Team

We are an artist-driven community, led by a diverse team of artists, rabbis, poets, performers, and award-winning musicians.

Founding Leadership

Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie
Rabbi Amichai Lau-LavieCo-Founder, Senior Clergy and Spiritual Leader
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie (he/him) is the Founding Spiritual Leader of Lab/Shul NYC and the creator of Storahtelling, Inc. An Israeli-born Jewish educator, writer, and performance artist, he received his rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2016. Rabbi Amichai is a founding member of the Jewish Emergent Network, serves on the Leadership Council of the New York Jewish Agenda, is a member of the Global Justice Fellowship of the American Jewish World Service, the Advisory Council for the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, an advisor to the Jerusalem Open House, and is a founding faculty member of the Reboot Network.

Rabbi Amichai has been hailed as “an iconoclastic mystic” by Time Out New York, a “rock star” by the New York Times, a “Judaic Pied Piper” by the Denver Westword, a “maverick spiritual leader” by The Times of Israel and “one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world” by the Jewish Week. In June 2017 Rabbi Amichai published the JOY Proposal, offering a new response to the reality of Intermarriage and taking on a personal position on this issue, including his resignation from the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Movement.

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 Charlotte.

Sarah Sokolic
Sarah Sokolic Co-Founder, Executive Director
Sarah Sokolic (she/her), Executive Director, is a community leader, educator and award-winning actor whose 20+ year career spans both the private and public sectors as well as the performing arts. Sarah joined Storahtelling in 2004 as a member of the company of artists, and soon after took on the position of Associate Executive Director which she held until 2009. Prior to Storahtelling Sarah has spent more than a decade designing and delivering professional and organizational development programs for Fortune 500 companies, investment banks and management consulting firms. She also consulted with camps, schools and synagogues on education programs and has guided dozens of families through the B Mitzvah process. In 2009 Sarah joined Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County as Director of Admissions, and spent eight years there as a senior administrator focused on increasing enrollment and retention rates, elevating marketing initiatives, and improving the overall customer experience for more than 350 families from a diverse range of backgrounds. She holds an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Teachers College Columbia University and a B.A. in Sociology and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University. Sarah is a lifelong Ramahnik and serves on the Board of Camp Ramah in the Berkshires. Sarah lives with her husband, Jeremy, and three children in New York City.
Shira Kline
Shira KlineCo-Founder, Spiritual Leader and Director of Family Programming
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. She tours extensively locally and globally with a vibrant invitation to connect, for a new and realized conscious world. She has been featured on NPR, hosted a queer Jewish podcast, led Shabbat on the Burning Man playa, recorded four award-winning albums, and is a frequent guest teacher or 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 member of the Mitsui Collective Kollel, building resilient community through embodied Jewish practice and somatic antiracism. 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. www.shirakline.com
Naomi Less
Naomi LessCo-Founder, Ritual Leader, Associate Director, and B Mitzvah Education and Ritual Director
Naomi Less (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based, internationally celebrated singer, composer, musician, ritual leader and educator. Her diverse original music is sung in worship communities worldwide, including Lab/Shul. In 2000, Naomi met Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie and became a founding company member of Storahtelling, serving as Director of Education and Training, Director of Storahtelling and ultimately as a founding Lab/Shul ritual leader and Associate Director. Her signature music initiatives include: Jewish Chicks Rock band programs, creator/host of Jewish Women Rock show on Jewish Rock Radio, and co-creator/music director/performer for TRYmester, a touring performance piece that brings to light the oft hidden stories of fertility challenges through narrative, song and dance. Naomi is an activist and consultant for causes such as Bring Back Our Girls New York, a multi-faith volunteer group, and Uprooted: A Jewish Response to Fertility Journeys (vice president). Naomi received training in spiritual leadership, music, facilitation and education from: Northwestern University, Jewish Theological Seminary Davidson School, Institute for Informal Jewish Education at Brandeis University, Institute for Jewish Spirituality, ChangeCraft (formerly Center for Leadership Initiatives). Listen to Naomi’s music on Spotify, YouTube, and Soundcloud.

