“God and the Grass Roots”- Getting to Know Silan, a New Musical Ensemble

Silan on stage in Jerusalem

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise… Psalm 49

I have met young Israeli musician and song writer Gal Amar a  number of times during the last two years. Most of these meetings were musical. That is because every year when I visit Israel, I stay in a town in a beautiful valley, hiding in plain sight on the edge of Jerusalem, which is to say,  the village of Ein Kerem, the place where John the Baptist was born.

There I have fallen in with an informal network of younger Israeli musicians and spiritual seekers who meet once a week for an informal “Mediterranean jam” of oud, saz, and the side blown near eastern flue, the nay, as well as guitar players and singers in Hebrew.

They are a gifted and talented bunch of young men and women between the ages of 25 and 50. To put it bluntly, they are my children’s age but for reasons musical, they accept me as an equal, for in addition to guitar I have played oud and saz on and off for decades.

Musicologists of Israeli music describe these younger musicians as participants in the stream of Mediterranean music (“musika yam tichonit” in Hebrew) that has gradually emerged in the Israeli soundscape during the last thirty years.

What is this new genre and why has it become popular? To better understand this growing stream of popular music one must engage in a brief social history of popular music in Israel.

It all began more than one hundred years ago when immigrants from Eastern Europe brought Russian melodies to Israel that were soon sung in Hebrew. These are the songs of the “pioneers,” sad, melodic, filled with longing and a bit on the dark Slavic side.

These same men and women, once the State of Israel was established in 1948 found themselves in charge of “culture” for the new state. And so they encouraged the public singing of this old music, and they created an eclectic, Balkan like “national folk dance” repertoire with beautiful mixtures of eastern and Western melodies.

When the native-born Sabras of Israel did their military service these same (now old) men and women created “army bands” which took the most talented of the nation’s youth and forced them into a genre which I can only call a combination of bad Russian music and pop songs that sounded more like overproduced Sousa marches than anything else.

Not surprisingly, these same young men and women reacted negatively to their army musical experience and having listened to the Beatles and many bands like them, created a lyrically touching, melodic and contemporary popular music that captured the souls of Israelis who fought in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973. Think of Arik Einshtein, Mati Caspi and Shalom Hanoch if you want a good sample of this genre. And then later Meir Ariel.

Then something changed.

The children of the more than one million Jews who had been expelled from Islamic lands after 1948 and soon after found a home in Israel, had never stopped listening to and singing the music of their former homelands.

Over time this repertoire of “makam” based music (a complex system of scales and modes-with “quarter tones”-that gives the character to most Near Eastern traditional, popular and folk music)  began to return to the clubs, concert halls, radio and TV stations of the land in myriad and marvelous ways-not exactly the music of their forebears but close. And the instrumentation changed.

Instead of trumpets and drums there was a return to the darbuka, the oud, the saz, the tar, the qanoon and the nay. There is now a formal conservatory of Eastern music in Jerusalem and an annual international oud festival, which highlights national talent and those musicians from the Middle East willing to come and perform here.

Gal Amar is one of these kinds of musicians and he and his musical friends are finding their  musical and spiritual path within this stream.

For those who follow Israeli popular music you can find samples of his work on Apple Music. His style often incorporates Jewish themes and liturgy  and includes pieces like Shir Nashir, Karati Vaya’aneni, Maoh Tzur and the Inner light.

Here are just a few links for those readers who are acoustically inclined:

Inner Light

Psalm for Thanksgiving

Karati Vaya’aneni (I Called and Answered)

Maoz Tzur

Shir Nashir (A Song to Sing)

When I played with Gal, whether the melody was Arabic, Turkish or Hebrew, or when I sang Dylan in English, he was always able to find the right instrument and manner of accompanying me in a supportive and noncompetitive way. And so, on this visit we decided to have coffee at a local café to better understand where Gal and his friends are coming from, and where they might go.

Gal Amar was born near Haifa in northern Israel forty years ago. His parents came from Morocco and his mother was born there. In Israel they decided to embrace the secular culture brought by the Ashkenazim and as Gal was musical, they made sure that he had full access to a piano and a good piano teacher for most of the years of his childhood-Yes Bach, Chopin, Mozart-the whole thing.

Gal tells me, “My parents were remarkably tolerant and generous during this period. I barely practiced but discovered that I had above average pattern recognition so a bit of practicing the day before a lesson got me through. I feel a bit guilty to this day that I did not take full advantage of this privilege but that is the nature of childhood. It is often clear in retrospect.”

