connection and creative expression in the virtual realm. She has been a featured song leader and collaborator at numerous song gatherings, including Let My People Sing, Song Village, EarthSong Rising, and Singing Rabbit at Dancing Rabbit EcoVillage. She holds degrees from Oberlin College and New England Conservatory.
Co-author of the influential document “Who is Community Singing For?” Dodie founded consulting firm Vox for Change in 2020, integrating her unique lived experiences and a legacy of advocating for racial, social and LGBTQ+ justice to empower communities and create lasting systemic change. An Artist-in-Residence with the Chicago Public Schools, she coaches aspiring young singers at her home studio in Viroqua, Wisconsin, directs and performs in local theater productions, and serves as an assistant conductor with the RidgeTones community choir.
Singularly transformative experiences, Dodie’s song circles, performances and artistic workshops foster a sense of freedom, unity and joy, creating a positive, safe space to explore and build relationships, and experience the gift of collaborative singing. She is beyond excited to share in the Lab/Shul High Holy Days magic, and invites you to join her ever expanding singing community, and be an integral part of a movement that transcends boundaries through the power of music.
Sound Sovereign
Sound Sovereign is a composer, vocalist, and former healing practitioner, whose work is rooted in sacred refuge, embodied decolonization, and restorative liberatory practice.
Cultivated through ritual, Sound’s music includes chant-based chamber pieces, orchestrated song landscapes, and trio-based groove adagios, with vocal components ranging from pre-lingual/speechless callings, to mantra, lyrical language, and prayer.
Sound is a 2023 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, American Composers Forum 2022 ACF Create recipient, and NYFA 2022 NYC Women’s Fund recipient.
Through these awards, Sound’s first full length solo project – Data and the Disciple, vol. 1 – is scheduled to release and live premiere in 2025.
Eléonore Weill
French-American vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Éléonore Weill (she/they) 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.
Neta Weiner
Neta Weiner (he/him) is an artist and social activist based in Jaffa. He is a founding member and lead singer of System Ali, a multilingual Jewish-Palestinian Hip-Hop collective, and the artistic director of the Beit System Ali social educational movement. Neta has created several critically acclaimed and award-winning stage works that have been produced for festivals and significant theaters worldwide. Last year, Weiner released his second solo album, “Pinui Binui,” written in Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish, and English.
This year, Neta, along with his partner Stav, is a lecturer in the Tufts University Theatre, Dance, and Performance Department. In the upcoming academic year, he will serve as a guest scholar at the Schusterman Center at Brandeis University, developing his work in deconstructing and reconstructing language through various artistic mediums such as music, spoken word, dance, martial arts, and theatre. His emphasis will be on exploring the power of performance to stimulate imagination and to facilitate socio-political transformation and collaboration. This work is inspired by and deeply connected to the culturally and linguistically diverse urban environment of Jaffa, which is a significant influence on his artistic and academic pursuits.
Dodie Whitaker
Dodie Whitaker (she/her), a dynamic performer, educator, and community song leader, brings a unique blend of infectious enthusiasm and expertise to her extensive body of work. With over 40 years of professional experience in diverse venues such as Chicago Symphony Center, Carnegie Hall, Lyric Opera of Chicago, House of Blues Chicago and Madison Overture Center, Dodie has cultivated a deep passion for singing in harmony with people of all ages, identities and musical backgrounds.
Dodie’s original compositions, heavily influenced by her biracial, Jewish background and inspired by classical, operatic, musical theater, rock and folk music, gained particular popularity during the pandemic by providing a space for connection and creative expression in the virtual realm. She has been a featured song leader and collaborator at numerous song gatherings, including Let My People Sing, Song Village, EarthSong Rising, and Singing Rabbit at Dancing Rabbit EcoVillage. She holds degrees from Oberlin College and New England Conservatory.
Co-author of the influential document “Who is Community Singing For?” Dodie founded consulting firm Vox for Change in 2020, integrating her unique lived experiences and a legacy of advocating for racial, social and LGBTQ+ justice to empower communities and create lasting systemic change. An Artist-in-Residence with the Chicago Public Schools, she coaches aspiring young singers at her home studio in Viroqua, Wisconsin, directs and performs in local theater productions, and serves as an assistant conductor with the RidgeTones community choir.
Singularly transformative experiences, Dodie’s song circles, performances and artistic workshops foster a sense of freedom, unity and joy, creating a positive, safe space to explore and build relationships, and experience the gift of collaborative singing. She is beyond excited to share in the Lab/Shul High Holy Days magic, and invites you to join her ever expanding singing community, and be an integral part of a movement that transcends boundaries through the power of music.
STORAHTELLING Mavens
Doris Gramovot
Doris Gramovot AEA SAG/AFTRA: Doris Gramovot is a native New Yorker who has been in The Theatre since she was 5 years old. She has taught acting to children for over 3 decades. She is a member of The Actors Studio. She is most grateful for the time she spent studying acting with the incomparable Stella Adler. Stella told her once in class: “Don’t be a pissher if you can be a queen ” She is looking forward to portraying that with truth and dignity in this wonderful story!
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.
Naamah Imir
Naamah Imir is an educator, community leader and multi-disciplinary actor, and is thrilled to be back with LabShul for the High Holidays! Naamah joined Storahtelling in 2004 as a member of the performing company, as well as an educator in the Raising the Bar program and performer in StorahSteps. Naamah spent over 15 years working in NY and LA in theater, film and TV, as well as teaching in many Jewish Day Schools. She has been running her own B’nai Mitzvah tutoring company in Westchester, NY, and began teaching at The Leffell School in 2021. She received her B.A. in Theater Arts from Binghamton University, as well as a second degree from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Naamah is a lifelong Ramahnik and has worked as the head of the drama program at Ramah Poconos for the last three summers. Naamah currently resides in Westchester with her husband, Koby, and her three children, Erez, Sarina and Rosie.
