Featured Performers

Tal Mashiach Who's Around

Tal Mashiach is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and Grammy-nominated artist whose music moves freely between cultures, traditions, and sounds. Raised in the mountain village of Harashim in northern Israel, he began studying classical guitar at age ten before gravitating toward jazz and the double bass. That musical curiosity eventually brought him to New York in 2015 on a full scholarship to The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

Since settling in New York, Mashiach has become an active presence in the city’s creative music scene, collaborating and recording with artists including Anat Cohen, Mulatu Astatke, Avishai Cohen, Paquito D’Rivera, Omer Avital, Ravi Coltrane, and Shai Maestro. Along the way he has appeared at venues and festivals such as Carnegie Hall, the Newport Jazz Festival, the Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Blue Note Jazz Club, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, and SFJAZZ Center. In 2020 he received a Grammy nomination as a member of the Anat Cohen Tentet.

As a bandleader, Mashiach leads TM Street Band, a project that reflects his playful, curious side and his love of crossing stylistic borders, and co-leads the GTO Trio with longtime collaborators Gadi Lehavi and Ofri Nehemya - a trio rooted in friendship and a shared musical language.

His recordings reveal another side of his artistry. Mashiach released Tiyul (2022), a solo guitar album on Anzic Records. His upcoming album Who’s Around?, recorded in New York with a circle of close collaborators, reflects the vibrant, interconnected spirit of the city’s creative music scene and will be released in June 2026.

The rest of Tal’s amazing bank includes Itai Kriss on Flute, Yonathan Peled on Trombone, Gabriel Chacarji on Keys, Panagiotis Andreou on Bass & Vocals, and Ofri Nehemya on Drums

Grammy-nominated guitarist and bassist

Shira Kline is an internationally acclaimed performance and ritual artist, recognized as a revolutionary educator and named one of the new re-engineers of Jewish life today. Known on the kiddie-rock stage as ShirLaLa and in the sanctuary as a spiritual adventurist, she practices in the field of sacred play where she weaves radical imagination, expansive heart and collective soul. With her unique combination of spiritual leadership, immersive artistry and education, she has toured extensively for almost three decades. In 2024, she received the Covenant Foundation Award for her profound impact on the field of Jewish Education. Her award winning music has been featured on NPR, XM Radio, JKids Radio, Disney and Hulu. She is a frequent guest of numerous international leadership conferences and seminaries with a series of vibrant professional development and musical invitations to connect, for a new and realized conscious world. Visit her in her primary playground, artist driven, experimental and God-optional Lab/Shul NYC, where she is a Co-Founder and serves as Spiritual Leader.

Abbi G'zunt

Actor, educator, playwright, activist, Rabbi Misha’s roaming soul has found a comfortable abode at The New Shul and a happy home in Brooklyn with his wife, Erika and their three boys. Born and raised in Jerusalem, and now a New Yorker for over a quarter of a century, Rabbi Misha is the founding director of the School for Creative Judaism, where he leads a team of a dozen talented artist-teachers instilling a Judaism driven by kindness and questioning into the hearts and minds of Jewish children and teens. Perpetually exploring the borders and overlap between faith, art and activism, he was ordained at Theater for the New City by a committee of five rabbis and five artist-activists. His great love for, and curiosity about prayer and meditation have led to his intimate exploration of the Book of Psalms, of which he’s translated several chapters into English. In recent years his studies have focused on medieval and early modern masters of Musar, or ethical living. Rabbi Misha has been working for co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians for close to three decades, and is a member of Torat Tzedek; The Torah of Justice, and Israelis for Peace. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College and an extensive theatrical resume, and religiously follows the Talmudic maxim: “whoever doesn’t nap on Saturday afternoons will be tired all week.” His rabbinical advice is to try it out.

Rabbi Misha Shulman

Shira Kline is an internationally acclaimed performance and ritual artist, recognized as a revolutionary educator and named one of the new re-engineers of Jewish life today. Known on the kiddie-rock stage as ShirLaLa and in the sanctuary as a spiritual adventurist, she practices in the field of sacred play where she weaves radical imagination, expansive heart and collective soul. With her unique combination of spiritual leadership, immersive artistry and education, she has toured extensively for almost three decades. In 2024, she received the Covenant Foundation Award for her profound impact on the field of Jewish Education. Her award winning music has been featured on NPR, XM Radio, JKids Radio, Disney and Hulu. She is a frequent guest of numerous international leadership conferences and seminaries with a series of vibrant professional development and musical invitations to connect, for a new and realized conscious world. Visit her in her primary playground, artist driven, experimental and God-optional Lab/Shul NYC, where she is a Co-Founder and serves as Spiritual Leader.

Shira Kline

Rav Jericho Vincent is the founding rabbi of Temple of the Stranger, a flourishing Ivri community in Brooklyn, New York. Raised in an ultra-Orthodox rabbinical family, they earned a master’s in public policy from Harvard University and ordination in the lineage of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi from the Aleph Ordination Program. Rav Jericho is a Wexner Fellow, a member of the Schusterman ROI Community, and a recent fellow at Atra: The Center for Rabbinic Innovation. They serve as an advisor to Beit Kohenet and The Shalom Center. Rav Jericho has been named to the Forward 50, and in 2025 they received the Young History Maker Award from the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network. Their inclusive Kabbalistic teachings can be found on Instagram, @thealef.

Rav Jericho Vincent

Yael Kanarek is an Israeli-American artist and the founder of BeitToratah.org, an initiative that regenders the Hebrew Bible by centering women in the narrative and locating men within the domestic sphere. Through this work, she expands Biblical Hebrew from within the language itself, using its feminine forms to reopen meaning in the foundational stories.

