Aaron and Sarah both had bar/bat mitzvah training and have traveled to Israel; Annie’s grandmother taught her many Jewish rituals and traditions before she passed on. And the acoustic trio incorporates Jewish themes into some of their songs, e.g. the Akeda in "Sacrificial Lamb" and the story of Moses in "Ballad of the Exiled Prince."
Check out
The Mongrel Jews website, where you can listen to tracks and read lyrics from their two CD’s, “Make Way, Make Room” and “Songs for A Minor.”
Jeremiah Lockwood
In 2006, Jeremiah Lockwood, with Israeli percussionist Tomer Tzur, founded the band
The Sway Machinery. Son of composer Larry Lockwood and the grandson of the legendary Cantor Jacob Konigsberg, Lockwood began his musical career playing on the streets of Manhattan. Now, in his capacity as artist-in-residence at
The Forward, he has now brought his interest in Cantorial music to
The Nigun Project.
Lockwood describes the meaning and significance of nigunim in Jewish musical tradition:
Nigunim, or songs without words, were a crucial outward expression of the religious experience of the 18th-century Hasidic revivalist movement. The early Hasidim created a new and distinctly Jewish ritual act by singing these meditative and incantatory melodies in chorus with a community of fellow spiritual seekers.
These songs could raise their spirits, transform the mundane into the holy and create moments of devekus, literally “cleaving,” where the soul is elevated toward the divine. In the traditional Jewish hierarchy of spiritual achievement, the study of Torah is the supreme value. Rabbi Yisroel Ben Eliezer, also known as the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, understood that talmudic scholarship was accessible to many but soul-colored melody was accessible to all.
Read more and listen to the Jeremiah’s nigunim.
Basya Schechter
Blending a psychedelic sensibility and a pan-Mediterranean sensuality, Basya Schechter leads her band, Pharaoh’s Daughter, through swirling Hasidic chants, Mizrachi and Sephardi folk-rock, and spiritual stylings filtered through percussion, flute, strings and electronica.
J-Sin, a reviewer at
Smother has this to say about their music:
"
Turkish hash bars meet Hasidic Brooklyn juke joints with ‘70’s era psych rock well in tow." Read more about Basya and her bandmates and
listen to some tracks.