About NeoHasid
In 1995, the year after Reb Shlomo Carlebach z"l died, a group of friends on the Upper West Side of Manhattan came together to form the very first Chasidic egalitarian minyan, organized by David Seidenberg and led by David and Shaul Magid.
On Shabbat B'reishit (the shabbat right after Simchat Torah), we davened (prayed) together for the first time, meeting once a month for several years. A wonderful community of committed people from many walks of Jewish life, including ex-Yeshiva-niks and currently Orthodox yidn, Conservative and Reform rabbis and rabbinical students, etc., etc., began to gather to dance and sing, share Torah and meals.
One decade after that first minyan, NeoHasid.org was created by Rabbi David Seidenberg to help folks integrate Chasidic song, learning, and nusach into their davenning and communities and to explore embodied Torah. It evolved to focus on eco-Torah and to share liturgy that honors our relationship with the Earth and/or expresses gender parity.
Reb Naftali Citron, rabbi of the Carlebach Shul (aka "The Shul") in Manhattan, offered a blessing for neohasid.org the Chanukah after we started. Here's what he said:
The Rebbe and Reb Shlomo each in their own way taught me that there is no limit to where you can bring the light into the world. The depth of the light of Chasidus is what the whole world needs as the winter sets in and the long cold nights are upon us. From the Rebbe of Lubavitch I learned the darker the night the sweeter is the light. From Reb Shlomo I learned how that sweet light is in every human being if we can just help uncover it. May all the travelers to this site be blessed to find Holy words to help see the sweetest light in every Neshamah. ~ Brother Naftali Citron