Bay Area Shabbaton &

SONG Leading INTENSIVE

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

Register today for Let My People Sing!'s Bay Area Shabbaton & Sunday Song Leading Intensive. You can register for just the Shabbaton, the Sunday Song Leading Intensive, or for both! This gathering will include a Shabbaton on Friday and Saturday with workshops, shabbat services, communal meals, community sings, and a participatory concert. In addition, we'll be offering a Sunday intensive for building song leading skills, which is open to all. Sing and learn with our amazing program faculty, Anat Halevy Hochberg, rabbi dr. koach baruch frazier, Ary Solomon, Batya Levine, Margot Seigle, and featured teacher Eliana Light, with more local featured teachers to be announced!

See our Q&A below for more info. We're excited to collaborate with our community partners, Kehilla Community Synagogue and Kol Retreat for this immersive, spirit-tending weekend. Amidst the chaos and tumult of these times, we know that coming together in song can nourish and bolster us in the long work of moving towards a world where everyone can live and thrive.

Program Faculty

Registration Payment Guide

The prices below reflect the true cost of this offering. Thank you for stretching to pay what is feasible for you! This tiered pricing model along with financial assistance allows us to cover our expenses while making it financially accessible to a diverse range of participants. If you are unsure about what level makes sense for you, here’s a suggested place to start. And of course, you know your situation better than we do and we recognize that socioeconomic and other life factors can impact what is possible financially for each person.

• Income $30k and below - fill out the financial assistance form

• Income $30k - $50k - subsidized rate

• Income $50k - $100k - true cost

• Income $100k + and/or have access to inherited wealth - please consider paying one of the two solidarity rates.

Shabbaton Pricing:

$250: True cost
$180: Subsidized rate
$500: Solidarity rate (pay for you and someone else!)
$720: Solidarity rate (pay for you and 2 others!)
$54: Kids rate 5-13 years old (under 5 free)

Friday 4pm - 10pm, Saturday 10am - 10pm (time is approx)
Shabbat dinner and lunch provided, housing not provided.

Limited financial assistance available ! Fill out this form to inquire.

* Shabbaton and Song Leading Intensive tickets sold separately. *

If you would like to attend the Shabbaton & Sunday Intensive, make sure to select tickets to BOTH of the events below.

Having trouble getting your payment going through? Click here to go directly to the registartion landing page.

Draft 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.

FRIDAY - Shabbaton
(4 - 10pm)

Opening Sing / Welcome

Let My People Sing! Style Kabbalat Shabbat & Ma’ariv

Shabbat Dinner

Community Sing

SATURDAY - Shabbaton
(9:30am - 9:30pm)

Shabbat morning services with Kehilla Community Synagogue

Shabbat Lunch

Session Slot 1

Session Slot 2

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!

What is a Shabbaton?

A shabbaton is a retreat that is structured around the rhythms and rituals of Shabbat to help foster spiritual connection and community. The Let My People Sing! Bay Area Shabbaton will be centered on Jewish communal singing for healing and liberation. It will include prayer, programming led by our program faculty, participant-led workshops, community sings, and a participatory concert on Saturday night. 

Registration & Pricing

What is the registration process?

All are welcome and encouraged to come sing! And, in alignment with our values of building multi-racial, multicultural, genderful and intergenerational community, we are working to prioritize the participation of Black and Indigenous Jews, Jews of Color, Sephardim, Mizrahim, trans women and trans femmes, and disabled people.

General registration will be open to everyone, available on a first come first serve basis through our website. While we expect the retreat to fill, we do not expect it will fill immediately. We will hold a number of spots for BIJOCSM, trans women and trans femmes, and disabled folks. To access these spots once registration is full, please sign up for the waitlist.

How much does this retreat cost?

Below is the pricing for registration. You are welcome to attend either or both events, please just make sure your registration is reflective of what you will be attending. Pricing includes programming, Friday night dinner, Saturday lunch, and snacks for both Saturday and Sunday. Please note: lodging is not included in these prices. Participants are expected to find their own lodging. In addition, lunch is not provided on Sunday.

Shabbaton Pricing:

$250: At cost
$180: Subsidized rate
$500: Solidarity rate (pay for you and someone else!)
$720: Solidarity rate (pay for you and 2 others!)
$54: Kids rate 5-13 years old (under 5 free)

Song Leader Intensive Pricing:

$75: At cost
$54: Subsidized rate
$150: Solidarity rate (pay for you and someone else!)

