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About 
LABA Fellow Doron Perk leaps into his piece Grandfather Visit in October 2021Photo by Basil Rodericks
LABA NY, the first and longest-running LABA hub, is based at the 14th street Y, in the East Village of New York City. This location is rich in history, from Yiddish theater houses that used to dominate the neighborhood a century ago, to the avant-garde punk rock halls that were popular around 50 years ago. LABA helps keep that spirit of artistic innovation and rebellion alive in this century,
LABA NY was founded in 2007 by Stephen Hazan Arnoff, the former Executive Director of the 14th Street Y in the East Village, writer and teacher Basmat Hazan, and artist Anat Litwin. In 2010 LABA became more formalized under the helm of Ronit Muszkatblit, Elissa Strauss, and Becky Skoff with a curriculum, application, DRUNK night of study and wine flights, the LABAlive performance season, and an artists-based Tikkun for Shavuot which eventually morphed into “Into the Night,” the most popular downtown Tikkun in New York City. In 2019, Laura Beatrix Newmark took over as Artistic Director of LABA NY.
LABA NY gives culture-makers in one of the most fast-paced cities in the world a chance to stop and immerse themselves in a rich source of inspiration and a tight-knit community. Yes, New York is one of the most creative, and Jewish, cities in the world. Still, LABA scratches an itch. There are few other opportunities for culture-makers with any background to go this deep into the ancient Jewish canon and to be told that these texts belong to them as much as anyone else. When LABA NY gets together in a classroom at the 14th Street Y and becomes absorbed in a passage from the Torah or Talmud, it’s as if all the lights of New York have dimmed, if only for an hour, and all they can see, all they can feel, is the page in front of them and the people around the table wrestling with the words.
The 14th Street Y, a Jewish community center in the East Village, is a vital neighborhood resource that welcomes people of all backgrounds. We provide a variety of programs with a distinctive downtown point of view, emphasizing excellence, innovation, creativity, and a questioning spirit. We are inspired by Tikkun Olam, or repair of the world, in all that we do — a value that represents and renews the vitality of our Jewish heritage and its place in our diverse and vibrant community. The 14th Street Y is a proud part of Educational Alliance’s network of programs throughout downtown Manhattan.
Theme
LABA Fellow Dvir Cahana shows images drawn by child prodigy Milo that would go on to grace Dvir’s album cover, “Bacchurs Can’t Be Choosers” created during LABA.Photo by Basil Rodericks
THE 2026 THEME FOR LABA IS NAME.
This year at LABA, we will be jumping headlong into the potency and mystery behind names, considering how language both makes and distorts reality.
We will explore the act of naming, the act of being named, and humanity’s strange relationship with language overall. These fellows will create new work inspired by this exploration, which will be presented during our LABAlive in the fall.
For thousands of years, Jews have been obsessed with names, interrogating the relationship between language, existence, and consciousness. Assigning language to a particular person, place, thing, or feeling has never been, and will never be, a neutral act. To NAME is to give power, and to NAME is to give limits. According to some Jewish mystics, the world was created through the naming of things. “By means of the twenty-two letters, by giving them a form and shape, by mixing them and combining them in different ways, God made the soul of all that which has been created and all that which will be,” says the Sefer Yetsirah.
In the Torah, one’s name is often synonymous with one’s destiny, and a change of name can represent a profound shift. In the Talmud, we are warned against calling people bad names, which is seen as equivalent to the sins of murder and idolatry and is subject to divine prosecution. We are also forbidden from saying God’s presumed actual name, while one of the things we are allowed to call God is, evocatively, “The Name.” Meanwhile, Maimonides believed there is, and never will be, an adequate name or language to describe God.
Join us in our exploration of NAME.
Fellows
Playwright Jess Honovich presented charming excerpts from Super Play, a theater piece developed from her interviews with young children about superheroes.Photo by Basil Rodericks
News
Theater-maker and scholar of contemporary performance Brandon Woolf presented excerpts from his clever adaptation of Jewish texts, Mud and Mashiach.Photo by Basil Rodericks-
A Visual Journey: Redefining LABA’s Brand.