And then of course when he became a teenager, he took up the electric and acoustic guitar. Rock, R and B and especially Heavy Metal, adopted by Israeli teenagers who rejected the introverted singer songwriter tradition of their parents. By this time, the Mediterranean stream was beginning to raise its head with performers like Shlomo Bar, Yair Dalal and younger ensembles like Sheva during the 1990s. Few of them got any serious official backing from the musical establishment as they were truly grass roots.

And so after national service, like many Israelis Gal’s age he went to India. “India was just one of many turning points that have occurred in my life. They are rarely dramatic or sudden. It may be my nature as I am not your stereotypical Israeli who must share all and every aspect of his life in public. No, being in India was a gradual awakening. It was more being away from Israel that gave me the time to choose a path, and I made that decision in India.”

There he had vowed to explore Judaism and so he went to Yeshiva in Jerusalem with an extraordinary Rabbi who encouraged him to take up the oud, which he did and studied at the conservatory. He also went to an alternative institute of music which focused on the musical interface between Yiddish song and jazz.

Then he met what he considers to be his final mentor, a nay player who is an expert but never wanted to be known. He is still around, somewhere. All of this was conducted during bouts of shepherding in and around the forested hills of Jerusalem.

Gal tells me, “When you are a shepherd you have time. This was just before the incessant bother of smart phones which unless you turn them off for a while, catch you everywhere and rob you of your privacy. So slowly I had another quiet turning point. I became a song writer. I am not obsessively attached to every piece I compose. If they stay in my memory they were designed to be remembered. If not, I am content.”

He added, “It may have something to do with becoming religious. I now consider myself an observant Jew. I am Kosher, Shomer Shabbat, follow all the festivals and see my musical and spiritual path as overlapping. I do not wear a Yarmulka in public as my Judaism is apolitical and I refuse to be labelled.”

From my less than sufficient understanding of this complex musical figure I conclude there are four musical Gals. The first is the spiritually inspired musician and accompanist who blends in and supports others in semi formal jam sessions. Then there is a more robust electronic based singer who has explored the writings of Rabbi Nachmun of Bratslav. Then there is the quieter, acoustic Gal, singing his songs and recording them with friends. And finally there is an avant garde “fusion” Gal, who plays instrumentals from within this Yam Tichon style.

A few weeks ago I managed to get a full evening of this “fourth Gal.” The venue was as interesting as the performance. When I showed up one late Thursday evening, I found myself in a spacious club, restaurant meeting place in the heart of Jerusalem whose goal is to gently facilitate the transition of super Haredi Jews to a more traditional Orthodoxy or even to a secular existence. As I munched on a wonderful cholent I engaged in conversation with some of these young people in my ever so polite Canadian style. Many of them said that being Haredi did not work for them as adults and so they left. One of their senior project coordinators, a woman named Tehilah told me,

“ I left the Haredi world about six years ago when I was twenty. I was born and raised in Haifa to a Haredi family of Moroccan descent. You must understand that being Haredi is living in a closed system. You have your family, your neighbours, your community and your schools, all of which overlap. Life is structured by prayer, ritual and separation from the secular or wider world. I was a great reader, for example, and read all the Haredi novels and short stories that were available to me.

And then there is the secular curriculum, especially physics and biology, which are downplayed. After high school when I studied Laboratory Science, even the Darwinistic aspect of the evolution of germs was downplayed.

And of course there were gender differences. Even among the Haredi or, even more so, the boys had a wider experience. For example, my brother went on camping trips, but Haredi girls like me did not.

And so part of the reason I broke with my Haredi background without breaking with Jewish belief and ritual was because of my reading. By the time I was twenty I started reading psychology and history, not works by orthodox writers, but books like those of Professor Noah Yuval Harari from Tel Aviv University.

And the more history I read ,the more I realized that the historical narratives that I was given as a young girl and that mainly concerned the Jewish people, were part of much wider narratives of a world that was and is not Jewish, but that interacts with the Jewish people.

You will laugh, but one of my first real jobs was in sales at a supermarket. Now, most women who work at a cashier or show people merchandise feel hard done by, but for me it was a liberation. I got to meet so many different ,people from all walks of life. For me working at a supermarket was fantastic!

As for the future, of all the secular subjects I have begun to read about, history intrigues me the most. I will probably do a history degree. Right now I am happy organizing seminars here as the varied content also widens my horizons.”

As Tehila explained to me many of the people who come to the club are still observant and this club is their social node, where they can get to know others like themselves and share stories. I was touched, as they all seem lively and successful young Israelis.

And so the music began. This band is called Silan. They sat in an inverted semi-circle with Gal at the center. It was clear from the way the other musicians looked at him that he was the “front man,” but he behaved with such modesty and sincerity that it was a musical and not a social role.