Alan Altschuler
Alan Altschuler: A lifelong New Yorker, Alan is honored to perform as part of this year’s Yom Kippur service at Lab/Shul. He most recently played Jellaby in Bedlam Theatre Company’s hit Off-Broadway production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. Pre-pandemic, he played Francis Nurse in the Bedlam’s hit Off-Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Other favorite NYC stage roles include Polonius in Hamlet; Baylor in A Lie of the Mind; Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Pastor Manders in Ghosts; Helge in Festen; The President in The Crazy Lady of Chaillot; Serebryakov in Uncle Vanya; Dr. Dorn in The Seagull; Reverand Gardner in Mrs. Warren’s Profession; King Duncan in Macbeth; and Botard in Rhinoceros. He also wrote and performed his solo show, “Bigfoot Stole My Wife” in the United Solo Festival and The One Festival, both here in NYC. Film performances include roles in Performance; Off Hour; Worry Dolls, Early Release, and most recently a modern-day version of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, as well as TV roles on Law and Order: SVU and The Onion News Network. Alan is a founding board member of the Bedlam Theatre Company. He is a proud member of AEA and
SAG-AFTRA. Check out Alan’s website: www.alanaltschuler.com.
Nemuna Ceesay
Nemuna Ceesay (she/her) is an actor/director/educator based in New York. Select
theater credits: New York Theatre Workshop (Here There Are Blueberries), Actors
Theatre of Louisville (Loving and Loving), Shakespeare Theatre Company (Here
There Are Blueberries), The Shed (Straight Line Crazy), Second Stage (Patience),
Two River Theater (Three Sisters), PlayMakers Rep (The Christians and Tartuffe),
Woolly Mammoth, A.R.T., The Public Theatre (What To Send Up… tour), Oregon
Shakespeare Festival (2015/2016 seasons). Select TV credits: Bull, Broad City,
Instinct, Younger, FBI, Prodigal Son, and Katy Keene. Select Directing credits: The
Kitchen (Uncle!), Playwrights Horizons (Amusements), 66th Obie Awards, Clubbed
Thumb Winterworks (Reply All), Associate Director of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony
Award winning A Strange Loop on Broadway. 2022 Clubbed Thumb New Play
Directing Fellow. Fellow at The Workshop: North America’s first arts fellowship
centering the work of JOCISM (Jews of Color, Jewish-Indigenous, Sephardi & Mizrahi) artists & culture-makers. Founder and Creative Director of an all BIPOC training program called The Blueprint. MFA in acting from American Conservatory
Theater. Visit her website nemunaceesay.com and follow her on Instagram @nemuna.ceesay and @theblueprintartist.
Ben Freeman
Ben Freeman (he/him) is a multi-disciplinary artist, educator, and spiritual care provider. He is excited to be back in New York City and deeply honored to join the ritual team at Lab/Shul. His prior work includes designing and facilitating an intergenerational storytelling program with LGBTQ+ elders and “youngers,” facilitating sections for a course on critical media literacy at Lucasfilm, and working in the spiritual care departments of Hebrew SeniorLife and Boston Children’s Hospital. He’s currently developing a chaplaincy practice for theater, film, and TV, the vision of which is to meet growing demands for mental health support and safe, caring, and culturally responsive working conditions through design and facilitation of creative process with deep attention to the spiritual needs and wellbeing of artists, audiences, and technicians. Ben is a graduate of Brown University, Harvard Divinity School, and the Spiritual Direction Practicum at Still Harbor, as well as a founding member of the Glitter Goddess Collective. You can find his music on Spotify, Apple Music and Soundcloud.
Lab/Jr. Educators
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.
Keb Barshack
Keb Barshack (he/him) is a queer, multiracial, New York-based, multimedia performance artist and spiritual leader. Born and raised in California, Keb grew up at URJ Camp Newman where he has served as Head Songleader for the last two years. As a camper, staff member, and part of the leadership team, his spiritual identity and leadership flourished. His years at camp inspired a love of Jewish learning and teaching, alternative prayer experiences, and mentoring future partners in song. He is currently earning a BA in Contemporary Dance with a secondary focus in Religious Studies at The New School in New York City. He is beyond excited to expand his Jewish communities and learning at Lab/Shul
Meghan Grover
Meghan (she/they) is thrilled to join Lab/Shul again where we get to co-create immersive, multisensory experience 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 devising theater with young people, making process dramas, creating immersive theater, or clowning around! Their work as a theater-maker includes Hook & Eye Theater Company, Brooklyn Free School, Flying Leap Productions, Bluelaces, to name a few. Meghan graduated from the Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program and the MA Applied Theatre Program at CUNY.
Max Goldner
Max Goldner is a writer, curator, educator, choreographer, and designer based in Brooklyn. His practice examines ways of decolonizing and expanding Jewish memory through the built environment, archives, curatorial practices, and performance. He recently 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.”
Kohenet Serakh
Kohenet Serakh aka Stephanie “Steve” Guedalia (she/they) is a Hebrew Priestess, ordained through the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute. Kohenet Serakh is a Queer, Sephardic Educator. She is an activist, an interdisciplinary Artist, a Feminist, and Sin Positive Liberation Theologist. She is also a storyteller of our shared dream that is sacred mythology. Kohenet Serakh is a wisdom seeker who guides others in their seeking of wisdom.
Maria Serach Lemire
Maria Serach Lemire 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.
Melissa Shaw
Laura Marder 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 also the spiritual director of Beloved Brooklyn. I 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.