We’re so excited to offer our first HANUKKAH HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR @ The Cathedral, and return to this beautiful, warm and inviting space in East Austin!
What to Expect: Latkes, donuts, two-step dancing (and instruction), family dreidel games and prizes and, of course, candlelighting, prayer and holiday music led by Rabbi Dan Ain and David Rabinowicz along with musicians and artists who have celebrated with us during 2025 at our SOMETHING COOL SHABBAT and our HIGH HOLY DAYS and other SPECIAL GUESTS!
Doors – 6pm / Holiday Spectacular – 6:30pm
ALL AGES WELCOME!!!
HANUKKAH HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR @ The Cathedral, 2403 East 16th St
Friday, December 19th at 6pm
Tickets: $36 (adult), $18 (under 18), Kids under 3 FREE
About Us
Rabbi and Co-Founder
Dan Ain is a rabbi, preacher and connector. Along with his wife, writer Alana Joblin Ain, he founded the Moontower Minyan in Austin, which seeks holiness through facilitating honest conversation, promoting tradition and ritual, and creating space where people can speak freely and exchange ideas within the context of Judaism.
He also serves as the Parent Life Educator at Shalom Austin – a position launched in the summer of 2024 to identify community needs which extend beyond the gates of the Dell JCC.
Rabbi Ain has worked both inside and outside the margins of the Jewish organizational world; meeting people wherever they are while supporting and enhancing the work of our communal institutions. Since his ordination from The Jewish Theological Seminary in 2008, he has served as the rabbi of The New Shul in Manhattan, and was Director of Tradition and Innovation at New York’s 92nd St Y. He founded the Brooklyn based organization “Because Jewish” and served as Senior Rabbi of Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco from 2018-2022, when he relocated to Austin.
President and Co-Founder
Alana Joblin Ain is a teacher and writer. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Quarterly West, Tablet, The Forward, The New York Times, Modern Loss, Crab Orchard Review, Dossier, and in the anthology Mothering Through the Darkness.
Alana has taught undergraduate writing at Hunter College, where she earned her MFA in poetry, and has also led writing workshops within organizational and private settings.
In addition, she co-founded the Brooklyn based organization Because Jewish and currently lives in Austin, Texas with Dan and their two children.
Alana leads Moontower Verses, our conversation series featuring writers, artists and creative types on what it means to be human and alive.
Musical Director
David Rabinowicz was born into a multi-cultural family; every member of his immediate family was born on a different continent.
The lessons David learned growing up surrounded by different languages and traditions shine through in his holistic and multifaceted approach to music.
David draws deeply from his Jewish and Latino roots, and from a multitude of instruments, instrumentalists, and genres in an endless effort to find a musical and artistic voice that is truly his own.
David sings, plays guitar and piano, and writes with the band Big Love Car Wash
Rachel Silver’s life is defined by music and Jewishness. Her mother Susie is a Jewish educator who instilled in her a very strong sense of Jewish identity.
Rachel started training in voice at eleven and began singing classically at 16. She has sung in Austin Opera, with the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Austin, and more recently, with Austin punk band, Constellation.
She received her degree in Jewish studies from the University of Texas in 2020, and continues to tutor kids the reform Jewish prayer book, in preparation for their B’nei Mitzvah. Her versatile vocals allow her to sing for many genres, but singing Jewishly is the closest to her heart.
Mike Bass is a singer-songwriter and acoustic guitarist. He blends indie-folk, folk, and Americana with unique fingerpicking, snapping, and percussive elements on the guitar while playing. He is bilingual in English and Japanese, and has original songs in both languages. You can find him performing and creating in a mixture of in-real-life gigs and online. Mike also co-directs ScrapFest, a scrap metal sculpture competition and art festival located in Lansing, Michigan, where teams get one hour to pick up to 500 lbs of scrap metal, and get one month to make a sculpture, with the resulting sculptures being displayed and auctioned in Old Town Lansing in mid-July, drawing 12,000+ attendees and artists from all of the world to come and enjoy the festival. Mike is originally from Lansing, Michigan, and is now based in Austin, Texas.
