Kedmah
Mizrahi Melodies Reimagined
From Baghdad to Aleppo, Sana’a to Marrakesh, Istanbul to Jerusalem, Kedmah preserves and reinvents the music and poetry of our Mizrahi ancestors.
Spacious, driving rhythms. Ornate, flowing melodies. Pleading, praising voices. Kedmah journeys from quiet devotion to full-throated celebration, holding memory, longing, and joy.
About Kedmah
Kedmah is a musical ensemble and educational initiative that celebrates Middle Eastern Jewish expression through piyyutim — ancient poems and songs that have infused spirit and meaning into both sacred and ordinary moments of human experience for generations.
Led by Rabbi Yosef Ya’ish Goldman and Yoni Avi Battat, the six-piece ensemble also includes vocalists Anat Halevy Hochberg and Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer, alongside percussionist Fabio Pirozzolo and bassist James Heazlewood-Dale.
What Does “Kedmah” Mean?
In the Torah, Kedmah means “eastward,” towards Kedem, the past—the lands where Abraham’s journey began. Our families’ roots lie east too, in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The same root gives us Kedimah, which means “forward.”
In one word, Kedmah faces both ways: turning with reverence towards our ancestor’s expression, and carrying their songs forward, in a way that can sustain new generations of Jewish cultural vitality.
Immersive Live Performances
Kedmah has performed at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, the Philadelphia Jewish Music Festival, the Boston Festival of New Jewish Music, Chavaya Festival in Washington state, and Third Space in Baltimore, as well as synagogues, schools and universities across North America.
At each performance, the artists share stories of their ancestries and musical journeys, while inviting audiences to join their voices, and their humanity, with the echoes of past generations.
Watch and Listen
Simu Lev
Kedmah's debut album takes its name from a line in one of its songs: "Take heart. Pay heed to your own soul." In modern Hebrew, simu lev also simply means "pay attention." The album asks for both: to tend the inner life of the soul, and to listen closely to a Mizrahi musical and spiritual heritage often left at the margins of American Jewish life.
The album was recorded live at Rittenhouse Soundworks in Philadelphia, with a video for every track. Released in April 2024 on Rising Song Records, Simu Lev was incubated by Hadar's Rising Song Institute and co-produced by Joey Weisenberg, who plays fretless bass on the album. The recording also features guest vocalist Yahala Lachmish, and guest percussionist, April Centrone.
Learn and Sing with Kedmah
Kedmah is a teaching project just as much as it is a band. Yosef, Kedmah's rabbinic and literary director, opens up the poetry: its imagery and allusions, the world it came from, and what it can mean for us now. Yoni, the musical director, opens up the music: the modes and rhythms of the Arab world, and the long, intertwined story of Jewish and Arab musical and cultural life. Through workshops, classes and song circles in Boston, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia, Kedmah enables participants to connect with a broad sense of Jewish peoplehood, breathing new life into this rarely explored repertoire through the vibration of their own voices.
Some examples of workshop topics include:
Maqam building blocks. A hands-on introduction to maqam, the musical system behind Arab-Jewish music, and how it can nourish our souls.
Piyyut Text-Study. With examples drawn together on a theme such as Song of Songs, healing, forgiveness, Shabbat, specific holidays etc.
Aleph-Baa: Arabizing our Hebrew. Pronouncing Hebrew with the textured consonants and vowels, and how this embodiment can open up our hearts and voices.
Jews of the Arab World. The history and identity of Jewish communities across the Middle East and North Africa, told through their songs.
Bring Kedmah to Your Community
Third Space Baltimore - Photo by Marc Shapiro
Third Space Baltimore - Photo by Marc Shapiro
Third Space Baltimore - Photo by Marc Shapiro
Third Space Baltimore - Photo by Marc Shapiro
Third Space Baltimore - Photo by Marc Shapiro
Third Space Baltimore - Photo by Marc Shapiro
Third Space Baltimore - Photo by Marc Shapiro
Rittenhouse Soundworks - Photo by Shmulie Lowenstein
Rittenhouse Soundworks - Photo by Shmulie Lowenstein
Rittenhouse Soundworks - Photo by Shmulie Lowenstein
Kennedy Center
Rittenhouse Soundworks - Photo by Shmulie Lowenstein
Rittenhouse Soundworks - Photo by Shmulie Lowenstein
Rittenhouse Soundworks - Photo by Shmulie Lowenstein
Weitzman Museum - Photo by Jess Benjamin
Weitzman Museum - Photo by Jess Benjamin
Weitzman Museum - Photo by Jess Benjamin
Weitzman Museum - Photo by Jess Benjamin
Weitzman Museum - Photo by Jess Benjamin
Read more about Kedmah’s founders and musicians
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Vocals, Percussion, Founder, Rabbinic & Literary Advisor
Yosef Goldman is a rabbi, hazzan, composer, and ritual artist who renews ancient Jewish devotional forms as living practice. Rooted in his Ashkenazi and Sephardic-Mizrahi heritage, he draws on the Arabic maqam tradition, Hasidic niggun, and contemporary Jewish songwriting. Together with Yoni Avi Battat, Yosef is the co-founder of Kedmah, a musical initiative that teaches and reimagines traditional Sepharadi and Mizrahi piyyut. He teaches this sacred poetry and song in communities and institutions in the US and abroad, including at the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at HUC-JIR.
