Bay Area Shabbaton 2025

Nov 7-9, 2025 at Kehilla Community Synagogue | Piedmont, CA

We are thrilled to announce that Let My People Sing! is coming to the West Coast! Every day the need for nourishing our souls, connecting with ancestors, and grounding for the future together grows. This gathering will will include workshops, shabbat services, a community sing, and participatory concert. In addition, we'll be offering a Sunday afternoon intensive for building songleading skills.

We're excited to collaborate with our community partners, Kehilla Community Synagogue and Kol Retreat for this immersive, spirit-tending weekend. Stay tuned for more info coming soon...

Sample Schedule

Here is a sample schedule to give you an idea of the flow of the retreat. We will be adjusting this schedule as we continue to plan and refine the program for this retreat.

FRIDAY

Opening Sing / Welcome

Let My People Sing! Style Kabbalat Shabbat & Ma’ariv (in person only)

Festive Shabbat Dinner

Community Sing / Tisch

SATURDAY

Shabbat morning services with Kehilla Community Synagogue

Shabbat Lunch

Session Slot 1

Session Slot 2

The retreat will start Friday November 7th in the late afternoon/ early evening just before services, and conclude with a four hour intensive on songleading skills on Sunday afternoon.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to have singing skills to come?

Not at all! At LMPS, we believe that everyone can sing. Part of the power of communal singing is creating a collective voice that is made up of a beautiful multiplicity of voices, and is much bigger than any one voice individually. We need all of our voices to make that larger voice. We need your voice, whatever authentic singing looks and feels and sounds like for you. That is what makes the magic. Whether you are excited to deepen into your voice, your musical lineages, to expand your breadth of singing experience, or are new to Jewish communal singing altogether, you are welcome wanted in this space!

Culture & Community

What is the culture of Let My People Sing!’s gatherings?

Check out our Building the Culture of Let My People Sing! page to find out how we create culture together at our gatherings.

What kinds of songs are sung?

Let My People Sing! brings together music traditions across Jewish time and space, from ancient to contemporary music, and everything in between. Our project includes restoring lost or broken lineages of cultural transmission, and simultaneously elevating, celebrating, learning and teaching the incredible new music coming out of our communities. We sing the songs of queer and trans Jews, Mizrahi and Sefardi Jews, Jews of color, Jews with disabilities, women and femmes, people singing in Ladino, Yiddish, and Judeo-Arabic, and other people who have been historically and ongoingly marginalized, and in some cases erased, from normative Jewish culture and practice. We sing spiritual, secular, and religious songs. We sing the songs of our ancestors, the songs of our hearts, and the songs of our multiple communities.

A note on the music of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach at LMPS:
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was a prolific and influential spiritual and musical leader in the Jewish community who has a complicated history which includes perpetuating sexual and spiritual harm for which he was not held accountable in his lifetime.* His melodies are so pervasive that many people associate them with traditional nusach, and they can therefore be hard to identify. At Let My People Sing!, we intentionally de-center Carlebach’s music in the musical landscape we co-create. We ask our staff and program faculty to avoid teaching Carlebach melodies in LMPS space, and our prayer leaders to limit his music in services. While LMPS staff and faculty will not teach Carlebach melodies at LMPS, we may use some of his melodies in ritual and prayer, and do not prohibit these melodies from being sung in the space overall. 

For further information on how LMPS is holding and thinking about this, you can read our full policy. If you have questions, please feel free to be in touch with us directly. You can email info@letmypeoplesing.org. 

*Learn more in Lilith’s 1998 investigation, “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s Shadow Side,” by Sarah Blustain (CW: Sexual assault), and Lilith’s 20 year follow up “You’ve Come a Long Way, Sister: 20 Years After Carlebach Allegations, His Daughter Hears #MeToo”  Read a potent piece written by LMPS teacher, Arielle Rivera Korman, on “The Pain of Singing Carlebach.”

How will we approach gathering in a time of heightened polarization within the Jewish community?

You can check out our Community Guidelines for this summer’s retreat. Please read over this document, before registering for this retreat.

Song Sessions

Sessions are led by a wide array of song leaders using a variety of formats.  Some include histories and stories, others just be about singing the songs themselves.  No instruments are used on Shabbat unless otherwise noted.

Community Sing

Let My People Sing!’s format for sharing and learning songs in community. A space for leading, teaching, singing and sharing.

Participatory Havdalah & Concert

Beginning with havdalah, the Saturday night concert features Let My People Sing! featured teachers and staff sharing songs we’ve sung throughout the weekend!