Good times at Oakland’s historic Temple B’nai Abraham this morning, singing tunes from All Around This World’s “Scattered Among The Nations” set of international Jewish songs — songs in languages like Ubzek, Luganda, Ge’ez (the ancient liturgical language of Ethiopia Jews), Shona, Ladino, and a couple in Hebrew and Yiddish for good measure.
Speaking of diversity in the Jewish world, Jay sang at Temple B’nai Abraham at the invitation of Bryan Schwartz, photographer and author of Scattered Among the Nations: Photographs and Stories of the World’s Most Isolated Jewish Communities, which inspired my set of multilingual Jewish songs. If you look closely at the image of the book jacket you’ll also see my name there in little print. I took the photos and wrote the text for the book’s chapters about the Abayudaya of Uganda and the Shona Jews of Zimbabwe.