After 14 years, LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture has embarked on a dynamic visual transformation. A new visual identity, the product of a process that isn’t just about a new look, but a reflection of the profound growth and expanding vision of the 14 year-old program. From one New York City location, we have
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FELLOWS
Dafna Naphtali
Dafna Naphtali is a sound artist, vocalist, electronic musician, and guitarist. She composes and performs experimental, contemporary classical, and improvised music, creating custom Max/MSP works for projects with live sound processing, music for robots, multichannel sound, and augmented-reality soundwalks. Dafna was a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition.
https://dafna.info/
Eli Zuzovsky
Eli Zuzovsky is an Israeli Italian writer and director, working across film, theater, and literature. He holds degrees from Harvard and Oxford, where he received his practice-led Ph.D. in fine art as a Rhodes Scholar. His debut novel, Mazeltov, is out from Henry Holt (US) and Footnote Press (UK).
https://elizuzovsky.com/
Hilan Warshaw
Hilan Warshaw is an Emmy Award-winning film director and writer. He has produced/directed eight internationally broadcast feature documentaries and docudramas, among many other projects. He holds a B.F.A. and M.F.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
http://www.overtonefilms.com/
Judy Batalion
Judy Batalion is the author of several books of award-winning nonfiction, most recently The Light of Days. Judy’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, The Forward, Salon, The Jerusalem Post, and many other publications.
https://www.judybatalion.com/
Julian Voloj
Julian Voloj is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of over a dozen internationally successful graphic novels that often focus on biographical or historical topics.
Neil Kramer
Neil Kramer is a writer, performer, and photographer based in Queens, NY. He makes staged photo-text work that uses humor to approach intimacy, family, caregiving, and masculinity. His ongoing project Quarantine in Queens, made during the pandemic while living with his mother and ex-wife, has been featured in international press.
http://www.neilkramerphotography.com/
Nim Shapira
Nim Shapira is an Israeli-American filmmaker and creative director based in Brooklyn. His work explores empathy, identity, and collective memory through documentary and conceptual storytelling. His projects have been featured at TED, the Tribeca Film Festival, SIGGRAPH, Slamdance, and the Cannes Marché du Film. His debut feature documentary, TORN: The Israel-Palestine Poster War on NYC Streets, premiered to critical acclaim and is broadcasting nationally on PBS/WNET.
https://www.nimshap.com/
Dede Bandaid and Nitzan Mintz
Dede Bandaid and Nitzan Mintz, multidisciplinary artists and partners in life and creation, based in New York and originally from Tel Aviv. their practice merges urban art, visual poetry, and mixed media to transform personal and collective emotional struggles into artworks and spaces rooted in public dialogue.
Noa Fort
Noa Fort is a Brooklyn based, Israeli born vocalist, pianist, composer, improviser and music therapist, working in the Jazz and Creative music scene in New York and Internationally. She released critically acclaimed albums as a composer/bandleader, and is a regular collaborator with some of NY’s greatest improvisers. Fort is also a licensed creative arts therapist and board certified music therapist.
Rina AC Dweck
Rina AC Dweck (b.1976, Brooklyn, NY) is a multi-disciplinary artist who utilizes materiality as a way to explore themes such as identity, biases, freedom and humanity. Dweck graduated from The School of Visual Arts, MFA Fine Arts program in 2018, and earned her BS in Studio Art from New York University in 1998. She has curated and exhibited extensively and received an LMCC Creative Engagement Grant in 2024. She has been an artist-in-residence across the country and is proud to add LABA NYC fellow to the list.
Ronen Shai
Ronen Shai is a New York–based composer with a Doctor of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music. Fascinated by music’s abstract and spiritual dimensions, he explores how sound evokes deep emotional experience and embodied response, while blending classical tradition with contemporary influences.
https://www.youtube.com/@ronen_shai
Tomo Sone
Tomo Sone is a choreographer who merges artistic vision with scientific insights and crafts innovative dance narratives. Her recent research delves into the relationship between digital technology and the human body, seeking new avenues for empathy. Tomo’s performances have been showcased at numerous venues and festivals, including the Suzanne Dellal Center and the Jerusalem Theatre (Israel).
https://tomoguest.wixsite.com/dance
Benjamin Sack
Benjamin Sack is known for creating highly detailed drawings of cities that push the limits of scale, precision, and imagination. His work reimagines architecture as a psychological and symbolic language, reflecting our enduring desire to give form to meaning.
https://bensackart.com/
Suzanne Greene
Suzanne is a lifelong performer who is thrilled to join Laba NY at 14Y this year as a Staff Fellow. Through a broad expanse of mediums spanning poetry, textile production, photography, theater, and vocal performance, she endeavors to both unpack spun narratives through her work sharing evocative emotional journeys and build worlds worthy of contemplation atop the what-ifs of life.
Ariel Halpern
Ariel has worked across Jewish nonprofits, media, and education, focused on community, impact, and humanity. He directs Selah at the 14th Street Y, integrating spiritual recovery programs into institutional life through ritual, inclusion, and partnership. Previously, he worked at JTS, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. He’s a graduate of the University of Michigan and has an MBA from the University of Tel Aviv.