Staff

Luis Mercedes Winter
Luis Mercedes WinterOperations Manager
Luis Mercedes Winter is a Black, Queer, Jewish, Neurodiverse Earthling. He learned how to question at Phillips Exeter Academy and how not to question at Bard College. He is a photographer whose work is often based in literature and a writer whose language is visual and sensory.

This is how he found his way to Lab/Shul, as a Storahtelling Maven. He has done two photo essays for Saturday Soul Spas and co-created a Jews of Color centered Passover Seder for our community in 5782. In 2022, NY Jewish Week named him one of the “36 to Watch.” (Formerly 36 under 36) That same year, he debuted his first photobook, Moses of the City, which received a stellar review from The Forward. This was the centerpiece of the previously mentioned seder.

At Lab/Shul, Luis interfaces with our vendors and freelancers to ensure smooth operations. He manages the office so the rest of the team is able to focus on the Spirit of the work at hand. Working alongside our Executive Director, Sarah Sokolic, he helps manage the financial health of our organization. He is honored to work with Lab/Shul, both operationally and as an artist.

Ben Freeman
Ben FreemanAssociate Clergy
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.
Stephanie Kane
Stephanie KaneManager, Youth & Family Programming
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.

Communications Partners

Jackie Lebwohl
Jackie LebwohlWeb Designer
Jackie Lebwohl (she/her) is a New York City based web designer, Jewish educator, and communications specialist. She works in partnership with Jewish, non-profit, and educational organizations throughout the world to showcase their unique identities on digital platforms through design and UX. Her past and current work supports organizations making strides in areas including gender equity, climate change, international development, inclusive Jewish communities, and progressive education.

Prior to her work in communications, Jackie specialized in literary analysis of the Bible, serving as an adjunct professor at the Academy for Jewish Religion, teaching assistant at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Student Fieldworker for Marom in the UK. Jackie has completed her BA, MA, and PhD coursework in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary and holds a BS in Neuroscience and Behavior from Columbia University. She also spent a year of learning as a Beit Midrash fellow at Drisha Institute for Jewish studies. Jackie lives in New York City with her husband, Zach, and 3 very energetic children.

Lauren Lebowitz Stanton
Lauren Lebowitz StantonCommunications & Marketing Manager
Lauren Lebowitz Stanton (she/her) is a New York-based designer and media marketing professional. She blends the worlds of corporate, digital-first marketing with the passion and grit of small business ownership. As a life-long artist, Lauren has always been a maker and creator. After building her business acumen, leadership and negotiation skills in the cross-platform media, brand partnership space, she reconnected with her creative roots to build ceLEBrations by stanton – a design studio dedicated to making moments memorable for individuals and businesses through custom-made products and promotional strategies.

Creativity, collaboration and communication are at the heart of everything Lauren does and she is excited to bring her spirit to Lab/Shul’s communications department. Being part of an established community driven by justice and love is important to Lauren as she raises her daughter to be a confident, kind and creative person.

A native-born New Yorker, Lauren earned her B.A. in Fine Arts from Wagner College and currently lives on Long Island with her miracle daughter and supportive husband. Together, they continue to build an accepting, warm and welcoming home that provides a meaningful connection with modern Judaism. As a proud mom-trepreneur, Lauren can be found across the island supporting fellow female-owned businesses, enjoying live music, ceLEBrating Jewish culture and living a beach-lover’s life all year long.

Community Partners

Melissa Shaw
Melissa ShawDirector of Social Action
Melissa Shaw is a facilitator, organizer 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.
Stephen Silva
Stephen SilvaCommunity Manager

Stephen Silva (he/him) is a latino and queer community-centered educator and non-profit administrator living in Queens with over a decade of experience leading and managing youth development programs serving under-resourced school communities. On top of that, he is a seeker and ritualist who found a spiritual home at Lab/Shul as a community partner in 2019 as he was converting to Judaism from Catholicism. He started off in our community as a Feast Team volunteer helping our virtual ritual spaces with time to schmooze and connect deeply during the pandemic.

