I was listening to my favorite radio show of Yinon Magal and Ben Caspit during work when the hosts interviewed a reserve soldier about his business, as they often do to help and support our dear soldiers by helping them promote their businesses through the popular show. At the beginning of the interview, they mentioned the soldier’s brother, a musician. A musician? Let’s check out who this guy is, I thought. Maybe he’s worth writing a column about.
It turns out he is a really talented and interesting musician. While Yehuda Leuchter has popular songs in various genres of Jewish music, his specialty is Jewish reggae. OK, I decided, I really need to talk to him. I used to listen to Bob Marley when I was in high school, and Jewish reggae sounds interesting.
When we had a chance to speak, I found out that Yehuda Leuchter’s story is really unique – and more than just about Jewish reggae.
Yehuda’s father was from the 1960s generation – the “flower children.” He grew up in Kansas City. After the Six-Day War, he arrived in Israel as a volunteer on Kibbutz Masu’ot Itzhak, where he met Yehuda’s mother. He went back to America, but after 1973 he returned to Israel, and in 1975 they married and settled in Gush Etzion.
Yehuda’s family has a deep connection to Gush Etzion. His grandmother, Rachel Doron, z”l, was one of the fighters in the battle for Gush Etzion during the War of Independence. She was the signaler for Kibbutz Masu’ot Itzhak who made the historical announcement over the radio: “Malka nafla” (the Queen has fallen), which marked the fall of Gush Etzion to the enemy during the war. Later on, in the Six-Day War, Israel freed Gush Etzion from the enemy and returned it to Israeli sovereignty.
Yehuda’s father was a musician, one of the pioneers of the Hasidic Underground (also known as Alternative Hasidic) genre in Israel. He used to walk in Meah She’arim with a shtreimel and a ponytail and play music. He was affiliated with the Diaspora Yeshiva in Jerusalem and was also friends with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s group. He was not an official player in the group but often played together with them and Rabbi Carlebach.
Growing up in such a musical house, it’s no wonder Yehuda chose to be a musician. There were always musical instruments in the house, he says. Guitars, drums, piano, etc. Besides playing music, his father was also a therapist and did music therapy. One of the bands he played in was The Jerusalem Blues Band. They used to play rock-and-roll in bars in Jerusalem in the 70s.
When Yehuda was three years old, he woke up one night and saw his father playing music with friends in the living room – electric guitars, drums, a whole Woodstock in their living room. Since then, music has held a central place in his heart.
When Yehuda was six years old, his father started teaching him to play the violin. He also learned to play the piano. His father taught his other children to play musical instruments too, and they also became musicians. One is a famous DJ, the other two are composers, and one has a recording studio. The siblings have a band called Nachat Ruach. You can find the Leuchter brothers playing together in their Nachat Ruach band on YouTube.
When Yehuda was fourteen, his father passed away. For a couple of years, his father’s friends came every year on his yahrzeit to play in his memory. By this time, Yehuda was already involved in the local music industry and knew some of the musicians who played Alternative Hasidic, such as Aharon Razel, Adi Ran, and others. Yehuda thought to himself – why not make the annual gathering a festival in memory of his father, Emil Leuchter, z”l? He contacted musicians and suggested making this an annual Jewish music festival. They called it “Acharit Hayamim.” Throughout the years, more and more musicians joined. Some of them are among the leading musicians in Israel, such as Ehud Banai, Yonatan Razel, Kobi Oz, Shuli Rand, Shlomo Bar, and Ariel Zilber. The festival grew and became a very popular indie Jewish music festival, which takes place almost every year in Gush Etzion.
When Yehuda was in high school, he started to learn music formally. He learned theory, note-reading, etc. At that time, he also started to write and compose music. He purchased studio equipment and started to produce music as well.
As we speak, he shows me through our WhatsApp video call the mixer he purchased when he was in high school, which is still working! An old, original eight-channel mixer with coils, which he used to start recording his work.
