Jewish Country Music — Part 2 (Podcast and Playlist)

I published a playlist of Jewish country music back in September and went mini-viral on Jewish Twitter. With Hanukkah coming up on November 28th, I wanted to update the playlist with seasonally appropriate tunes. You can find the full updated Spotify playlist below. Today’s podcast is a blend of the first and second playlists.

You can read more about my journey with Judaism on Adobe & Teardrops, but the short version is that after 9/11, I was alienated by the predominant discourse I saw, in which rabbis conflated the attacks on New York City with the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Combine that with being a little queer kid and no signs of visible support for LGBTQ+ people — at least in the congregations I was going to on the Bar and Bat Mitzvah circuit — and Judaism and I grew apart.

Fortunately, I’ve started to find more connections to it, and country music has been an important starting point. We’ll kick this episode off with a set of Hanukkah songs, starting with Sarah Aroeste’s “Las Kandelikas de la Fiesta” off Hanukah! The first Ladino album of Hanukkah songs. 

  1. Sarah Aroeste — “Las Kandelikas de la Fiesta” (Hanuka!)
    1. Festive, light, grandiose; a proud keeper of the flame (so to speak) for a tradition often marginalized in the US
  2. Nefesh Mountain — “Hanukkah’s Flame” (Live From Levon Helm Studios) 
  3. Debbie Friedman — “Not By Might — Not By Power” (Celebrate Hanukkah)

In the middle there was Nefesh Mountain with a recording of “Hanukkah’s Flame” off their new live album. The song was written by Woody Guthrie, but Nefesh Mountain is the first to set the lyrics to music. Speaking of folk legends, we closed the set out with Debbie Friedman’s classic “Not By Might — By Power.” I think it’s an interesting take on the importance of Hanukkah that I hadn’t considered: while the holiday itself is kind of problematic (the Maccabees were conservative religious extremists), we can still take away a message of strength in unity, and celebrating the underdogs.

So that leads us to the Jewish identity crisis portion of the episode. Karen and the Sorrows’ “The Price of the Ticket” really does so much to formulate my own feelings about whiteness and assimilation. A question I am asking myself is: how can I claim my heritage, especially since so many of my great-grandparents went to great trouble to be assimilated in Russia? It’s not even a heritage they really wanted! Well, Karen takes a stab at that.

  1. Karen and the Sorrows — “The Price of the Ticket” (The Narrow the Place)
  2. Ben Fisher — “The Heavy Gates of Gaza” (Does the Land Remember Me?)
  3. Dana Sipos — “Hoodoo” (The Astral Plane)

Ben Fisher’s album Does the Land Remember Me? Is a sprawling album about his experience as an American Jew living in Israel and bearing witness to the Israeli-Palestine conflict — and questioning his place in it. We ended the set with Dana Sipos’ meditations on intergenerational trauma and silence from her incredible album The Astral Plane. The song is called “Hoodoo.”

Well! Before we head out with our last set, I want to say thank you so much to The Lost Church Radio for having us on their internet waves. You can catch Adobe & Teardrops on the 1st Sunday of every month at 1 PM Eastern/10 AM PST, and the third Thursday of the month at 9 EST/6 PM PST. And, of course, you can listen to these shows any time by subscribing to the podcast feed through your favorite app.

You can support Adobe & Teardrops by buying merch or hitting the ol’ Patreon or Ko-fi links! Please tell your friends to like and subscribe to this podcast. Thanks to Alma Contra for making the introduction.

If you want to hear more Jewish country music, this episode only just scratched the surface, so go to AdobeandTeardrops.com to check out the full Spotify playlist and liner notes.

So let’s end on the most surprising — to me — find in my journey through Jewish country music. There is a lot of country-inspired devotional music. We’ll start with Rabbi Sandra Lawson’s “Kaddish in Memory of Black Lives,” then end on some uplifting notes with Debroh Stokol’s interpretation of “Avinu Malkeinu.” And then we’ll end on the most country of the set: Jeremiah Lockwood’s “Ribono Shel Olam” from his album Kol Nidre.

Happy holidays, everybody! Our next two episodes will celebrate 10 years of Adobe & Teardrops!

  1. Rabbi Sandra Lawson — “Kaddish in Memory of Black Lives” (Single)
  2. Deborah Stokol — “Avinu Malkeinu” (The Ill-Tempered Clavier)
  3. Jeremiah Lockwood — “Ribono Shel Olam” (Kol Nidre)

If you want to hear even MORE Jewish country music without my commentary, here’s the full updated playlist of Jewish country music. This list has some more devotional music, like Jeremiah Lockwood and Joey Weisenberg. It also features trans Jewish bands Low Tide and Schmekel (whose song is quite NSFW).

  • Sarah Aroeste — “Las Kandelikas de la Fiesta” (Hanuka!)
  • Nefesh Mountain — “Hanukkah’s Flame” (Live From Levon Helm Studios)
  • Deborah Stokol — “Aveinu Malkeinu” (The Ill-Tempered Clavier)
  • Nathan Salsburg — “O’ You Who Sleep + Psalm 96” (Psalms)
  • Low Tide — “Whisper” (The Alchemist)
  • Debbie Friedman — “Not By Might — By Power” (Celebrate Hanukkah)
  • Joey Weisenberg — “Shir Hamalot” (Nigunim Vol. 7: Songs of Ascent)
  • Jeremiah Lockwood — “Ribono Shel Olam” (Kol Nidre)
  • Schmekel — “Hold My Yod” (The Whale That Ate Noah)
  • Daniel Kahn — “Der General-streyke” (word beggar)

I think that following me on Spotify is a thing you can do to make sure you get a new playlist from me every Friday! You can also follow Tuesday Teardrops, a playlist of new and exciting songs that refreshes every — you guessed it — Tuesday! As always, buy music and/or merch directly from the artists because Spotify is a horrible and exploitative platform!