Yehudah Katz

As a solo artist, Yehudah has been blessed with the opportunity to touch many lives with his own unique approach to Jewish spirituality, music and story. Reb Shlomo Carlebach was a critical influence, given the 23 years during which Katz watched the master open hearts through music, story and personal connection. For the past eight years Yehudah has helped continue his legacy by directing the annual Reb Shlomo Carlebach Memorial Concerts at the Binyanei Haumah Convention Center in Jerusalem.

Katz offers workshops and seminars in Hebrew and English on themes such as “The Power of Music and Melody,” “Music Composition: Roots and Influences,” “Music and Spirituality: An Individual and Communal Journey,” and “Jewish Folk Culture- Tracing Roots from Temple Times to the Modern Era.” On his own quest to connect with Jews in the four corners of the earth, he has performed and taught in communities large and small in the U.S., Canada, England, Germany, the former Soviet Union, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Croatia, The Czech Republic and Africa.

Beyond his soulful musicianship, Katz brings to his Jewish educational projects his Yeshiva University education, an M.A. in guidance and counseling, and coursework completed towards a doctorate in clinical psychology. He served the community for 12 years in the field of informal Jewish education, working for the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the Jewish Community Centers Association, and the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, specializing as a pioneer in outreach to unaffiliated young people

Danny Roth

As a musician, Danny is an accomplished drummer. He has recorded and performed around the world with many popular Jewish artists, including Reva L’Sheva, the Moshav Band and the great Reb Shlomo Carlebach, z”l. In his playing, he aims to draw inspiration from a deep, soulful place so that the music can reach a deep, soulful place in others. That is the heart of Jewish music.

Danny is a co-founder of Artists and Musicians for Israel (A.M.I.), a unique educational project that uses music and the arts as conduits of community-building, centered on the theme of Israel.

Chanan Elias

And then he heard the song “Al Eileh Ani Bochia”( for those I cry), a Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach melody based on a verse from the Book of Lamentations. A new world was opened up for him… so much depth pouring out of one soul. At the time, he was a recent graduate of the Los Angeles Theatre Academy, living in Los Angeles and looking for his first job as a professional actor. It was a time of trying to fit in, but Chanan was not quite sure where he belonged. He was on the cusp of a journey, but not quite ready. He hung out a little bit with the “Shlomo crowd” in LA and started to get really turned on by the music, the prayer, meditation. After a short stop over in NYC, playing keyboards with Neshama Carlebach (Shlomo’s daughter) Chanan soon realized there was only one place for him: Israel.

His first day in Israel he landed on the “Moshav.” There was a wedding and he was invited up to play. There he met some musicians who asked him to join their band, “Ein Safek” and suddenly, he was playing music and traveling all over Israel. Not long after he met his wife and found his place in Israel- working in the theatre as a director, doing voice-overs for cartoons, producing and playing music, and most of all as a father and husband. He has continued to develop these aspects of his life in Israel. For example, in addition to studying music at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Rimon School of Jazz and producing several albums, Chanan has directed a number of shows in Israel including “Little Shop of Horrors,” and has acted in “Guys and Dolls” as well as two feature films.

Chanan loves playing music all over the world. Music, says Chanan, has this power to make people smile… Just let go for a while and dance!

Eliezer Blumen

It was his contract with Atlantic, over ten years ago, that brought him to New York City, where he had the opportunity to meet and perform with Reb Shlomo Carlebach. This greatly contributed to his decision to make Aliya to Israel and his re-Jew-venation, part of which involved the long hair at the back of his head moveing to take up residence on his face, for a more traditional look. Through his educational, musical and spiritual activity, Eliezer actively seeks world peace and the unification of its creatures. When Eliezer is not playing and touring with Reva L’Sheva he can be seen playing in clubs around Tel Aviv and Israel with his original power trio, Yood.

Yitzchak Attias

Having grown up on the Mediterranean, Yitzhak brings African, Latin, and Flamenco influences into his music, which mingle with the Sephardic traditions on which he was raised.

Yitzhak was extremely moved on his first visit to Israel by the desert – the Dead Sea, Ein Gedi, and the Sinai. The profound change he felt from this trip drew him back to Israel, where he has lived since 1980.