These people were equal on stage and behaved like family. Three other gifted musicians accompanied Gal. The repertoire consisted of Turkish, Balkan, Greek and Israeli style melodies punctuated by beautiful modal improvisations.

I recognized some, but not all the melodies by name and indeed have played some of them with various ensembles over the decades. But these young people are doing it their way, and I was delighted by the differences in interpretation. Simply put, I enjoyed myself.

Moriya Menahem (the saz player) later gave me a lift back to Ein Kerem at one in the morning. Some of the other musicians had continued to socialize afterwards, but I had to get some sleep!

It would be wrong to stop this article here as Gal had told me something about the other musicians who performed with him that night.

Avichai Briga, or “Briga” as he is known to his close friends and musical colleagues, is a man just under forty years old. He is the percussionist for Silan. During the evening that I heard him play ,he kept the rhythms solidly, seemed perfectly comfortable on stage and to my ear, never lost the beat or made an error.

He comes from what Israelis call the “villages,” the krayot, a string of villages and towns on the Mediterranean coast just north of Haifa. It is a mixed ethnic area, Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Moroccans, Ethiopians, and various pockets of ultra-religious families. It is a normal part of Israel with its schools, community centers, mini shopping malls and playgrounds.

Tourists do not go there unless they are intensely interested in the daily life of average Israelis. People from that part of the country are known for their good natures and serious work ethic. Briga was raised in one of those religious pockets but is no longer strictly observant. To what degree he follows Jewish tradition is a tad outside of the scope of this article.

What I found out is that he is not just a percussionist. He has studied and plays various Persian lutes, the tar, the setar and the Arabo Turkish lute (oud). I look forward to hearing his “Persian” side as he has studied with some of Israel’s better experts at the Centre for Near Eastern Music which used to be based in Musrara but has moved to a new location. Check out their web site. It is an oriental feast of sound:

• The Center for Middle Eastern Music

Danny Strauss, the bass player, is older than the other musicians, in his mid-fifties with adult children. He wears a kippah. Gal met him some years back when Danny invited him to join a band that played rock and roll in English, with an Irishman resident in Israel named Jerry. Eventually that band dissipated.

And then, one day, the long-term bassist of Silan just got up and left the band. Gal was quiet for a moment and explained that he had given no reason for his departure, but that in retrospect it may have been something that Gal said.

He told me, “ There are times when I look back at something I said, and I realize that I have a cutting side. It is most likely that I may have said something about his playing on a song and he took it personally. I must watch that side of me as it sometimes comes out of nowhere. I do not mean it maliciously and so I called up Danny and he joined us at short notice.”

Danny is not a starving artist. He is a well-established businessperson in Jerusalem and is involved with one of those Israeli startups. One never knows whether they will take off and make everyone involved in them millionaires. He is quite an entrepreneur but at the same particularly good natured and profoundly serious about music. He has played with many other bands and is also a trumpet player.

He is a unique mix of Bokhari (Central Asian) and Ashkenazi and grew up in an English-speaking household. As a musician, he is open to suggestions and comfortable making his own.

Moriya Menahem is an ER nurse at Sharei Tsedek hospital. Her friends call her Mori. She is from a Syrian Yemenite background. Gal has known her for many years as they both live in Ein Kerem.

Nursing is her calling, but over time music has become her avocation. As she studied Saz, Gal kept on nagging her to do something in public with it. So, she convened a small ensemble with another saz player and a percussion player. They would perform here and there but Gal felt that she was still a bit shy as a performer.

And so Gal would often invite her to join him for small gigs and of course they would play together informal gatherings. Gal feels that her shyness has evolved into a confident and quiet nobility in the way she carries herself and plays. He not only respects her musicality but admires her style.

Gal told me, “Not everyone in this ensemble, including myself is a virtuoso, but the whole feels greater than the sum of the parts. I cannot quite explain it, but the magic is bigger than all of us. At the same time, we do not want to overanalyze what we are doing because it feels right.

Many people are quite surprised that we have only been an ensemble for six months, as they tell us that we give them the vibe that we have played together for years. You must respect that and go with the flow. Something is happening. That is all I can say for now.”

During our discussions Gal and I were searching for the right word in English and Hebrew that distills the essence of this ensemble today. Yes, it is within the near eastern, Mediterranean, South Asian stream of the Mediterranean style but it is an open musical experiment.

We agreed on the English word, “emergent.” As we finished our coffee I told Gal, “I am curious and look forward to where your band is going to go. I suspect it is a good place.”

I hope that Gal and his friends in Silan continue their musical and spiritual journey. I also hope that the “Israeli musical establishment” will wake up and soon recognize that there is nothing more beautiful than music that comes from, “God and the grass roots."