Her ongoing creation of the Toratah library includes regendered translations of Biblical books, public learning, and collaborations with educators, artists, and spiritual leaders. Last year, she introduced ZimraTah, a collaborative album of songs drawn from Toratah’s language. Together, these works challenge long-standing interpretive assumptions and propose a Torah that speaks to a broader humanity.

Kanarek’s artistic practice informs her textual work. Trained as a visual artist and fluent in Hebrew, she bridges sacred language and contemporary art, treating the act of regendering as both creative methodology and cultural intervention. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally, including at the Whitney Biennial, SFMOMA, The Jewish Museum in New York, and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens. Her work has been covered in The New York Times and in other major publications. She teaches, writes, and presents widely in progressive Jewish contexts. Alongside Toratah, Kanarek maintains an active studio practice and designs fine jewelry.

Her work can be viewed here: beittoratah.org yaelkanarek.com Kanareknyc.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yael_Kanarek

Yael Kanarek

From Barcelona, Ferran Rico is a bassist, arranger, and music producer based in New York City. He began his musical path at the age of six, and remained self-taught until entering the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu, where he received Scholarships for Musical Excellence and the Extraordinary Prize (2018–2022). During this time, he started a still ongoing mentorship by five-time Grammy Award–winning bassist and bandleader Michael League.

Ferran went on to graduate from Berklee College of Music in 2025 on full-ride scholarships, studying jazz performance, production, and songwriting with renowned faculty. He has toured across Europe and the US, and is now active as an international freelance bassist: performing on electric, upright, fretless, and synth bass, as well as in arranging and production.
Ferran is currently playing with Tiger Okoshi (Jack DeJohnette, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter…), Philip Lassiter (Prince) and with his original music, which features multiple releases of his e-jazz trio KIW and his solo work.

Ferran Rico

Mitchka is a vocalist, pianist, improviser, composer, and arranger based in New York City. Her genre-defying music bridges her roots with contemporary jazz, alternative rock, and classical soundscapes. She began her career composing for theater, debuting at age 16 in Greece’s Olympia in Dion. At age 18 she conducted and performed her large-scale composition for Après Cela at Molavi Theater Hall.

Mitchka’s authentic and versatile voice has taken her to prestigious venues and festivals across the United States, where she has performed original music and shared the stage with artists such as Joel Ross, Alkinoos Ioannidis, Faraualla, Golnar Shahyar, Mahan Mirarab, and King Raam.

Her recorded work has been celebrated, accumulating over a million streams. Her 2020 single Deng received critical attention for its unique blend of Dezfuli folk with modern influences. Kakhe Goman is the first single from her forthcoming debut album, offering a glimpse into her distinct compositional voice. Mitchka appeared in the US premiere of The Witcher: In Concert in Boston before joining the production’s U.S. tour. She is currently completing her debut studio album for international release.

Yonatan

Originally from Israel, Daphna Mor is an internationally renowned musician and ritual leader, hailed by the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune for her virtuosity. Daphna has performed on such prestigious stages as Summer Stage, NY, with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, and as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, and on stages all over North America and Europe. She is co leader of the ensemble East of the River.

Since moving to New York, she has established herself as a leading musician, educator prayer leader in the Jewish world, serving as a Musician in Residence at B'nai Jeshurun Synagogue, and building the Early Childhood program at Brotherhood Synagogue in Gramercy Park. In 2014 she joined Rabbi Laurie Phillips z”l as co leader of Beineinu, a New York based Initiative dedicated to connecting people to Jewish tradition and culture. Co leading dozens of musical prayer gatherings, B’mitzvah ceremonies and robust educational program, Beineinu has become a Jewish and spiritual home for many New York households.

Mor is a passionate performer and teacher of liturgical music of the Jewish diaspora (Piyutim), focusing on brining awareness to the global element of prayer and including those melodies in Jewish rituals. She was invited to Mumbai India where she gave a master class of Piyutim, while learning new local Indian ones and incorporating them in New York.

In other educational initiatives, Daphna acts as the Musician to the Education Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art connecting Art and Music Education.

Daphna lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with her husband Daniel and their two children Alona and Artie (daphnamor.com)

Daphna Mor

Arnan Raz was born into a deeply musical family in Kibbutz Merhavia, Israel, surrounded by professional guitarists and conductors. Despite this lineage, his primary passion was soccer until age thirteen, when he experienced a sudden, unexplained urge to play the saxophone. He began daily lessons with his grandfather, a music teacher whose emotional reactions to Arnan’s playing became his foundational understanding of what music is truly about. Under the mentorship of free jazz artist Albert Beger, Arnan quickly established himself as a dedicated and serious young talent.

At eighteen, Arnan’s career progressed as he joined the prestigious Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Orchestra, where he met the musicians who would become his long-term collaborators. While many of his peers moved abroad to study, Arnan chose to refine his craft at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance under Boris Gammer. During this period, he became a prominent fixture in the Israeli jazz scene, performing at major festivals and venues as both a bandleader and a sideman, steadily building the emotional and technical readiness required for the global stage.

After graduating, Arnan moved to New York City to further his jazz career, reuniting with his former IDF colleagues to form a respected quintet. His presence in the city’s diverse music scene has grown rapidly; his saxophone quartet, "The Side Project," notably opened for the New York Philharmonic in 2017. Today, Arnan is a prolific performer and session musician, recording across various genres including jazz, indie-rock, and hip-hop while continuing to lead his own acclaimed ensemble.

Arnan Raz

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).

Naomi Less

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).

The Kumah Festival

Presented by The New Shul • The Neighborhood • Lab/Shul • Temple of the Stranger• Beit Toratah