Thank you for stretching to pay what is feasible for you! This tiered pricing model along with financial assistance allows us to cover our expenses while making it financially accessible to a diverse range of participants.

Financial Assistance

Will there be financial assistance available?

Yes! To inquire, please fill out this form.

Can I donate to the financial assistance fund?

Yes! 100% of your donation will go towards directly supporting folks to attend this summer’s retreat. Help make this summer's retreat more financially accessible to more people by donating to the Financial Assistance Fund!

Do you offer work trade?

We have limited work trade available. Please email info@letmypeoplesing.org if you are interested.

TRAVEL & Accommodations

How do I get there?

Kehilla is on the #12 bus route, which also goes by the 19th and 12th Street BART stations in Oakland, and the Ashby BART station in Berkeley. Kehilla is near the #33 bus (stops 3 blocks away) which also services the 19th and 12th Street BART stations in Oakland, and the P transbay bus (stops 3 blocks away), which services the Salesforce Transit Center in downtown San Francisco. Parking is mainly street parking. If driving, please carpool whenever possible and allow extra time to find a parking space. 

Will housing be provided?

No, participants are responsible for finding their own housing accommodations. If you would like help looking for a homestay, Kehilla staff have generously offered to help coordinate between local folks and participants who need a place to stay. Housing matches are not guaranteed. Please indicate on your registration if you would like to request this.

Accessibility & COVID-19

What are your COVID-19 policies and practices?

Please read our 2025 COVID-19 Protocols Document carefully as the COVID-19 protocols. Following the protocols will be required for all participants.

What can I expect in terms of accessibility?

Here you can find accessibility information about Kehilla Community Synagogue (the host location). For further questions about access you can email info@letmypeoplesing.org.

Will there be kids programming?

There will be tot shabbat for a half hour during shabbat morning services for children ages 0-5. Other than that, there will not be any kids specific programming or childcare, though we welcome people of all ages to join. The sessions will be, for the most part, geared towards adults.

Tefillah / Prayer

What will the tefillah/prayer be like?

The Let My People Sing! Bay Area Shabbaton will have one service, with a mixture of service styles over the course of Shabbat. Friday night will be a songful, fuller liturgy, Traditional Egalitarian style service, and the only instruments we’ll be using are our voices. Shabbat morning services will be according to the minhag hamakom (custom of the community) of Kehilla Community Synagogue, which will be a mix of song, kavanah (intentions) and liturgy, including drum and percussion, to create a musically stirring service oriented to supporting participants' spiritual practice, community building and justice making. Shabbat morning services will use the Kehilla Community Synagogue siddur, which draws from Renewal and Reconstructionist movements. Maybe either of these types of services are new for you or outside of your comfort zone. Even so, we encourage you to join us in prayer, in whatever way feels authentic to you.

Friday night services will be held in-person only, and Shabbat morning services will be hybrid. 

Halachic Observance & Practice

Will I be able to participate in programming on shabbat if I am shomer shabbat?

Yes! Electronics will mostly not be used on shabbat in public spaces, with a few exceptions for access reasons and to honor minhag hamakom (the custom of Kehilla Community Synagogue). It will be noted on the schedule as such. Friday night services will use a microphone for announcements and speaking, but the services themselves will not utilize amplification. Shabbat morning services will use amplification, percussion, and will be livestreamed as a hybrid service. Other than Shabbat morning services, we will not use instruments on shabbat in programming unless noted, and there will always be other session options at the same time.

Will there be kosher food?

The Kehilla Community Synagogue kitchen is vegetarian and kosher style, but not under official hashgacha. All meals prepared at Kehilla will be vegetarian (including dairy). All food served on Shabbat will be cooked before Shabbat. You can learn more about Kehilla’s kashrut here. We will have hechsher kosher food options available upon request for those who need it, from a local establishment with a hashgacha. You can indicate this in your registration form.

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.

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

You can check out our Community Guidelines for this gathering. Please read over this document, before attending 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 Concert

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

Shabbaton

A retreat that is structured around the rhythms and rituals of Shabbat as a container to help foster spiritual connection and community.