Now, bringing the wisdom and experiences from both his professional and spiritual worlds, he joins the team at Lab/Shul providing administrative and programming support for Pass/Age & GENerate, our adult & elder B Mitzvah programs, as well as coordinating our annual retreats and ritual volunteers. He also is now welcoming community members into our Partnerhood, especially for those who are Co-Op curious!

Stephen earned his MS. Ed. in Community-Based Learning from Bank Street College of Education and his BA in French & Spanish Secondary Education from St. John’s University. For fun, he loves running, yoga, cooking large meals for friends and family, and learning to play the bass viola da gamba, a Renaissance instrument.

“I offer a bow to Rabbi Amichai and his whole team at Lab/Shul for having the courage and heart to proactively and profoundly make this world a more loving and accepting place.”
– Angel Grant / Death Over Dinner

Board of Directors

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”–Albert Einstein

I have played many roles and held a variety of titles in my 25+ year career–corporate strategist & lawyer, nonprofit Board member, consultant, and executive–but in essence my job has been to be a “professional problem-solver”. I have served as trusted advisor to senior executives in all these environments, bringing my blend of creative but practical thinking to help solve problems and unlock and act on opportunities. More often than not, the resulting strategy has involved collaboration and partnership, whether among different parts of one organization, or with multiple parties. I am highly skilled at convening groups, working through issues and finding and implementing mutually beneficial solutions.

I have also been responsible for the implementation of the resulting strategies, and have successfully brought to conclusion over $40B in mergers and acquisitions, multiple complex joint ventures, new product launches and other projects in both the for-profit and non-profit worlds. My passion for change has led me to transition my focus exclusively to mission driven organizations and I am blessed to be able to do my part to assist wonderful and visionary leaders in making our world just a bit better.

Dr. Lori Roth Gale is the founder of Strategic Learning Associates, a consulting group that serves mission-driven organizations in the not-for-profit and public sectors. Services include leadership and organization development; professional education needs assessment, design, and delivery; program evaluation and improvement; executive coaching; and research and data analysis.

Lori is also a part-time Assistant Professor at the New School for Public Engagement. Her seminars over the past 10 years focus on Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Organization Diagnosis, and capstone project research. Lori earned her doctorate in Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her dissertation studied the relationship between CEO Succession and Strategic Change. Lori earned her Master’s degree at the Yale School of Management and her BA at Brandeis University.

An active member of the Lab/Shul community, Lori has been a frequent participant in Sabbath Queen (and its daytime precursors), High Holidays, multi-faith Seders, Galas, soul spas, classes, GENerate 1, and Visionary Salons. She played leadership and/or facilitation roles in Kaddish Club, ReCollect, strategic planning (data analysis), GENerate (guest instructor), and the Board Nomination Task Force. She is a donor at the visionary level and has made fundraising pitches to the community. Lori was honored in 2023 with the Graver Legacy Award.

Peter Grayson, LCDP has spent the last 20 years on the forefront of mental healthcare innovation. As a pre-renaissance adopter of psychedelic assisted therapy, he was integral to the creation and leadership of the first medically driven, integrated addiction treatment facility in the US, developing programming to treat the whole person with their family using state-of-the-art models and evidenced-based technology. He has participated in numerous research and advocacy initiatives with the goal of destigmatizing and advancing addiction healthcare.

Peter believes that spirituality and community are core elements of transformational change — and further, that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Multiple paths do coexist.

Peter has a private practice, The Flow Initiative, and is Director of Addiction and Recovery at Nushama, a psychedelic wellness clinic in NYC.

Karen Hauser has been the Director of Research at the Broadway League for the past two decades. She is in charge of economic impact analyses for the Broadway industry, audience demographic studies, and compilations of box office revenue and attendance figures. She created and oversees the Internet Broadway Database (IBDB.com), an historical website of Broadway theatre dating back to 1750.

