Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie

Social activist and storyteller, writer and community leader, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie (he/him) is the Co-Founding Spiritual Leader of the Lab/Shul community in NYC and the creator of the ritual theater company Storahtelling, Inc.

Israeli born, he’s been living in New York since 1998. He received his rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2016, the 39th generation of rabbis in his family — the first one to be openly queer.

Rabbi Amichai is the star of Sabbath Queen, Sandi DuBowski’s award-winning documentary film, 21 years in the making, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2024. Watch there trailer here >

Rabbi Amichai serves on the Executive Board of Rabbis for Human Rights, is a co-founding member of the Jewish Emergent Network, a founding faculty member of the Reboot Network, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Sulha Peace Project for Israeli and Palestinian peacemakers, the Leadership Council of the New York Jewish Agenda, the Advisory Council for the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and as an advisor to Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance.

He’s been named “an iconoclastic mystic” by Time Out New York, “a calm voice for peace’ by NPR, a “rock star” by the New York Times, a “Judaic Pied Piper” by the Denver Westword, a “maverick spiritual leader” by The Times of Israel and “one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world” by the Jewish Week. In 2017 he was named one of America’s Top 50 rabbis by The Forward.

In June 2017 Rabbi Amichai published The JOY Proposal with a radical response to the reality of Intermarriage and taking on a personal position on this issue, including his resignation from the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Movement.

In 2022 Rabbi Amichai began publishing Below the Bible Belt a daily digital project extended over 42 months, critically queering and re-reading all 929 chapters of the Hebrew Bible.

Amichai is Abba to Alice, Ezra and Cai-Hallel.