by Naomi Gamoran, Tiferet Rosh Eidah and Songleader

The OSRUI songleaders are now in our fourth day of Hava Nashira, the annual songleading and music workshop hosted by OSRUI. We arrived on Tuesday to begin our training and preparation for the summer. Since then we have learned many new songs and we are extremely excited to bring them to camp this summer!

OSRUI songleaders Bennett Nidenberg, Amichai Shiryon, Danny Dubin, Shana Raven, and Joe Winner

In addition to learning sessions, camp groups plan and lead a song session for all the Hava Nashira participants. It is a wonderful opportunity for songleaders to develop and practice their songleading skills. It also allows each camp’s songleading cohort to practice and prepare for their summer songleading adventures together.  The OSRUI songleaders – Danny Dubin (Tzofim), Jon Gordon (Tiferet), Samantha Jahr (Kallah), Bennett Nidenberg (Tzofim), Shana Raven (Tzofim), Amichai Shiryon (Chalutzim), Hallie Turnbull (Moshavah), and Joe Winner (Tzofim) – were split into two groups and each group planned song sessions with lots of clapping and ruach (spirit)!  Other OSRUI staff (like me) won’t be songleading full time this summer but wanted to experience Hava Nashira – Peter Luck (Moshavah), Arielle Solomon (Teva), Max Weinberg (Avodah Rosh Eidah), and Gordy Tcath (Machon).  We’ll all be sharing our knowledge with songleaders Lauren Sandoval (Kallah) and Mark Hafter (Chalutzim), who couldn’t attend.

We are thrilled to have such an awesome group of songleaders and can’t wait to get this summer started!