Shlomo Ari Gaisin | |
|---|---|
 Gaisin (left) performing with Zusha in 2019. | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Silver Spring, Maryland |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Member of | Zusha |
| Formerly of | JudaBlue |
Shlomo Ari Gaisin is an American singer and songwriter. He is best known as the lead singer for the Jewish rock band JudaBlue and the Hasidic folk group Zusha.
Gaisin grew up in Kemp Mill, Maryland, the youngest of seven children. [1] [2] His parents, who both became baalei teshuva before he was born, [3] were founding members of the Kemp Mill Synagogue, a local Modern Orthodox shul. [4] They also played instruments at home and exposed him to classical music early on. [1] [5] He studied jazz for seven years as a child. [6]
Gaisin attended Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy through high school, graduating in 2009. [1] After spending a year in Jerusalem at Yeshivat Netiv Aryeh, he attended Yeshiva University, though he later left to study nutrition. [6] [7] [8] As a student, he experienced difficulty reading and writing and often required extra time on tests. [9]
While in seventh grade at Berman, Gaisin met classmate Yaniv Hoffman, a fellow music enthusiast, and began playing with him. They formed JudaBlue in 2004, although they didn't begin rehearsing regularly until 2007.
The band released its debut EP, Forty Days, on January 19, 2010, shortly before going on hiatus to allow Gaisin and Hoffman to study in Israel. When they returned, the band released three more songs, "Falling", "Change", and "Oneness", before Hoffman returned to Israel in 2011 to serve in the IDF.
Gaisin moved to Washington Heights in Manhattan, where he met fellow musicians Elisha Mlotek and Zachariah Goldschmiedt through a mutual friend. The three began playing together and formed Zusha in 2013. Their self-titled debut EP, released on November 28, 2014, reached No. 9 on Billboard 's World Albums chart.
Outside of music, Gaisin is a certified mashgiach and provided kosher supervision to a Chinese restaurant in Washington Heights. [10] He has led prayer services at Beth Hamedrash Hagodol [7] and Chevra Ahavas Yisroel. [9] He contributes essays and original music to the Jewish media website Hevria. [11]
Gaisin was engaged to Chanalee Elhyani in September 2019, [2] and the couple married in January 2020. [3] When announcing the birth of his second daughter in November 2022 via Zusha's Instagram, it was remarked that Gaisin now had "almost as many kids as albums". [10] Gaisin's father passed away in 2019, and his death influenced the Zusha album When the Sea Splits. [11]
Gaisin has been a follower of Hasidism since high school [6] and appeared on the Winter 2014 cover of Jewish Action promoting an article about neo-Hasidism. [12] He has expressed a broad admiration for all strains of Hasidism, stating that "there exists in each one a complete form of the holy Baal Shem Tov." [8]
Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch, is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic groups and Jewish religious organizations in the world. Unlike most Haredi groups, which are self-segregating, Chabad operates mainly in the wider world and caters to secularized Jews.
Dov Ber ben Avraham of Mezeritch, also known as the Maggid of Mezeritch, was a disciple of Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the founder of Hasidic Judaism, and was chosen as his successor to lead the early movement. Dov Ber is regarded as the first systematic exponent of the mystical philosophy underlying the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, and through his teaching and leadership, the main architect of the movement. He established his base in Mezhirichi, which moved the centre of Hasidism from Medzhybizh, where he focused his attention on raising a close circle of disciples to spread the movement. After his death the third generation of leadership took their different interpretations and disseminated across appointed regions of Eastern Europe, rapidly spreading Hasidism beyond Ukraine, to Poland, Galicia and Russia.
Ger is a Polish Hasidic dynasty originating from the town of Góra Kalwaria, Poland, where it was founded by Yitzchak Meir Alter (1798–1866), known as the "Chiddushei HaRim". Ger is a branch of Peshischa Hasidism, as Yitzchak Meir Alter was a leading disciple of Simcha Bunim of Peshischa (1765–1827). Before the Holocaust, followers of Ger were estimated to number in excess of 100,000, making it the largest and most influential Hasidic group in Poland. Today, the movement is based in Jerusalem, and its membership is estimated at 11,859 families, as of 2016, most of whom live in Israel, making Ger the largest Hasidic dynasty in Israel. However, there are also well-established Ger communities in the United States and in Europe. In 2019, some 300 families of followers led by Shaul Alter, split off from the dynasty led by his cousin Yaakov Aryeh Alter.
Neo-Hasidism, Neochassidut, or Neo-Chassidus, is an approach to Judaism in which people learn beliefs and practices of Hasidic Judaism, and incorporate it into their own lives or prayer communities, yet without formally joining a Hasidic group. Over the last century neo-Hasidism was popularized by the works of writers such as Hillel Zeitlin, Martin Buber, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Lawrence Kushner, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and Arthur Green.
Bobov is a Hasidic community within Haredi Judaism, originating in Bobowa, Galicia, in southern Poland, and now headquartered in the neighborhood of Borough Park, in Brooklyn, New York.
Shlomo Carlebach, known as Reb Shlomo to his followers, was a rabbi, religious teacher, spiritual leader, composer, and singer dubbed "the singing rabbi" during his lifetime.
For the purposes of this article, “contemporary” refers to the period from 1967 to the present day, “Jewish” refers to the various streams and traits of Judaism practiced. Many Orthodox Jews use the term “religious” to refer to a strict adherence to Jewish law. For the purposes of this article, “religious” refers to the content and context of the music itself: liturgical or implicit references to the divine.
