2025 Year in Review
IN PERSON Programs
A young person teaches a song to the group that they wrote during the retreat
2025 summer retreat participatory concert
We doubled our immersive experience participation!
After years of selling out our flagship summer retreat, we held a multi-day Shabbaton retreat on the West Coast, doubling the amount of people who get to receive the spiritual nourishment of Jewish communal singing.
Professional teachers and lay-leaders held 40 sessions in total, featuring workshops such as Praise in a Time of Devastation, Women and Queerness in Modern Sephardic Piyyutim, Singing for Our Lives: Voices of Courage and Liberation, Queer Nigun Circle, A Taste of Yemeni Song, Reconsidering Some of the (Largely) Lost Revolutionary Songs of Debbie Friedman, Marking Transitions and Bringing Light: Build Out Your Havdalah Ritual, and Shabes Zmires: Shabbat Songs in Yiddish.
Results:
96% of participant respondents expressed leaving the retreat feeling more spiritually resourced and/or nourished than when they arrived.
90% participant respondents felt more connected to Judaism as a result of the retreat.
95% of participant respondents feel more connected to a wider breadth of Jewish traditions and lineages
78% of participant respondents expressed excitement to lead Jewish song and/or prayer in their community after attending.
94% would attend a similar retreat in the future!
In addition, we increased in-person workshops, reaching 350+ people in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Boston!
New: CORE CURRICULUM
We trained 330 people in a newly developed Let My People Sing! core curriculum
Developed and implemented a core curriculum in collaboration with LMPS educators!
Empowered Singing: Being in song together is powerful: what makes it so? Why does it feel so radical, what can it teach us, and how can we each add our unique voice to the whole? Through an explorative singing practice, this workshop gives participants permission to be present in compassion, tap into bravery, and connect to something sacred. Developed by Eliana Light
You (yes you!) Have Everything You Need to Bring Singing Space to Life!: The quality of one's presence matters and has the power to shift a singing space. And everyone has the capacity and power to do it. In this workshop, participants explore 8 different roles you can embody in a singing space (or any space!) based on the teachings of Rabbi Shefa Gold. Developed by Ilana Lerman
Skills for Song Leading: Songleading is a unique form of facilitation, and like any skill, it takes practice. This workshop offers specific and concrete skills for leading songs for groups, including choosing songs, finding (and maybe shifting) starting notes, tips for teaching, how to end the song, and more. It includes discussion and practice of 101 skills for those who have never led a song before, and 201 skills for those who've got the basics down and could use some fine-tuning. Developed by Rabbi Mónica Gomery and Ary Solomon
How to lead a Community Sing: Community Sing is the song sharing format we use at Let My People Sing! to support people to teach and learn each others’ songs! This workshop dives into the ethos and practical guidelines that make this structure work. Developed by Margot Seigle and Batya Levine
Piloted our first day long song leading intensive as part of the Bay Area weekend, with 75 participants! Most common feedback? “We want more!”
Laura and students at the co-led Ashir Shirah Kabalat Shabbat service in Brooklyn
EXPANDED Virtual Programs
We launched new virtual programming, many with in person components
Co-created our first extended learning program Ashir Shirah, a 4-month deep dive into the liturgy and melodies for Kabalat Shabbat and Teamei Hamikrah (Torah trope) in Moroccan Nusach, taught by Laura Ekleslassy and in collaboration with Egalitarian Sephardi Mizrahi Kehilla of NYC.
Over 20 participants attended each week, and the series culminated with an in person Shabbat service led by Laura and many of the Ashir Shirah students!
Offered a 3-part series on Ashkenazi melodies for Shabbos zemiros with Batya Levine with 75+ people in attendance, followed by in person tischs (singing shabbos songs around the table) in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Chicago and Providence!
Additional virtual offerings included Songs for Prayer and Protest, a summer retreat Sing Back, and Mizrahi Melodies for the New Year with Yoni Avi Battat
Hub for Jewish musicians
Our network of teachers grew by 6!
A range of professional teaching artists with years of experience and learning is one of the back-bones of LMPS’ methodology. This year we worked with incredible teachers rabbi dr. koach baruch (KB) frazier, Anat Halevy Hochberg, Jessalynn Levine, Isaac Montagu, Yoni Avi Battat, Eliana Light, Aly Halpert, Ary Solomon, Rabbi Tsipora Gabai, MJ Gilbert, and Laura Elkeslassy (L-R)
long term planning underway
We’re in the final stages of our first 5 year strategic plan!
Together with our partners and collaborators, we’ve been working hard to create our first 5 year strategic plan! Sign up here to stay in the loop.
This was all possible because of the support of our community to resource this work! Make a donation today to ensure LMPS can continue to expand our much needed offerings in 2026 and beyond.
“You have created a model for Jewishness that is so inclusive and transformative. This experience has truly shaped my life in new ways. I can’t wait to experience the unfolding of the flowers that will come from the seeds of hope that have been planted in my heart by LMPS.”
“Let My People Sing! has opened doors to song and community for me - song and community that speaks to what we can and will create out of the ashes of what is burning around us. It makes me sure we will survive to see a new world”
“It is clear that the impact of Let My People Sing goes deep into the bones, hearts and souls of participants. This retreat is a place for people to fully be alive together, resourced by our ancestors, traditions, melodies old and new. LMPS allows for a depth of access to feelings that might not otherwise be felt. It is doing big healing work in a world that desperately needs it.”
“Let My People Sing! has been such an anchor for my Jewish practice, love of communal singing and reconnection with tunes from my Mizrahi lineage! The Bay Area Shabbaton was such a special experience, both because it illuminated how much LMPS has shaped me and my community, and because my partner and I led a workshop together (with our families present too!) for the first time with Sephardi/Mizrahi songs we had learned at past retreats!”
“Let My People Sing! filled my spirit with song and community at a time when I really needed it. I learned more about how to song lead and came away feeling more confident to try song leading in organizing spaces back home.”