He has played professionally for over twenty years, and has performed and/or recorded with Shlomo Carlebach, Yehudah Glantz, Reva l’Sheva, Chaim David, Avraham Rosenblum, Moshe Yess, Mordechai Ben David, Moshav Band, Peter Himmelman and others.

Yitzhak and Toronto-based drummer Yoseph “Joe” Levy, together with New York-based guitarist Elie Massias, grew up playing music together. Joe first sparked Yitzhak’s interest in drumming and song-writing.

In the late 70′s they formed what must have been the first Latin/Afro/Jewish band, Toledot.

1980 found Yitzhak in Israel where he led his own bands “Ladino,” “Yerushalmi” and “Azamra”. It was around that time that he formed a duo with Argentinean multi-instrumentalist Yehudah Glantz.

He then recorded “Gather the Sparks” which reflects the influence of Rebbe Nachman’s teachings on his music, and includes some of Israel’s finest musicians.

In the mid 80′s, Yitzhak met percussionist Nadav Serling who had spent time in Africa studying traditional drumming

Nadav had a powerful influence on Yitzhak’s playing and they have maintained a close musical and personal friendship since.

He joined Reva l’Sheva in the mid-90′s recording two Cds with them.

In 2003, Yitzhak and Elie Massias re-met in Gibraltar for an almost-un-rehearsed performance. The result was electrifying.

Their repertoire ranged from Jazz to Flamenco, Latin to traditional Jewish songs.

Yitzhak is currently working on new material drawing heavily from Gibraltarian liturgical melodies and from his own wanderings in the Jerusalem forest.

Yitzhak lives with his wife and children in Jerusalem where he works in music and provides graphics for the award-winning web site, aish.com.

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Reva L'Sheva

A huppa not only allows two people to enter into holy matrimony, but also provides the extended family and friends a chance to feast, socialize and, most importantly, dance.

At an Orthodox wedding, the band provides the heartbeat and soundtrack of the joyful event. Much like the wider religious world, the wedding band scene is fractured into distinct groups catering to their respective constituencies.

Somewhere in the broad groupings of religious Jewry where religious Zionism and hozrim b’teshuva (the newly religious) meet, over the past few years a group of ensembles have emerged with a new, eclectic and creative sound. Incorporating world music, reggae, Middle Eastern, rock and Latin flavors into the old base of hassidic, Klezmer-style dance music, these groups are striving for artistic expression within the limitations of the wedding format, and are actually continuing the time-honored tradition of updating Jewish music to contemporary aesthetics and taste.

Avichai Paz Greenveld, keyboardist and lead singer of the group Kumi Ori, which takes it’s name from a phrase in the Lecha Dodi prayer from the Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service, has seen the new sound develop right under his nose. At just 23, he is already a 10-year veteran of the simha (Jewish celebration) world. At age 13, he started playing solo hassidic music on the keyboard, with automatic drum machine backup.

“Years ago, religious music was only wedding music,” he tells In Jerusalem while driving to a wedding. “Now, you have all these bands putting out their own CDs of original music but also playing weddings too, and bringing in so many different styles.”

Greenveld, who grew up in Gush Etzion and currently lives with his wife and two children in a small settlement near Hebron, attributes the change to the newly observant. The religious world, he explains, is sometimes closed and those entering it from outside are able to bring in creative energy.

“It’s all because of [the late] Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach,” he says. Carlebach, who passed away in 1994, had a huge influence on the hozer b’teshuva movement and on the Jewish music world in general, as many of the artists interviewed for this article were quick to point out.

Kumi Ori has been together for three years and is known for playing tight arrangements of high-intensity hassidic and rock rhythms mixed with Klezmer horn melodies, roots-reggae interludes, drum and percussion breakdowns and jazzed out bossa-nova versions of classics like Mizmor L’David.

Despite this eclecticism, the group is – musically speaking – on the conservative side of the spectrum and is more focused on re-interpreting wedding music than on developing original material, although it does some songs written by Greenveld, who recently released a CD of his own compositions.

“Most of our weddings are for young couples in the yeshiva-oriented religious Zionist world,” explains band leader, trumpeter and manager Yoav Amitzur, 26, who directs the group onstage with a constant series of gestures indicating rhythmic breaks, shifts in tempo and soloing opportunities.

