Sing unto God a new song

Bringing music of the world to Sherith Israel

Religious School song leader Lior Ben-Hur brings a range of musical influences to Sherith Israel. He considers himself a secular Israeli with a spiritual bent. It all comes out in his music. He sees Sherith Israel’s Family Shabbat as a way for the entire community to come together with a spiritual connection to the music.

“What Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller and I are trying to achieve is to bring in music that’s more universal, more interactive and more appealing to younger kids—music they have experienced in Religious School and the music they listen to on their own.” Instrumentally, Lior and his band, Sol Tevel, lean toward world music. “We are using less specifically Israeli music and less Jewish-American folk and more influences from around the Jewish world.”

Lior has been writing songs based on Jewish texts for several years, inspired by his experience as a foreigner in this Jewish-American world. “We need to bridge to what kids are listening to—rap, hip-hop and reggae—and in the kids’ experience, bridge between their secular worlds and their Jewish world,” he says. “Music is such a powerful tool.”