When you look around the Israeli music scene now, you can't help but notice the popularity of music

music infused with religious themes, religious language, religious sentiments.

And I'm talking about popular music, not music that is performed

in a synagogue for specifically religious purpose. See, back in March of 2020, I spoke with the

Israeli writer Yossi Klein-Halevi about the transformation of Israeli music. And we noticed in that

conversation that shifts in Israeli music mirror and illuminate wider shifts in Israeli society,

which, compared to the European pioneers and Ashkenazi political elite, that predominated Israel's

early statehood, that society is more at home now in its native Middle Eastern cultural context.

The music of Jewish Israelis relates as much to the music of Israel's Arab

neighbors as it does to the music of Europe and America. I want to offer an analogy from the

American musical tradition to explain how I see what's happening in Israel. In the American context,

the analogy that comes to mind is the relation of gospel music to soul music, an R&B. You couldn't understand

the great African-American soul singers of the 20th century, singers like Sam Cook, or Al Green,

or Edda James, without understanding the style of Christian devotional music that has performed

in so many African-American churches. In fact, it's a kind of application of the canons of gospel music to secular culture.

There's something similar at work in the popular music of Israel today,

except that perhaps Israeli music tends to retain even more religious language

than the gospel soul music analogy.

Now, I'll get back to Israel in a moment, but still in the American

context, the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who died in 1972. She was one of the most influential

vocalists of the 20th century. She represents the consummation of a particular kind of style,

an approach to singing that was forged in a creative, religious

...