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Let My People Sing!

July 11 @ 3:00 pm July 14 @ 12:00 pm

Isabella Freedman

2024 Summer Retreat

The Let My People Sing! Summer Retreat is a four-day gathering centered on Jewish communal singing for healing and liberation. This immersive song experience is structured around Shabbat and features programming led by our fabulous lead teachers, participant-led workshops, community sings, multiple prayer options, and a participatory concert on Saturday night.

2024 Registration Process

Timeline

On Monday, April 1 at 11:00am EST, the financial assistance application will open. Anyone is welcome to apply, and we will do our best to offer what we can. Due to limited funding, we are first prioritizing financial assistance for people who are BIJOCSM, trans women, trans femmes, low income, raised poor and working class, chronically ill, and disabled.

On Sunday, April 14 at 11:59pm EST, the financial assistance application will close. We will review all applications together and be in touch by Wednesday, May 1 with what financial assistance we can offer.

On Monday, May 6 at 11:00am EST, public registration will open. Spots will be available on a first come, first serve basis. The financial assistance application will reopen as funds allow for those who were not able to apply in the first round.

Let My People Sing! is committed to building a multi-racial, multicultural and genderful community. We will be holding spots for BIJOCSM, trans women and trans femmes.

Pricing

Isabella Freedman has a variety of room types, which can accommodate individuals and families of various sizes. More details on accommodations can be found here.

  • Standard Room (Private bathroom): $890 per adult in double occupancy | $1,420 single occupancy
  • Basic Room (Shared full bathroom between two rooms): $690 per adult in double occupancy y | $1,100 single occupancy
  • Dormitory Style (shared half bathroom between two rooms) multiple occupancy: $560
  • Camping/Commuting: $450
  • Child (5-12 years old): $275
  • Toddler (2-4 years old): $135
  • Infant: (Under 2 years old): $0

Financial Assistance

Applications for financial assistance will open on Monday, April 1.

Help make this year’s retreat more financially accessible by donating to the Financial Assistance Fund! All donations will go directly towards subsidizing registration costs for Let My People Sing! participants.

Program Highlights

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.

Shabbat Services & Practice

Shabbat services are offered Friday night and Saturday morning, with multiple prayer options including Traditional Egalitarian and Creative services. Creative services often use instruments and amplification and will be noted as such on the schedule.

To keep this space accessible to folks with varying relationships to halachic observance, we ask everyone to refrain from using electronics in public space on Shabbat. If there is a session that uses instruments, it will be 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 Havdallah & Concert

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

Jewish Outdoor, Food & Environmental Fun!

Make pickles, explore the woods, and take a tour of the farm alongside our Adamah fellows.

Get a taste of Let My People Sing! with this video about our work.

Lead Teachers

Dodie Whitaker

Dodie Whitaker, a seasoned singer, composer, and conductor, channels over 40 years of musical expertise into her work, shaped by her professional singing career and diverse teaching experiences. As a racial justice facilitator with Holistic Resistance and co-author of “Who is Community Sing For?”, Dodie’s international acclaim as a song leader reflects her unique blend of influences from her biracial Jewish background. To learn more about Dodie and her latest initiative, Voices Rising Song Circles, visit www.voices-rising.com.

Shir Meira Feit

Rabbi Shir Meira Feit is a musician, award-winning composer, ritual facilitator, and spiritual director. They have released several solo and collaborative albums of sacred music and facilitated countless circles of communal ritual and song, helping people of all backgrounds connect with their inner wisdom and joy. Shir worked as a serial spiritual entrepreneur for twenty years in the Jewish Renewal movement, and in the Zen Peacemakers Order, co-facilitating their Bearing Witness Retreats in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Today, Shir offers teachings as an independent educator, musician, and spiritual director, helping others grow and flourish at the dynamic edge of spiritual emergence. In the last several years, Shir’s work and life have been heavily influenced by the spiritual practice of parenting three children, interpersonal neurobiology, somatic psychology, neuroqueer theory, artificial intelligence, and the wisdom of plant medicines. They live with their family in Lenapehoeking, aka New York’s Hudson Valley.