When I was in school, I liked to listen to Dov Shurin. We’re talking about the early 2000s, when he was starting to become popular. I somehow got his CD and enjoyed listening to his music. A major hit of his was “Zochreini Na,” which was later performed by Shalhevet Orchestra and is still a popular song today. After building his studio while still in high school, in addition to recording his work, Yehuda also did some recordings for other musicians, and one of them was Dov Shurin. I was surprised to hear from Yehuda that he was actually the pianist in “Zochreini Na.”
I asked him what music he used to listen to at home as he grew up. The family listened to a variety of genres and styles. From Frank Zappa, Neil Young, and the Beatles to the Blues to Naomi Shemer. One day, his brother brought him a cassette of Bob Marley. It was the first time he had listened to Bob Marley, and from that moment he got connected to reggae music and started to make his own reggae. It’s kind of as if reggae chose him.
When he play reggae, Yehuda uses the piano almost as a percussion instrument, so he feels sort of like a drummer. In reggae, Yehuda explains, there’s the bass and the drums. The piano combines these elements with the melody – it’s a bridge between the bass and drums and the melody. While the guitar only gives the beat, reggae builds on the beat, explains Yehuda. What makes the melody is the bass.
After his army service in the IDF, Yehuda continued to do music. He created and recorded his own music, and in parallel he was also part of the Acharit Hayamim band which has the same name as the festival. Yehuda and the band performed in Israel and around the world. Once they performed in the U.S. at a festival together with Matisyahu. They also performed at weddings, where about 60-70 percent of the music was their original music. Yehuda still sometimes performs at weddings in Israel, Canada, and the U.S.
As we speak via video call, Yehuda shows me his studio: Guitars hang on the walls, there are old keyboards and pianos and drums. This man is all in when it comes to music.
So far Yehuda has released a few albums of original music and in addition has been involved in productions with other musicians. His first album, Acharit Hayamim Yerushalayim, was released in 2007 and is a reggae-style album. The drummer of the band made aliyah from a small island near Madagascar and brought a music style that was very close to reggae. Yehuda was already into reggae, and together they created their own authentic style which combined everything.
His second album, Kama Or, which was released ten years later in 2017 and produced by David Lifshitz, was more of a personal album, without the Acharit Hayamim band. It was a collage of all the styles that had influenced Yehuda over the years – The Beatles, Blues, Jazz, etc. Since then, he has continued to release original singles and plans to release another album soon.
“Chant Down Babilon/Judea” is a cool reggae-style song. When the song starts to play, you think for a second it’s another Bob Marley song, but then you hear Yehuda Leuchter singing. It begins in English but as the song continues, he also sings in Hebrew.
One of the artists that most impacted Yehuda is Naomi Shemer. He composed and performed two of her songs, “Shirat Ha’asavim” and “Ein Davar.” He released “Shirat Ha’asavim” together with Bini Landau. It begins with electric and acoustic guitar, and soon Bini joins Yehuda in the song. As the song continues, you can hear a flute and piano in the background. The flute adds a lot to the song. I’m a big fan of the original version of “Shirat Ha’asavim,” and yet I really liked this performance by Yehuda. I recommend that you find it on YouTube and listen to it.
“Ein Davar,” written by Naomi Shemer and composed by Yehuda Leuchter, is another acoustic song which I liked. It’s not his regular reggae-style, more of a relaxed, light-rock, acoustic song. It begins with acoustic guitar, and later on you can hear the electric guitar in the background.
“Zohar Kokhavim” is a beautiful song which combines acoustic guitars and Oriental instruments such as kamancheh as well as percussion instruments. “This is a legend about a beautiful girl in the middle of the desert who comes to pump water. The moonlight shines, she looks at the skies, her lover returns after two thousand years, she starts to sing…”
Other songs of Yehuda’s I liked are “Yavo Shalom,” a reggae-style song, “Saleinu Al Ktefeinu” where he hosts Sinai Tor, and “Kama Or” from the album of the same name.
