. . . But I Digress

What happens when you have not one, not two, but three of the most popular women in Jewish liturgical music all performing together? Add Deborah Sacks Mintz, Chava Mirel, and Elana Arian, and you get the trio New Moon Rising. Here, they're singing Mintz's "Dodi Li," based on the Song of Songs, featuring the luscious harmony of three exceptionally talented women singers. Kol Isha for the win!

Hamlet Zhou z"l, was a guitarist who became both a founder and the hazzan of the Lemba synagogue in Harare. Although he died very young, of kidney failure, he composed quite a bit of music for the Harare synagogue, using Lemba and other Zimbabwean melodies as the bases for his tunes. This is his Oseh Shalom. "May the One who makes peace in the heavens make peace for us and for all Israel."

And then, in 2021, she came out in song, this song, revealing that her partner was the singer-songwriter Tamar Yahalomi. This song, "A Love Like Ours," was written by Yahalomi and Yahalomi's songwriting partner Yonatan Kalimi. Hadad had a daughter in 2017, and then she and Yahalomi had two more daughters together in 2020 and 2022. They did separate in 2025, but the song remains, celebrating the intensity of love, the way that it can awaken someone's soul and lead people to desire "eternity without fear."

My friend Cantor Matt Austerklein has written an utterly fantastic article about the sources of Ye Olde Conservative Jewish Synagogue Soundscape. Go read it!

Orly Solomon is an Israeli-French singer. She was born in Israel, raised in France, and eventually returned to Israel via Cuba. Along the way, she became a TV host (at age eight!), an actress, and a singer. Here, she and her daughter Lévanah perform "Shema Israel" by Israeli singer Sarit Hadad. It's a song about placing one's faith in the Divine, and holding out through difficult periods of life, always hoping that the Divine will pull you through. I believe this song was originally written in Hebrew, but Solomon translated it into French, which you'll hear for the first half of the song. You can follow along by turning on the video captions.

"Turn us to you, Divine, and we shall return. Renew our days as of old." With these words, we return the Torah scroll to the Ark after reading it. This is often seen as a somewhat bittersweet moment, bidding farewell to a dear friend after not enough time together. But Chana Rothman emphasizes the inherent joy of the text. In that text, we're looking forward to something -- being reunited with the Divine, getting to enjoy more time in this world. Rothman presents this text to children with excitement and happiness. Even when we're saying goodbye to the Torah, it won't be forever. We'll see the Torah again very soon, and we can start looking forward to that right away!

This is perhaps a more generalized expression of love than the previous two songs, but love is, after all, love. Susan Lipson composed this song with the idea that it could be sung for Hakafah, the procession of the Torah scroll through the congregation before and after it's read. As the Torah passes among us, Lipson prays that we might all be united in love -- for each other as well as for the Torah.