Yoni Avi Battat

Yoni Avi Battat (he/him) brings Arab music into the soundscape of American Jewish life through composition, education, prayer, and performance on viola, violin, oud, and vocals. Described as “an education for the ear and the soul,” his debut album Fragments seeks to find new pathways to connect with ancestry and find healing around our fragmented identities. Yoni’s newest project is Kedmah: The Rising Song Piyyut Project, which preserves and reimagines traditional repertoire for Syria, Iraq, Jerusalem, Turkey, Yemen, and Morocco. Their first album Simu Lev emerges on Rising Song Records in Spring, 2024. From 2021-2022 Yoni toured nationally as an actor and violinist with the Tony Award-winning musical, “The Band’s Visit.” Yoni lives in Boston, MA, working locally and nationally to uplift Mizrahi identity in American Jewish communities. www.yonibattat.com

Accessibility, COVID-19, and Community Agreement

Accessibility

Please see our Accessibility Document for more information. You may also go to our Guest Information page to learn more about Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center.

COVID-19 Protocols

Please read our COVID-19 Protocols Document carefully as the COVID-19 protocols for Let My People Sing! are different than those for other retreats at Isabella Freedman. Following the protocols will be required for all participants.

Community Agreement

We’ve created a Community Agreement for this summer’s gathering. We ask that all participants read and agree to the guidelines (coming soon) before registering for this retreat.

About LMPS!

Let My People Sing! is a cultural project expanding the ancient and transformative practice of Jewish communal singing. We gather in multi-racial, multicultural and genderful Jewish community, uplifting songs and leaders historically and ongoingly pushed to the margins. Together, we transmit and reclaim diasporic Jewish singing traditions, celebrate original music emerging from our communities, and create heart-centered gatherings where we can all be leaders and learners of song.

Margot Seigle, Director of Organizational Change

Margot (they/them) is a community builder, cultural organizer and music maker who believes in the power of song to heal and transform. Margot is a co-founder of Linke Fligl and Let My People Sing! who loves Shabbos, direct communication and slow cooking meat. They come from a lineage of Eastern European Jews who assimilated into whiteness in the Chicago suburbs. After a decade of living in the Hudson Valley on occupied Schagticoke / Mohican land, they are now based in Minneapolis, MN. They are thrilled to be ushering in this next chapter of LMPS!

Batya Levine, Director of Programs

Batya (they/them) uses song as a tool for cultivating healing and resilience in their work as a communal song leader, musician, shaliach tzibur (Jewish prayer leader) and cultural organizer. They believe in the liberatory power of song to untie what is bound within us, and sustain us as we build a more just and beautiful world. Batya is one of the co-founders of Let My People Sing!. They are a recording artist, teacher, and alumni of Rising Song Institute’s programs. Batya offers song, ritual, and workshops in a variety of communities, and composes original music made of Ashkenazi yearning, queer heart-medicine, and emunah (faith/trust). Batya released their first album, Karov, with Rising Song Records in 2020. They are also a lover of the ocean, living room dance parties, and puns. Batya is honored and stoked that they get to do the cultural organizing work of their dreams with LMPS!  Learn more at www.batyalevine.com.

Marques Hollie, Co-Programming & Database Manager

Marques Hollie (they/he) is a operatically-trained vocalist, ritual leader, and theatre maker, who has been telling (and singing!) stories for as long he can remember. Marques believes that Jewish practice and ritual are expansive, resilient containers and they enjoy exploring their identities as a Queer, Black, Jewish person through original songs and niggunim, liturgy, and theatrical work. Following a two-year course of study, Marques received ordination as a Maggid (sacred storyteller) and is now a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. In his spare time, Marques takes pole and aerial classes, plays dodgeball with Stonewall Sports, serves on the board of SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva, and dreams about playing the Baker in Into The Woods. For more information about Marques and what they’re up to, check out www.marqueshollie.com.

Details About Isabella Freedman

For more information about accommodations, dining, transportation, campus amenities, and COVID-related policies, please visit our Guest Information and FAQ page.

Isabella Freedman Guest Experience & FAQ
860.824.5991 | freedman@adamah.org
116 Johnson Rd, Falls Village, CT 06031