Mizmor, Located In Israel, Is A Music School For Religious Musicians

Itzik Weiss talks about the innovative school, and shares his thoughts about Israel’s musical melting pot

Like most things with musicians, the idea for Mizmor—a music school for religious students based in Givat Washington, just outside the Israeli coastal city of Ashdod—first came up on a gig. Itzik Weiss, a drummer, was discussing the Rimon School of Music—one of Israel’s premier music schools—with a bandmate, when his friend said, “Why isn’t there a Rimon for religious students?”

Why not?

“We saw that there were a lot of needs in the religious community,” Weiss says. “There are a lot of musicians, but most of them don’t want to go to other schools because there are religious issues in those places.” Those issues include things like performances and classes on the Sabbath and holidays, modest dress, and singing in co-ed situations. “We wanted to create an environment that allows our students to learn music at a professional level, but without sacrificing any of their religious beliefs.”

Weiss contacted his father, Aviezer Weiss, who was then the president of the Givat Washington Academic College of Education. His father set up a meeting with the school’s board of directors, where the younger Weiss was able to pitch his idea. “They liked the idea,” he says, “and we started working on the school.” 

Weiss launched Mizmor in 2010. He partnered with saxophonist, Daniel Zamir, who served as the school’s first academic head. Their goal was to raise the bar, and to get the creative juices flowing within the observant community. 

“The religious community has a lot to say, but they don’t know how to say it,” Weiss says. “We give them the tools to do it properly, and to do it at a high level, and not at a kumzits level [a kumzits is an informal musical gathering].”

According to Weiss, the school is not only achieving its goals, but is making a cultural impact as well. “Since we started the school, a lot of high schools have started music programs,” he says. “Mizmor raised the flag—or carried the banner—of excellence in music. Before, the Jewish mother asked, ‘What are you going to do with music? Are you going to play at weddings? Where is the money going to come from?’ But today, a lot of people now understand that music has a very big power of influence. It’s a shlichut [a mission]. It’s a very big shlichut to be a musician, or to be a singer-songwriter. You’re able to express deep ideas with music, and pass them on. And people will listen to your ideas much more than they will listen to a lecture, for example.”

In addition to Zamir—who still leads an ensemble, but has otherwise taken on a less active role in the school’s day-to-day—Weiss’ team is working musicians, from all walks of life. His only criteria is that they’re gigging, and not coming from academia. 

“They’re not professors or doctors,” he says. “They are musicians. Active musicians. The academic degree doesn’t matter. I need them to know how to make music and how to teach it. All the teachers, without exception, are active musicians. They’re doing concerts, shows, recording, composing, arranging.” Although that means his teachers sometimes miss classes because of other commitments. “That’s the price. But the students know it, and are thankful for that.”

Based on Mizmor’s success, Weiss is now opening a second campus in Jerusalem, which will cater to the Haredi community. The school will adhere to a stricter level of observance, with completely separate classes for men and women. But that does create additional financial challenges as well.

“It is much harder to fund, because everything costs double,” he says. “Everything will be separated, men and women. On the Givat Washington campus, most of the classes are not separate—only the classes that have female vocals, the choir, and that stuff, have two separate classes—but the environment, and a lot of the classes, are not separated. But at the Jerusalem branch, we’re planning on doing everything separately. That is very challenging, but we are up to it.” 

The school’s focus is contemporary music, and given Israel’s evolving culture—and the increasing popularity of music from Sephardi diaspora communities—offers the students opportunities to study Mizrahi, Andalusian, and other Eastern musics, as well as to experiment with traditional and modern fusions. Those fusions extend to interplay between the secular and religious communities as well. 

“It’s a time of discovery,” Weiss says. “People are very curious and are discovering music they didn’t grow up with. It goes both ways: from secular to religious music, religious to secular, west to east and east to west, all of that. It is like a kibbutz galiot [ingathering of the exiles, קיבוץ גליות] is starting now. It’s like the tree is getting new roots. We took music from different places, put it in the ground, and now they are starting to come together. Each culture is sending its roots into other cultures. I think that ultimately, it will become a new music, which is a new Israeli Jewish music. It’s like that with Daniel Zamir’s music, which is a fusion of Jewish music and jazz. That’s also true with Avishai Cohen’s music, and Naor Carmi, and Kula Baraka. Those are all a consequence from that mixture that comes from the kibbutz galiot.” 

Religious singers, like Ishay Ribo, are celebrities in modern Israel, and EDM (electronic dance music) is popular in Haredi circles. “I think it is curiosity from both sides making it happen,” Weiss says. “Twenty years ago, each side kept its distance from any form of music that was foreign to it. But we started looking at each other and hearing other stuff, and the curiosity makes us say, ‘That’s nice, that’s interesting, let’s combine them together.’ And the whole Israeli community is about that. It’s like a fusion, or a melting pot [כור היתוך]. There’s a new song that just came out with Avraham Fried and Aviv Geffen. That’s something that you never would have dreamed about 15 years ago. It was impossible for them to communicate with each other. There was no base.”

Some of those Israeli crossover artists have passed through Mizmor, too, and include artists like Akiva Turgeman, Hanan Ben Ari, and Kula Baraka. But with the current pandemic, and ever-looming shutdowns, keeping a school open—not to mention maintaining a career as a performing musician—is challenging, which is why Weiss, in his down time, is setting political speeches to music. 

“That’s my hobby,” he says. “I took it to another place, and harmonized with the actual speeches. So even with corona and the lockdown, I have stuff to do.”