While Kumi Ori is on the more traditional side, the Jerusalem-based Aharit Hayamim (The End of Days) is an ensemble known as a spiritual, religious reggae band that also plays weddings. Most of the members grew up in Gush Etzion and they have been together for four years.

“It has always been an artistic thing,” says Yehuda Leuschter, their perpetually happy lead singer and keyboardist. “But we’ve done weddings since the beginning, and now we are playing a lot. This week we played a very straight kind of wedding, then we have a freaky hippie wedding, and then on Thursday we are playing for a couple from Peru… I don’t know how they heard about us.”

Aharit Hayamim regularly performs its original music in venues around Jerusalem and over the years has built up a strong local following. The members also organize a music festival each summer in the hills of Gush Etzion which this year attracted more than 1,000 people, and have just self-produced their debut CD.

“Lately, we are doing our own songs at the weddings and also wrote some new music, reggae stuff, and people are liking it,” Leuschter says. “It’s totally different from doing a concert and I think it’s better… at a wedding people are already hyped, you start rocking and they are moving. The bride and groom are there, the whole crowd is already happy… it’s precious.”

While Aharit Hayamim seems to have found the balance between creative drives and the wedding world, for others the schism is too much to bear and a clear distinction must be made between their more creative music efforts and performing at weddings.

“You know, if you are trying to make original music out in the world you have to be careful how to present yourself,” says Shmuel Nelson, the soft-spoken leader of ‘Eden Mi Qedem. “If you go out to a wedding, your main obligation is to make music for the couple, for the audience. It’s a service. People are there to be happy, not necessarily to connect to the music on an artistic level.”

Nelson, a guitarist and singer from an Ashkenazi-American background, became enamored of Middle Eastern music while learning at Yeshivat Bat Ayin, and through diligent study and immersion in Middle Eastern music, he grew proficient in the complicated scale system and singing style of piyutim (Middle Eastern religious songs) and Arabic classical music.

The ‘Eden Mi Qedem band, originally conceived as a creative endeavor that would also play a lot of weddings, quickly evolved a unique sound combining Middle Eastern music, heavy rock, psychedelic jamming and electronic elements. This mix turned out to be popular for the hozer b’teshuva crowd, but sometimes clashed with the sensibilities of wedding guests who had pre-conceived notions of what Jewish wedding music should be.

While recording the group’s recently released, debut CD, Nelson realized that he needed to separate the project from the wedding scene.

“What I am trying to do with the original music is distinct and not something that people associate with wedding music, but it has the influences,” he explains. “For ‘Eden Mi Qedem, I needed to have creative freedom, to be able to play other venues.”

To that end he recently formed a new band, Etz Zamir (The Singing Tree), which uses the same rhythm section as ‘Eden Mi Qedem, but draws from a larger pool of other musicians at need, giving the ensemble greater stylistic flexibility than many groups out there.

With Etz Zamir, he says, “We can provide what’s appropriate for the crowd, couple and family. We do traditional music and can also do Jewish and Arabic Middle Eastern music and classic rock, but the focus is on wedding dynamics.”

Another creative ensemble that is making waves in the wedding scene is Noar Carmi’s Tizmoret Ha’amamit (The People’s Orchestra). Carmi, who lives in Motza and who became religious many years ago, is one of the most respected bassists in the Israeli ethnic music scene and was a member of the very influential Bustan Abraham, the Jewish-Arab ensemble that kick-started the world music scene back in the Nineties.

“The Tizmoret is a gypsy-Klezmer band,” he explains in a brief telephone conversation on the way to a gig. “[Playing weddings] is new for me… I have mostly been inside the ethnic music scene doing performances. We do traditional songs and it’s very energetic. We also have our own original material but that has asymmetrical rhythms and isn’t really for wedding dancing.”

In performance, Carmi eschews the traditional placement of bass players – performing at the front of the stage next to the audience – and acts as conductor for the ensemble, which includes a horn section of three players and Latin-style percussion.

The group also sometimes performs a set gypsy-brass band style, with Carmi playing the tuba (his original instrument) and the band members descending into the midst of the dancers, resulting in Balkan-esque, horn and drum renditions of traditional hassidic melodies.

