Hi there!
I’m Ezra Bookman
ritual designer, artist, super smiley facilitator.
Long story (very) short
So it’s the summer of 2012 and my life is unfolding exactly as I had planned since I was a misfit 13 year old rehearsing monologues in a bedroom covered in Broadway posters: I have a B.F.A in Theater Studies and I’m off to Chicago to direct experimental theater. But the Meadows Scholars Award, a prestigious research grant, gave me the chance to travel to South America to live with shamans and indigenous communities, exploring new methods for training artists to create more spiritually transformative work. Detour.
I came back dissatisfied and disillusioned with all the theater I was seeing. A year later I was living abroad on organic farms writing poetry, and a year after that I moved to NYC to help build Lab/Shul - an experimental, artist-driven, God-optional, pop up community for sacred Jewish gatherings.
As the Artistic Director I crafted and curated new kinds of rituals, seeking the spiritual transformation available in powerful artistic experiences, and the artistic imagination necessary for powerful ritual experiences.
I helped grow Lab/Shul from a small startup to a robust community, producing and hosting events featuring Esther Perel, Priya Parker, Jill Soloway, Darren Aronofsky, Steve Bodow, Adam Kantor, and Ben Sinclair, among many others; collaborating with organizations like The NYC Mayor’s Office, House of Yes, Reimagine Festival, Reboot, New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, and Judson Memorial Church; and performing my large-scale participatory performance art rituals at Hammerstein Ballroom, Grand Prospect Hall, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and the New York Academy of Medicine.
For 6 years I had a front row seat to massive societal shifts that were, and are, far bigger than what any one community could address.
We are increasingly turning away from religious communities and social structures that have defined our understanding of community and meaning for much of human history. And yet we are no less in need of places where we can feel a sense of belonging, purpose, connection, and timelessness, what Émile Durkheim famously described as “collective effervescence”; places that widen our awareness beyond ourselves; places where life is celebrated, where transitions, struggles, and hopes are valued and shared. But what happens when many of the new places we are turning to haven't been equipped with the tools to do so effectively and ethically?