Before that, she was a freelance journalist reporting on theatre, Off-Broadway producer, and worked in general management offices. She graduated from Brown University and received her Master’s from Columbia University. She lives in NYC with her husband and teenage daughters.

Kippy Joseph brings 25 years of professional experience in community and global development, and philanthropy. She has a keen understanding of innovation as a catalyst for sustainable change, and a demonstrated commitment to gender equity, especially driving positive outcomes for women and girls. Kippy is a Senior Fellow at Results for Development Institute and serves as capacity development expert for the International Development Innovation Alliance (IDIA).

Kippy also serves as an advisor to social investment funds and innovation platforms including the Global Innovation Fund and Grand Challenges Canada. Kippy’s career includes program stewardship at The Rockefeller Foundation, where she initiated a global fellowship program on social innovation and co-founded the IDIA.

Kippy has a master’s degree in organizational psychology from Teachers College at Columbia University, a graduate diploma in systems theory from Birbeck College at University of London, and bachelor’s degree in public policy from Brown University. She hails from Baltimore and lives in Brooklyn with her family; she dedicates volunteer board-level service to organizations in both cities including with the Baltimore School for the Arts and the Brooklyn Public Library.

Andrew Kassoy is the Co-Founder of B Lab, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to build a global movement to redefine success in business so that all companies compete not just to be best in the world, but best for the world, creating a shared and durable prosperity for all. Before leaving the private sector to form B Lab, Andrew spent 16 years in the private equity industry. Andrew is a Board Member of Echoing Green, a member of the U.S. working group of the G8 Social Impact Task Force, and on the Forbes Impact 30 list of leading social entrepreneurs. Andrew lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.

Jennifer Pehr (she/her) is an urban planning and design strategist. With degrees in urban planning and public health, she brings her background and experience to work that addresses critical issues that impact people and find ways to make them better. Jennifer works with a diverse group of collaborators to identify, create, and implement solutions for the urban challenges that need to be addressed today and help people live healthier, more equitable, and dignified lives. Jennifer has worked across the globe, from sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia to the America, and has sat on juries and lectured in graduate planning and architecture programs across the United States. She spent many years volunteering for Right Rides for Women’s Safety and has served three years on the steering committee for Opening Act, an afterschool theater program in NYC’s public schools. Jennifer lives in Harlem with her husband Jon, a founding company member of Storahtelling and Lab/Shul, and their son.

Tom Sarig is the President of AntiFragile Music, a curator label and distributor for select, culturally distinguished independent music artists. With over two decades of experience in the music business, Tom has nurtured and helped several acclaimed artists achieve breakthrough success and sell millions of records, either as their manager or in a label/A&R capacity, and in genres ranging from electronic to rock, pop to hip hop.

Tom is also the founder of Esther Creative Group, a talent management and entertainment consulting firm that has managed the careers of icons such as Lou Reed, Bryan Ferry, Rickie Lee Jones, Violent Femmes, CAKE, and Bebel Gilberto. Tom has produced several feature films, and has served as a Grammy-winning senior A&R executive at a number of major record labels working closely with a multitude internationally renowned artists, and founded SarigSongs, a music publishing company. Tom’s mission is to champion and evangelize for great cultural brands, and to collaborate and empower independent music artists in today’s music landscape.