The Tizmoret released a CD of Carmi’s original compositions last year and most recently performed to an enthusiastic crowd at the Israel Festival, but the group is something of a side project for Carmi, who is in constant demand as a freelance bass player.

At the other end of the spectrum are groups like Inyan Acher (A Different Idea), one of the most successful bands focused specifically on weddings. Together for six years, the group was formed by a group of students at the Rimon Music School and was actually not intended to be a wedding band at all.

“We wanted to be a Jewish music band, we thought we would record and perform,” recalls drummer Akiva Meller, 31. “We figured if we played a few weddings a month we could be able to scrape by, get an old car and pay the rent. But before we even entered the recording studio a friend of a friend heard about us and wanted us for his wedding… since then most of our paying work has been weddings and that was a big surprise. We were doing acoustic rock, post-Shlomo style. Now, we play 120 events a year and during the summer we play five nights a week.”

He continues: “In the wedding world, we were able to bridge the gap between the Israeli crowd and the post-Carlebach crowd. We filled a need that was stronger than we knew. After Rav Shlomo died, there were his close students that had bands, like Yehuda Katz of Reva L’Sheva and Chaim Dovid, but they were mostly in the English-speaking world.

“Now we are in the second era with a bunch of bands like Sinai Tor, Yirmiyahu, Shlomo Katz, and Aaron Razel… there is a whole Israeli scene of bands that do weddings and also release original material… it’s hard to survive if you are not going to do weddings; there are just not that many performances.”

Wedding music, Meller says, used to be more standard, “The ‘Nagina’ style that came out of New York, the keyboard and brass section style. It was more American, more classically Jewish. Now there are so many influences… we were one of the first to play Irish and country music at weddings, now there is a lot… there are nearly a dozen bands that play the style that we do.”

Inyan Acher, through its connections with Bnei Akiva, has performed concerts in Vienna, Denmark, Sweden and in the US and is currently booked solid with weddings through Rosh Hashana. Despite their success, the band members, like nearly every musician mentioned in this article, still have day jobs.

“The money is pretty good but people think it’s better than it is,” says Meller. “For about three months of the year there isn’t work; during the Omer [between Pessah and Shavuot], the Three Weeks [between the fast of the 17th of Tamuz and Tisha Be'av] and around the hagim [festivals] you don’t have weddings. You can’t raise a family just playing in a band… three guys are teachers, one guy works at a bank and I am entering school to study psychology next year. It’s normal for our genre, and for Israel especially.” According to Meller, for bands in the religious Zionist or modern Orthodox worlds, there is another barrier to achieving success, namely competition from the rest of the Israeli music scene.

In the haredi world people only listen to haredi religious music, so even with its limited market it is possible to achieve exposure. Religious groups that are more open to mainstream Israeli society also listen to regular, Israeli pop music and many other kinds of music, so a band doing original material faces competition.

There are also those who play weddings and produce original music, but have another agenda, like Nahla’ot’s own Shlomo Katz, who just released his long-awaited album Vehakohanim and is currently touring in the States. Katz’s music, while diverse, is solidly rock-oriented and he has even been known to pull out Neil Young covers in concert.

“In terms of neo-Carlebach, or whatever you want to call it, Shlomo Katz is the man,” confirms his childhood friend and drummer Eli Farkas, 26, who has also performed with Reva L’Sheva, Chaim Dovid, Kumi Ori and many more. “Throughout the year we play several weddings a week, but he doesn’t want that to be his main thing. He just got smicha [rabbinic ordination] and he wants to teach Torah and to change the world, to bring people closer to Judaism.”

The diversity of the worlds of the modern Orthodox and the newly religious is reflected in the emerging music performed at their weddings and by the musicians that come out of these communities.

“It is amazing sometimes,” reflects Rabbi Shaul Judelman, 27, who moonlights as a saxophonist with the Shlomo Katz band. “Playing some of these events, seeing Jews from all different backgrounds… Russians, Ethiopians, Ashkenazim, Sephardim, all dancing together… then you realize they are dancing to an Irish jig!”

