HOW IT ALL WORKS

  • Every year, the global LABA team works with the hubs to pick a theme. Previous themes include: Humor, Mother, Eros, Paradise, Eat, and Chose-n. The 2022 theme is Broken, and 2023 theme is Taboo.

    After the theme is determined, the hubs put out a call-for-applicants in their cities. Professional culture-makers from a variety of disciplines, including visual artists, writers, dancers, musicians, actors and more, apply to their local LABA hub with a project idea connected to the yearly theme.

    Each hub chooses 8-10 of these culture-makers to join them for a yearlong fellowship. Anyone who is curious about Jewish texts and would like an opportunity to study them in a non-theological, non-moralistic, non-academic, freewheeling and raw manner can apply. Maybe they’re a rabbi, or maybe they’ve never read a single page of the Torah in your whole life. It doesn’t matter. The goal is not to sway religious beliefs in one direction or another, but rather use the treasure-filled, wild, often fantastic, sometimes perverse, Jewish canon to seed this generation of culture-makers. We enter ancient texts as if they were new, seeking out the timeless and radical elements within.

    The fellowship year is divided into two parts.

    Part One: The House of Study
    January-June

    At the heart of the LABA is the house of study. Each hub brings together their fellows for roughly 10-study sessions, where they read and explore classic Jewish texts from the Torah, Talmud, Mishnah, and Zohar with local text scholars. The yearly curriculum is informed by that year’s theme, and the vibe is one of walking barefoot as if we were entering these stories anew. LABA sessions are infused with art, creativity and conversation, designed to create openings within our psyches and creative processes.

    Part Two: Workshop & Salons
    June-December

    Each fellow applies with a project connected to the yearly theme that they work on during the year. Fellows get time off in the months of July and August to focus on their projects. In the early fall, the fellows reunite for workshops where they share their progress and gain clarity and inspiration through conversations with their cohort.

    Then, in late fall and early winter there will be open-to-public salons and performances where the public can experience the work from the fellows—alongside teachings from the LABA staff. These events are community-building, and leave plenty of time for conversation and connection among the attendees.

  • The art and culture that comes from LABA need not be identifiably Jewish. Instead, the goal of LABA is for the ideas, feelings, and contradictions of Jewish texts to inspire contemporary culture-makers with new ideas and approaches.

    LABA aims to inspire change in three ways.

    Culture-makers: We seed this generation of culture-makers with ancient sparks of wisdom and creativity from the Jewish textual tradition. The immersion in Torah, Talmud, Mishnah and Zohar enriches their artistic practice and creates new pathways of identity and meaning-making in their lives.

    Community: LABA uses study, arts and culture to build community among culture-makers. This includes: current fellows; alumni who stay engaged with the program through attendance at study sessions and LABA live event; and the global network of LABA artists, as we regularly connect online and in-person when possible.

    LABA also builds community among non-fellows in the cities where the hubs are located. LABA events mix quality arts and culture with a warm and inviting atmosphere. There is time to talk and connect over the culture and the teachings. LABA hubs host events for a mix of communities, including children, the old, families, and young adults.

    Jewish Communal Life: LABA hubs are either located in, or regularly partner with, Jewish organizations where they inspire new ways of approaching ritual, programming, and collective experiences.

  • In addition to output from the individual hubs, LABA also encourages and produces conversation and collaborations between the hubs and fellows from different hubs. Every year we hold a series of LABA global teachings, where fellows from around the world get together online and study texts and share art. We also commission global LABA collaborative projects from time to time that are for the public.