Welcome To The Ingathering
The Ingathering is a comprehensive look at Jewish music and spirituality
If you’re interested in learning about Jewish music and spirituality, you’ve come to the right place. The Ingathering is a comprehensive look at those topics, with a specific focus on four areas:
Interviews with Jewish and Israeli artists
Roundups of music you need to listen to
Historical features about important movements within Jewish music
Essays about the inherent spiritual nature of music as understood through the prism of Jewish teachings and tradition
What is Jewish music?
Defining Jewish music isn’t easy—and like most things, is something Jewish people argue about—but for the purpose of this series, I am defining it as two things:
The music of diaspora Jewry
Israeli music
And I am distinguishing between the two.
The music of diaspora Jewry is music that’s “Jewish” in some way. To me, that means it borrows, incorporates, blends, or pays homage to music associated with Jewish people or Jewish communities from around the world. That could be a punk take on klezmer, an EDM-style reinterpretation of traditional cantorial melodies, an Israeli disco revival band, a heavy metal re-imaging of Hasidic songs, or whatever. It isn’t an interview with, say, Bob Dylan, because he happens to be Jewish, or a story about newly religious rockers who like to sing about gratitude, God’s glory, or waking up early to pray.
Israeli music is music from Israel and Israeli artists. Duh. I am not concerned, at least for this series, with genre or any outward connection to Jewish culture or the Jewish religion.
If those classifications sound arbitrary, it’s because they are, and is something I will be exploring with the artists I interview in depth. But, at least for now, it’s an amorphous classification that makes sense to me. I am not a mainstream person—most Top 40, Broadway musicals, and singer/songwriters don’t do it for me—so don’t expect to find much of that here. The Ingathering is a place to discover incredible music you won’t hear about elsewhere. Consider it a peek into another world as opposed to an all-encompassing overview of everything music and Jewish.
How about spirituality?
The spiritual side of the Ingathering examines the relationship between music and spirituality as seen through the prism of Jewish teachings and tradition. It does not dabble in universalist feel-good fluff or new age platitudes. It is not about self-help, mindfulness, or the healing power of crystals. Those things aren’t bad per se, but they are not my focus. I will examine music as discussed in the Torah, Talmud, and mystical sources, as well as what I learn by way of discussions with rabbis, scholars, and others. My goal is to go deep, but to explain that depth in a language accessible to everyone (or at least, lay readers and non musicians).
Can I send you music?
Of course. If you’re an artist, publicist, or connoisseur of Jewish music, and you want to send me stuff, by all means please do. However, before you do, reread the paragraphs above and explore the music already featured, if your music is cheesy, obvious stuff—or not in the spirit of the other music here—I’m not going to like it. That’s not a value judgement. You’re great. But we may not have the same taste in music. Cool? Are we still friends?
Send music, questions, and comments here: jewishmusicandspirituality@gmail.com
What else do you need to know?
Everything you need to know about me is in my bio. Check it out. I am cool. Subscribing to the Ingathering will make you cool, too. The first issues goes live on Thursday, June 18, 2020. Make sure to sign up. Don’t miss out. Subscriptions are free (and you like free), although in the future, I will be adding a paid tier as well.
And yes, make sure to tell your friends, as well.