Michal's Tefillin

If the ancient Israelites had sung Leonard Cohen’s seminal contribution to the world of song, Hallelujah, it would have sounded high and haunting, like Yasmin Levy’s version.

This Jerusalem-born Sephardi’s latest album, Sentir, is a collection of Ladino inspired songs, in the language of old Spain, heavily influenced by flamenco, Spanish guitar and arias of soaring Middle-Eastern beauty. Levy has lead a bejewelled life. Her father, Yitzhak Levy, a Turkish Jew who emigrated to Israel, devoted his life to the preservation of Sephardi songs and music in the face of Ashkenazi domination in the newly-formed Jewish state – songs that had been passed down, from generation to generation, for over 500 years – and it was his influence, even though he died when she was only a year old, that marked her path on life.

This is music to tear at your soul, to inspire and impassion. Levy’s voice is as pure as Andalucian mountain air with echoes of the City of David. Inspirational, dramatic and stunning.

www.yasminlevy.net

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OE05MxJLOo&playnext_from=TL&videos=5CyuO5toVLk

Popularity: 28% [?]

Charitable acts are at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts lately, with the horrors in Haiti dominating the media worldwide. Giving money these days is not always easy, given that so many people have less and less to give. And when huge, all-encompassing tragedies like earthquakes strike, it is easy for people to forget about those in their midst who desperately need help and support. And as charity begins at home, Israeli musician Amiram Eini and his group Amiram Inc, are donating all the profits from their new single, I Guess I Must Be Wrong, to helping African refugees in Israel.

Says Eini:  “In 2007 a phenomenon previously not known to Israel happened. Refugees from African countries like Sudan and Eritrea walked across the Sinai desert, escaping from genocide, ethnic cleansing and famine in their home countries. They walked through the Egyptian deserts, where many were victims to abuse, torture, rape, starvation and they basically went through a living hell to get to Israel.
“Those who made it to Israel were not officially received as refugees, as Sudan is officially an enemy country to Israel, but were allowed to stay in a sort of a legal no man’s land. Sometimes incarcerated in prisons for care or left to fend for themselves without any legal status, work papers or medical insurance.

“A TV programme showed the lives of these refugees, living in abandoned bomb shelters in south Tel Aviv, sometimes 90 people in one room. In winter these shelters were flooded, and summer was unbearably hot. I was deeply moved by the plight of these people and wanted to do something. Being a musician, I decided that we would use the media attention we usually get when releasing a song  and focus it towards this subject.”

Eini managed to involve studios, photographers, celebrities (including Guy Pines and Amir Faye Guttman), and cell phone companies in order to record the song and film the video. All of those who collaborated on the project or who appeared in the music video did so  (and some are still doing) on a totally voluntary basis. Eini adds: “Our concept was to use well-known faces to replace the faceless people we don’t see in our day to day lives. The participants in the video (besides our band) are either refugees or celebrities.
All revenues from the song, downloads, sales or royalties will go to humanitarian organizations that help these refugees.

Amiram Eini

“One group we especially wanted to focus on were the pregnant women and their babies, and so we are donating the money to Brit Olam’s project “Hagar and Miriam”.

The single itself, I Guess I Must Be Wrong, is a guitar-driven melodic piece of poetry infused with celtic-inspired fiddle and Eini’s emotive, pleading voice. One of Israel’s most important rock bands, Amiram Inc are working on a new album (their debut, Little Defects, was released two years ago to critical acclaim) and hopefully I Guess I Must Be Wrong will be included on it. It would be a shame if only those in Israel have the chance to own a piece of this amazing piece of love and support.

To find out more about how to help African refugees in Israel go to: www.britolam.org or www.assaf.org.il

Amiram Inc are at www.amiraminc.com

To see the video on Youtube:  I Guess I Must Be Wrong

Popularity: 44% [?]

Klezmer. Everyone loves it. Everyone has a memory of klezmer being played somewhere, from Itzhak Perlman to the Budapest Klezmer Band, it’s the heart and soul of Yiddish music.

Well, get ready to hear klezmer that your zeide wouldn’t recognise. Yiddish music as done by The Pogues, or, as the Washington Post put it recently “Golem produces the sort of music you’d expect if the shtetl was filled with punks instead of peasants”.

Fronted by Annette Ezekiel Kogan – singer, accordionist, and 5-foot powerhouse, the six-piece European folk-punk band collects Jewish, Gypsy and Slavic folk songs, and rewrites, adds, edits, and rearranges them along the way. These are the songs to which Eastern European grandparents danced over a century ago, and now Golem has its unwrinkled fans moshing to the same pulsing beats.

Citizen Boris was released earlier this year to rave reviews and Golem’s cult following has grown, thanks to their energetic and frenetic stage performances. Stand out tracks include the Sholem Aleichem-infused Train Across Ukraine, Mirror Mirror, Zingarella and Balkan Espanol.

This is wild party music – if you weren’t planning on having one of those, you will once you listen to this. For more information on Golem go to http://www.golemrocks.com/index.php

Citizen Boris is available at  Amazon.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Seth Breitman is a poet who happens to play sweet guitar and sings like an angel. His album, Waking From The Dream, is a beautiful collection of gentle melodies with pointedly poignant lyrics.

Breitman describes his album as “music for the heart, the soul and the hips” – he sings of what it’s like to be down in the depths in ‘What’s Love’ – when the grief takes over and it gets colder and you feel like you have died, when your body keeps on living but the rest is suicide – to the awakening highs of ‘Song of Ascents’ and ‘Break Free’.

Kabbalah is a big part of Breitman’s life and his lyrics echo this profoundly – teacher talks about a parallel universe, he sings in ‘Break Free’, I’ve been waiting life times and life times for this… he’s not the only one.

Seth Breitman’s Waking From The Dream is available from his website, www.sethbreitman.com or from www.kabbalah.info

Popularity: 29% [?]