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Yehudah Katz

“I was waiting for material I thought would be worthwhile,” says Katz, who is originally from

The result may well be the band’s best album yet.

Ve’sham Nashir (There We Will Sing) is Reva L’Sheva’s sixth CD. Released October 11 by Noam Hafakot, the album is a rich combination of strong vocals, well-honed, high-energy instrumentals, and powerful spiritual lyrics. Yet at the same time, the overall tone of the recording is sensitive and intimate.

The album’s themes are hope and glory, so to speak. The 12-year-old religious rock band, which has six members, has produced an album that is a blend of ballads, rollicking rock ‘n’ roll and original renditions of Shlomo Carlebach songs. It conveys a message of joy amidst sadness, rays of hope streaking through a curtain of chaos and confusion. It sings of God and his presence in Israel and in our hearts.

With eight original songs and four Carlebach numbers, the album is life-affirming. It resounds with a call to come together and celebrate God, love and this country.

The title track, for example, speaks of the yearning for the Temple to be rebuilt. With a rousing ethnic Irish American flavor, the song depicts the journey of the Jewish people on its way to the Holy Land. It ends with a powerful blast of voices chanting in unison “u’virnana na’aleh” (“and we will go up with joy”). To give the chorus a fitting sense of scale, Katz used four voices and mechanically multiplied them by 10.

The only English-language song on the album, “Jumpin’,” with a powerful vocal by Chanan Elias, continues the theme of the ingathering. It speaks about the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and their passage into Israel.

In “Tamid Besimcha” (Always Happy), Eliezer Blumen renders Reva L’Sheva’s quintessential message: Try to connect to the happiness of the world rather than to its sadness. Blumen’s tasteful, wailing guitar work on this album is reminiscent of the best work of Carlos Santana and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.

Katz’s composition “Tefilat Haderech” (“Travel in Peace”), written while crossing the border from Croatia to Serbia, is a reminder that God is with us, no matter where we go. Not something to be taken lightly or for granted, we need to invoke the words of the prayer to connect with Him.

The songs “Bo’i Kala” (“Dancing for the Bride”) and “Mi Adir” (“Overall”), which is delicately accompanied by mandolin and flute, celebrate the joy of interpersonal relationships. This is yet another way in which to seek and fulfill our capacity for happiness.

In that vein, the cover of the album is taken from a painting done by Katz’s wife, Michelle. In the picture, the figures gathered in front of the Western Wall are cloaked in an aura of sadness. However, a reassuring ray of hope shines through the darkness.

And that, as always, is the message of Reva L’Sheva.

Relaying that message in full force are Katz, doing vocals, guitar, and mandolin; Eliezer Blumen on guitar and harmonica; Elias doing vocals and keyboard; Danny Roth on drums; Adam Wexler on bass; and Nitzan Khen Razel on violin. And for an extra touch of ethnic flavor, the band’s former percussionist, Yitzhak Attias, was invited to add his special talent to the mix. Number six for Reva L’Sheva sounds like a keeper.

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V'sham Nashir: There We'll Sing

1.My World Aymatai (Ethics of Our Fathers/Yehudah Katz)
2.There We’ll Sing V’sham Nashir (Daily prayers/Yehudah katz)
3.Over All Mi Adir (Wedding Prayer/Yehudah katz)
4.Watching The Gates Shomrim Hafked (Isaih/R.Shlomo Carlebach)
5.Always Happy Tamid B’simchah (R.Nachman of Breslov/Eliezer Blumen)
6.In GOD We Trust B’cha batchu (Psalms 22/R.Shlomo Carlebach)
7.Life’s Force Ki Hem Chayenu (Evening Prayers/Yehudah Katz)
8.Open The Gates Pitchu Li (Psalms 118/R.Shlomo Carlebach)
9.Gather Together Utzu Etza (Isaih 8/R.Shlomo Carlebach)
10.Jumpin’(In The Red Sea)Koftzim L’yam Haadom (Adam Wexler)
11.Dancing for The Bride Bo’i Kallah (Sabbath Prayers/Eliezer Blumen)
12.Travel in Peace T’filat Haderech (Traveler’s Prayer/Psalm 121/Yehudah Katz)
All arrangements by Reva L’sheva