Ava Schlesinger is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Supervisor in NY and NJ; an adjunct professor at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work; an interfaith minister; and a non-profit management consultant. Ava is trained in and embraces the practice of Restorative Justice circle keeping and practices, especially as it is applied to educational, nonprofit, and HR settings and circumstances. She received her BFA from Parsons School of Design and both her MSW and MPA from New York University. Ava was ordained as an interfaith/interspiritual minister by One Spirit in 2012. Ava’s expertise over the last 30 years has been focused on holistically addressing the short- and long-term symptomatology and human and community costs associated with different aspects of individual and systemic trauma and violence. This work has informed her depth of commitment to social movement and change and was the inspiration for her to begin developing programs and curricula to support non-profit organizations with their management and training. She has had the privilege to work locally and nationally, traveling to Thailand, Cambodia, Liberia and India on working missions in her pursuit of discovering how to best be of service. Through her work, education, travels, and subsequent years of spiritual practice, Ava has come to deeply resonate with the understanding that our human family is borne out of holy oneness. She is fully guided by the precious, radical, abundant love of Spirit, and is certain the shadows of hate, fear and violence hiding in the recesses of our humanity will ultimately be illuminated by this infinite love.

franny silverman (she/her) is a consultant, coach and creator, with over 25 years of experience supporting institutional stakeholders at every level through significant changes to move the organizations they care about towards greater equity and mission alignment. As a practitioner of transformative mediation and restorative justice practices, franny supports people to move through conflict and charged differences with bravery, compassion, and accountability. Drawing on her background in ritual and devised theater, she creates and officiates tailor-made life-cycle rituals marking time and life moments. franny’s work is anchored by an active antiracist practice as a white Ashkenazi Jew, her dedication to the health and wellness of Jewish diasporic communities, and her commitment to building a world where all people have what they need to thrive as their whole selves in community.

She found her movement elders in the world of devised political theater and both secular and spiritual Jewish communities, and she is buoyed by her ancestors – passionate secularists and spiritualists, artists and scholars, healers and survivors.

franny is an accredited executive and life coach also certified in neurodivergent and executive function coaching. She earned her BFA in Acting from CCM (the University of Cincinnati, College- Conservatory of Music) and a Certificate in Jewish Leadership in Education from the Spertus Institute and Northwestern University.

As a founding artist and the Associate Artistic Director of Storahtelling, franny helped to grow the organization and methodology which gave way to Lab/Shul. She has been a Maven, RtB trainer and mentor, and trainer of the Storahtelling methodology, and in 2017, franny joined the Lab/Shul Board of Directors, working closely on the overhaul of the by-laws and Governance structure through the multi-year process beginning in 2019. In addition to her work on Governance, she is the founding chair of READ, and her daughter Sunny was one of the honorees at the Lab/Shul gala in 2023, sharing her 10th birthday with 10 years of Lab/Shul. In addition to her lay leadership with Lab/Shul, franny is a founding member of SURJ National’s Antisemitism Working Group, is an active member of Tzedek Lab where she has co-facilitated the white caucus. She was co-chair of the Rabbinic Search Committee of her local Kingston synagogue in 2022-24, and was a founding steering committee member of the Coalition of Faith/Spiritual/Ethical Communities for the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and on the Advisory Board Member of Repair the World Brooklyn.

Past Chairs:

Michael Dorf (Chair) has become one of the most prolific independent promoters in New York and main presenter of music in “downtown” New York. Michael Dorf Presents has produced hundreds of concerts including the Music Downtown Series, Music of Series at Carnegie Hall, The Annual New York Jewish Music & Heritage Festival, Jewzapalooza, the “Downtown Seder”, as well as several significant private corporate events. Dorf has also gotten very involved in several philanthropic ventures including the creation of a Tribeca Hebrew, an after-school program in Lower Manhattan, where he served as the founding Chairman and developed the school to 150 children before it merged with JCP in 2009. He serves on the board of Jewish Week, American Symphony Orchestra, Lab/Shul and Downtown Arts Development and is the creator of the “Downtown Seder” which brings 25 artists, musicians, comedians, and political figures to each take a section of the classic Passover story and present to sold-out audiences over the past 10 years. Michael is married with three children and lives in Tribeca, New York.

Jon Silvan is a Founding Partner and CEO of Global Strategy Group, one of the nation’s top public affairs firms. Jon lives with his family in Tribeca, and has been an active leader in the downtown Jewish community for many years. He also serves as an advisory board member of Camp Kinderland and on the Steering Committee for the Association for a Better NY (ABNY).