Shoshana Jedwab is a concert performer, singer/songwriter, prayer and ritual leader, hand drummer, drum circle facilitator, and sacred text teacher.
life is born
Life Is Born is Shoshana Jedwab’s danceable version of the meditative, earth-based chant adapted by her beloved wife and collaborator, Rabbi Jill Hammer. Life Is Born celebrates the grand rhythms and four elements of the natural world with an infectious melody.
torah orah
Torah Orah is Shoshana Jedwab’s adaptation of Stephen C. Foster’s bluegrass classic Angeline the Baker (1850). This dance-ready, updated liturgy for the Torah Service celebrates an earth-based and social justice-oriented wisdom tradition.
openings
OPENINGS is a reimagined Asher Yatzar, Judaism’s traditional blessing over excretion (the Jewish “bathroom blessing”) in body-positive ways. In “Openings,” I expand the scope of wonder at the human form and allude to female bodies that are excluded from positive witness in the patriarchal liturgy. “Openings” directs praise to the Shechinah- the Immanent Divine Life-Force present in our intricate body functions. “Openings,” a joyous, dance-ready tune, celebrates a Creatrix who heals the human body and sustains its “chambers of wonder” that “open and close” with marvelous rhythmic complexity and coordination.
Where you go
WHERE YOU GO is a song for those insisting on compassion and inclusion in our society. This zipper-style folk song of radical compassion and love, based on the Book of Ruth, is being sung in churches of POC, marches, protests, weddings, synagogues and gatherings across the world.
I remember
Shoshana Jedwab steps away from her drum to sing “I Remember” — her deep and magical sacred compositions.
As a child, Shoshana Jedwab would drum on parked cars, plates, tables, books and other people's bodies. Hailing from a family of rabbis and community leaders decimated by the Holocaust, Shoshana became a prize winning Jewish Studies Day School teacher, and the Jewish Life Coordinator at the A.J. Heschel Middle School in NYC. Shoshana Jedwab holds down the beat as ritual drummer and worship leader for cutting edge communities, including Romemu, LabShul, Kohenet, Kirtan Rabbi and the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center.
In her debut album, Shoshana has stepped away from her drum to sing her original compositions, inspired by the ceremonies and communities at which she drums.
Born from Shoshana Jedwab's intuitive musical work in community and her immersion in sacred literature, these seven songs are reflections on ancient and medieval Hebrew poets, wise women, Hassidic masters, Sufi mystics, and contemporary teachers.
Shoshana Jedwab’s global sacred Jewish music has been described as “heart-opening, hip-shaking, breathtaking, spirit music. Shoshana Jedwab was included in Jewish Rock Radio’s playlist of Jewish Women Who Rock the Worship World!
Each song explores a unique landscape that taps simultaneously into the Hebrew and World soul. Co-produced in New York and northern Israel’s Galilee region, by Afro-ethnomusicologist Neva Wartell and Klezska founder and band-leader Glenn Tamir, with stellar contributions by Eyal Luman and Mark Ettinger. “I Remember” is Shoshana Jedwab’s first studio album.
“This spiritual piece by Shoshana Jedwab feels particularly relevant to me right now: Written for priestesses about the mother planet, friend, guide, reflecting self who holds us from birth throughout life. This song feels like a sonic womb, a place of comfort. But we’re not young anymore, and we realize we need to fight to protect our freedoms. The mother with her protective instincts with the memory of the child. Thanks Shoshana for this life transitional piece. #yourbodyisyourown #natureswisdom”