A place to practice being fully here.
The Jewish Embodiment Lab is a home for exploring Jewish life through movement, music, learning, and ritual.
We create gatherings where Jewish tradition meets lived experience: what we feel, how we move, the questions we carry, and the relationships we build.
Our work takes shape through The Sabbath Dance, retreats, classes, and collaborations with artists, teachers, and communities
Why the body?
Jewish practice already asks something of the body. We stand and bow. We sing and listen. We eat together, light candles, and mark transitions in time.
We begin with that relationship between practice and experience. What happens when a teaching becomes a movement question? When we make room to notice a response before explaining it? When rest becomes something we practice together?
By embodiment, we mean bringing attention to sensation, breath, movement, and relationship. A practice might be expansive and energetic, or as small as noticing your feet on the floor. The invitation is to encounter tradition with more of yourself present.
Rooted in Jewish life. Open to discovery.
Jewish texts, rituals, and the rhythms of the calendar give us forms to practice with. Mystical teachings invite questions about attention, relationship, and the sacred. Movement gives us another way to encounter those questions.
We approach this work with care for the traditions we draw from and curiosity about what they can mean in our lives now. We make room for devotion, uncertainty, delight, and a complicated relationship with belonging.
How we gather.
Rooted curiosity
We take Jewish tradition seriously and bring real questions to it. Familiarity and fresh eyes both have a place.
Belonging across difference
We welcome different relationships to Jewish life and make space to encounter one another without requiring the same story or answers.
Choice in practice
We invite participation with attention to personal boundaries. You choose how to move and what to share.
Care for the shared space
We practice listening, respect, and responsibility for how our presence affects others.
Meet the people behind the practice.
Lawrence Dreyfuss
Lawrence Dreyfuss is a yoga teacher (RYT-500), movement artist, and facilitator rooted in embodied Jewish practice. He founded The Sabbath Dance—a community exploring spiritual ritual through dance, movement, and breath—and later the Jewish Embodiment Lab to further this work. Lawrence’s journey spans teaching yoga, producing ecstatic dance events around the world as DJ Oatmeal, and designing retreats that weave together somatics, Jewish text, and community. He has studied rabbinics at Hebrew College in Boston and collaborated with Jewish communities and organizations across the U.S. and internationally.
Founder & Director of Text & Spirituality
Avital Kranz
Avital Kranz is a Dance/Movement Therapist and educator specializing in movement-based healing and group practice. She supports individuals and groups through somatic, expressive, and relational approaches to movement and mindfulness. Avital lives between Florida, New York, and Israel and brings her experience in therapeutic movement, embodied awareness, and creative facilitation to offerings within the Jewish Embodiment Lab.
Director of Embodied Practice
Director of Community & BelongingNina W
Program Manager at the Harvard Business School Club of New York with a background in international program management, education, and community engagement. Nina supports care, connection, and sustained participation across the Lab.
Director of Somatic ExplorationMarty Keiser
Marty Keiser is a movement educator, performer, and facilitator whose work brings together presence, creative expression, and embodied awareness. He has taught movement, acting, and voice at institutions including Pace University and Columbia University, and has led movement workshops internationally. A Guide and Mentor at Othership, he brings experience in meditation, breathwork, and visualization to his role as Director of Somatic Exploration at The Jewish Embodiment Lab. He holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University.
This work grows through relationship.
We collaborate with communities, artists, and teachers to create thoughtful encounters with Jewish practice.
Bring an embodied Jewish gathering to your community.
We’d like to hear what you’re imagining. Tell us about your community, the occasion, and the kind of experience you hope to create.
Tell us about your community, your location, and what you’re imagining. Include a date or timeframe if you have one.