Captivating the Jewish Soul
Yehudah Katz
We entered the cozy studio and sat down to talk, and I began to grapple with the definition of the band’s sound. Is it rock, soul, or something else? Band leader Yehuda Katz solved the question. “People listen to music’s attitude. That is what turns them on. Our attitude is Jewish. That’s what we are. That’s our music.”
But Jewish music has a lot of different elements. There’s klezmer, hassidic, cantorial, and others.
“Our music is happy,” says Abramson. “That’s what we learn, that’s what we do.”
Reva L’Sheva is made up of five individuals with music as their unifying factor. Band leader Katz is from New York, but spent a lot of time in Los Angeles before coming to Israel six years ago. He describes himself as a “close student” of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, with whom he studied for 23 years. Carlebach “influenced my life in a lot of ways,” says Katz.
Bass and guitar player Adam Wexler grew up in Minneapolis and started playing at age five. He immigrated to Israel in 1990, just prior to the Gulf War, and lives in Gush Etzion.
Abramson is a Habadnik who first immigrated to Israel in 1969. Following a stint in the army, he returned to the US for a while, but came back to Israel in 1991 after the Gulf War. “For me that war was a wake-up call. It was like ‘What am I doing here?’”
Percussionist Zvi Yechezkeli was born in Jerusalem of Kurdistani immigrant parents. He studied for a while in New York before returning here. He considers himself not religious, but “he is more spiritual than many religious Jews I know,” says Katz.
Avi Yishai is the drummer of the band. In June he was hospitalized for brain surgery and is not yet back with the band. The band managed to record its newest album, Etz Haim, beforehand. Yishai believes that “everyone who listens to this album will become happier,” according to Katz. He said he “felt honored to be able to do the album.”
Danny Roth, who has replaced Yishai on drums for a while, is originally from Los Angeles, and has been in Israel since 1989.
The band comprises people who are religious and some who are not, immigrants and native-born Israelis. The idea is unity.
“This is a society that insists on separation,” says Katz. “There is no harmony in separation.”
“People separate between Jewish music and Israeli music,” says Abramson, “but a lot of Israeli music is Jewish music. Look at the lyrics. Look at the songs.”
And indeed, a lot of the more popular songs from the past 30 years or so include references to Psalms or other Jewish texts.
THE band’s third album, Etz Haim, was released two weeks before Rosh Hashana. The English title of the album is Secrets.
“The real secrets about life,” says Katz, “are in the Etz Haim – the Tree of Life – as opposed to the Tree of Knowledge. In the Jewish schools we’ve been to, a lot of students are looking for inner meaning as opposed to just the dry knowledge. Kids are turning away from the mainstream, but they want to get high on Judaism.
“If more kids got turned on to who they are, living in the center of the world, there would be no more violence.”
Violence is a common topic in Israel today, and it also affects students. Abramson remarked that “today everyone is talking about ‘combating violence.’ It kinda sounds like ‘fighting for peace.’ It all sounds so violent. But it’s an option to fight violence with something other than violence.”
As if to further clarify, Katz added, “Carlos Santana said that he wants to create music with more spirituality. People are ready for music with real meaning. That’s what we do.”
Katz said that he “would love to play with Santana in Israel. This is where the meaning is.”
Katz told the story of his trip to Belgrade this past summer. “I stayed in the house of the rabbi. On Shabbat all the Jews of Belgrade, about 100, came to dance in the shul. They couldn’t believe that someone came to visit them. After Shabbat there was a concert for the whole community. One old woman came to me with tears in her eyes to say ‘Thank you. You should continue to write and play great music.’ It’s people like that that keep me going.”
THE NEW album is a refreshing production. Much of Jewish music is either cantorial, choral, or in the Mordechai Ben-David mold of single-person acts. Reva L’Sheva combines a number of influences and the result is truly unique. The band members will admit to being heavily influenced by ’70s rock ‘n’ roll groups such as the Grateful Dead, and by Jewish artists such as Carlebach. These influences are very noticeable on Etz Haim in selections such as “Oz Vehadar” and “Hinei Ma Tov,” which include some lively and tuneful guitar riffs along the Dead model. In addition, the band covers two well-known Carlebach tunes in “Yah Ribon” and “Simha Le’artzecha.”
What they are less prepared to admit to are other influences that are noticeable in their music. The vocals on “Al Naharot Bavel” and “Omdot”, both done by Wexler, sound very much like Bob Dylan in some ways, and the bold- voiced “having fun” style of “Horeini” is reminiscent of the Barenaked Ladies, whom most in the band profess never to have heard of.
A standout on the album is “Kol Haneshama,” written by Wexler. “I wrote it one way,” says Wexler, “then everyone in the band saw it, tore it apart, and put it back together. It’s better when everyone has a part in it. Like a community effort.”
The song is very upbeat, and very much in the style of good ’80s rock ‘n’ roll. And that’s the way the band likes it. “Our music is meant to make people happy,” says Katz. “We like to have a feel-good kind of sound.”
In this album, Reva L’Sheva hits the mark.
AS I left the studio after our 90-minute interview, I stopped again to gaze westward from the hilltop vantage point of the studio’s front steps. By now it had grown dark, and the traffic on the highway was a stream of light as it wound its way up to Jerusalem. Below my feet, the entire coastal plain from Hadera to Ashkelon was laid out before me like a carpet of lights. One cannot help but feel that the entire nation sparkles as the music is written in the heights above them. This is unity. This is harmony. This is Reva L’Sheva.
This year marks the beginning of what it is hoped will be an annual event in Beit Shemesh: the Beit Shemesh Jewish Rock Festival. Festival organizer Jonathan Zwebner believes that this has the potential to equal the Safed Klezmer or Eilat Jazz festivals.
The Beit Shemesh festival will include “Jewish rock and soul, geared toward religious and nonreligious people,” says Zwebner. “Beit Shemesh will be the first festival of this caliber in the center of the country. This will put Beit Shemesh on the map.”
And it does have that potential. The festival is being sponsored by a group of local hi-tech companies including 2AM, C-Safe, and ShoutMail. The idea is to promote the Beit Shemesh area as a modern, up-to-date place where cutting- edge business, hi-tech, and leading cultural events combine to attract the young professional element of society.
To that end, the city of Beit Shemesh is providing funding for the festival. Ilan Geal-Dor works as a volunteer for the city’s Department of Jewish Heritage. He says that the Beit Shemesh area is “experiencing remarkable changes. By the end of next year, the population is expected to have doubled from the 28,000 people who lived there in 1990. This presents challenges to the city in terms of adjusting to the new, larger realities. One solution is to increase the number of cultural activities such as this festival, which can incorporate the entire community.”
Geal-Dor said that the city’s funding for the festival – about 75% of the total cost – comes from specific budget provisions set aside for cultural activities.
The festival will take place at the Beit Shemesh amphitheater at the corner of Rehov Ben-Ze’ev and Sderot Ben-Gurion on Monday evening September 27, beginning at 6:30, and will feature Reva L’Sheva, Benzion Solomon, the Moshav Band, Lenny Solomon of Shlock Rock, Dov Shurin and the Zion Square Band, and Chaim Dovid Seracik.
Reva L’Sheva has just released its third album, a refreshing sound on the Jewish music scene. Yehuda Poch talked to the band members about their influences and their dreams. Box at end of text.