Orthodox Jewish outreach, often referred to as Kiruv or Qiruv, is the collective work or movement of Orthodox Judaism that reaches out to non-observant Jews to encourage belief in God and life according to Orthodox Jewish law. The process of a Jew becoming more observant of Orthodox Judaism is called teshuva making the "returnee" a baal teshuva. Orthodox Jewish outreach has worked to enhance the rise of the baal teshuva movement.
The Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy, referred to locally as Berman or The Hebrew Academy, is a coed Modern Orthodox Jewish day school serving the greater Washington area. It is in Aspen Hill, Maryland, with a Rockville postal address.
Elke Reva Sudin is a Jewish-American painter, illustrator and lecturer. In 2010, her Hipsters and Hassids painting series premiered in New York City, comparing and contrasting her Hasidic Jewish origins and hipster Brooklyn cultures. She founded NY Drawing Booth in 2014, and is also a founder of Jewish Art Now.
Mordechai Shlomo Friedman, sometimes called Solomon Mordecai Friedman, was the Boyaner Rebbe of New York for over 40 years. In 1927 he left Europe to become one of the first Hasidic Rebbes in America, establishing his court on the Lower East Side of New York City and attracting many American Jewish youth with his charismatic and warm personality. He also played a role in American Jewish leadership with positions on Agudath Israel of America, the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, and Holocaust rescue organizations. In 1957 he built the flagship Ruzhiner yeshiva, Tiferet Yisroel, at the top of Malkhei Yisrael Street in Jerusalem.
Radomsk is a Hasidic dynasty named after the town of Radomsko in Łódź province, south-central Poland. The dynasty was founded in 1843 by Rabbi Shlomo Hakohen Rabinowicz, one of the great Hasidic masters of 19th-century Poland. His son, grandson and great-grandson led the dynasty in turn, attracting thousands of followers. On the eve of World War II, Radomsk was the third largest Hasidic dynasty in Poland, after Ger and Alexander.
Koidanov is a Hasidic dynasty originating from the city of Dzyarzhynsk (Koidanov), Belarus, where it was founded by Rabbi Shlomo Chaim Perlow in 1833. Koidanov is a branch of both Lechovitch Hasidism and Karlin-Stolin Hasidism as Rabbi Shlomo Chaim Perlow was the paternal grandson of Rabbi Mordechai of Lechovitch and the maternal grandson of Rabbi Asher Perlow of Karlin-Stolin. Koidanov was the smallest of the three Lithuanian Hasidic dynasties, with most of its Hasidim being murdered in the Holocaust. The dynasty was re-established after the war in Tel Aviv, then moved to Bnei Brak, where the majority of the dynasty is located, but there are Chassidim located around the world.
Chabad hipsters are the cross-acculturated members of the Chabad Hasidic community and contemporary hipster subculture. Beginning from the late 2000s through the 2010s, a minor trend of cross acculturation of Chabad Hasidism and hipster subculture appeared within the New York Jewish community. The first printed reference to this trend was the 2007 New York Press cover story, "Hipster Hassids" by Alyssa Pinsker. Later, according to The Jewish Daily Forward, a significant number of members of the Chabad Hasidic community, mostly residing in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, appear to now have adopted various cultural affinities of the local hipster subculture.
JudaBlue was an American Jewish rock band from Silver Spring, Maryland. Formed in 2004 by lead singer Shlomo Gaisin and guitarist Yaniv Hoffman, the band released an EP, Forty Days, in 2010.
Zusha is an American Hasidic folk/soul band from Manhattan, New York. They formed in 2013 with lead singer Shlomo Gaisin and guitarist Zachariah Goldschmiedt. The band, named after Zusha of Hanipol, combines traditional Hasidic niggunim with secular styles like jazz, folk, and reggae. Their self-titled debut EP, released on October 28, 2014, reached No. 9 on Billboard's World Albums chart, while their debut full-length album, Kavana (2016), reached No. 2.
Jewish rock is a form of contemporary Jewish religious music that is influenced by various forms of secular rock music. Pioneered by contemporary folk artists like Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and the Diaspora Yeshiva Band, the genre gained popularity in the 1990s and 2000s with bands like Soulfarm, Blue Fringe, and Moshav Band that appealed to teens and college students, while artists like Matisyahu enjoyed mainstream crossover success.
Orthodox pop, sometimes called Hasidic pop, Hasidic rock, K-pop, Haredi pop, and Ortho-pop, is a form of contemporary Jewish religious music popular among Orthodox Jews. It typically draws stylistically from contemporary genres like pop, rock, jazz, and dance music, while incorporating text from Jewish prayer, Torah, and Talmud as well as traditional Jewish songs and occasional original English lyrics with themes of faith and positivity. The genre was pioneered in the 1970s by artists like Mordechai Ben David and the Miami Boys Choir, who incorporated secular pop and dance influences into their music in contrast to the more traditional Jewish music of the time, and has had continued success in the modern era with singers like Yaakov Shwekey, Lipa Schmeltzer, Baruch Levine, and Benny Friedman.
Shneur Hasofer is a Hasidic musician known as DeScribe. Hasofer's musical style has been characterized as "Hasidic hip-hop," "Hasidic rap" and "Hasidic R&B".
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