His albums Open My Heart (2019) and Abitah (2023) are sung in synagogues and camps across North America and Israel, and his music has been described as "a hidden doorway with the power to open the heart." He has performed at the Kennedy Center and the Kimmel Center and is a voting member of the Recording Academy. Along with his identical twin brother, he got his start in Jewish music touring internationally with the Miami Boys Choir.
After years as senior clergy at synagogues in Philadelphia and the Washington, DC area, Yosef now works independently as a rabbi, artist, and educator. Trained in spiritual direction and in chaplaincy, he accompanies individuals, clergy, and communities in contemplative practice and in deepening prayer and sacred music. He is Senior Advisor to Hadar's Rising Song Institute and holds rabbinic ordination and a Master of Sacred Music from JTS. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Rabbi Annie Lewis, and their two children.
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Oud, Viola, Violin, Vocals, Founder, Musical Director
Yoni Avi Battat amplifies and transforms the echoes of his Iraqi-Jewish ancestry to broaden perspectives, touch hearts, and build community. A dynamic singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, story-teller, and prayer leader, Yoni performs and records across North America preserving, transmitting, and innovating traditional and original melodies rooted in Arab musical forms. Described as "an education for the ear and the soul," his debut album Fragments seeks to find new pathways to connect with ancestry and find healing around our fragmented identities. Together with Rabbi Yosef Goldman, Yoni is the co-founder of Kedmah, a musical initiative that teaches and re-imagines traditional Middle-Eastern and North-African piyyutim. From 2021-2022 Yoni toured nationally as an actor and violinist with the Tony Award-winning musical, “The Band’s Visit.” Based in Boston, Yoni works locally and nationally to uplift Mizrahi identity and bring Arab music into the soundscape of our American Jewish lives. www.yonibattat.com @yoniavibattat
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Vocals
Anat Halevy Hochberg is a musician, teacher, and ritual leader based in Boston. Her passions include leading song, empowering others to raise their voices, and working to reclaim and share the Yemeni melodies of her heritage. She has taught and led ritual at Let My People Sing!, Eden Village Camp, Hadar’s Rising Song Intensive, and Linke Fligl. She co-produced Tishrei: the end is the beginning and Elul: Songs for Turning, and her debut album How can I keep (from) singing? was released in 2020. Her upcoming album of Yemeni Jewish song, Ahavat Hadassah, will be released in 2027. Learn more about her work at anathalevyhochberg.com @anatmuse
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Vocals
Jessica Kate Meyer is a soul-connecting vocalist, prayer leader, storyteller, and rabbi. As a vocalist, she performs sacred Jewish music in the US and internationally. After serving as rabbi-hazzan at Romemu in NYC and The Kitchen in San Francisco, Jessica joined the faculty of Hebrew College in Boston as Rosh Tefillah and artist-in-residence. In a previous life, she appeared in film and theater projects in Europe and the United States: most notably, as a principal role in the Oscar-winning film, The Pianist.
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Drums and Percussion
Fabio Pirozzolo is an Italian drummer, multi-percussionist and singer currently based in Boston, Massachusetts. Fabio performs in virtually any genre of music from jazz to world music to rock. He’s the co-founder of the world music ensembles Sawaari and Grand Fatilla and Italian folk music ensemble Newpoli. Highly in demand both as a drummer and as percussionist, Fabio is currently playing with Club D'Elf, Kedmah, Yoni Battat, Anat Hochberg, Walid Zairi & Talween and Revma Greek Ensemble.
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Electric Fretless Bass
Dr. James Heazlewood-Dale is a Grammy-nominated bassist and scholar, hailing from Melbourne, Australia. Venturing to Boston to pursue studies in jazz double bass at the prestigious Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, where he received full scholarships, Dr. Heazlewoaod-Dale has shared the stage with world-renowned artists, including Jacob Collier, Donny McCaslin, Zakir Hussain, Kurt Elling, Ingrid Jensen, Grace Kelly, and Terence Blanchard. He completed his Ph.D. at Brandeis University in 2024, writing his dissertation on the intersection of video game music and jazz. In recognition of outstanding academic achievement, Dr. Heazlewood-Dale was honored with Brandeis University’s Provost Research Award. His ludomusicological contributions can be read in Jazz and Culture and Environmental Humanities and the Video Game, as well as in a number of forthcoming chapters and articles exploring topics such as jazz scoring in transmedia adaptations, video game music and disabilities, and Japanese jazz fusion in the Mario Kart series. Among his public-facing work, two highlights are a commission by Decca Records to write the liner notes for the soundtrack release of The Callisto Protocol (2022) and a scholarly guest appearance in Adam Neely’s acclaimed video essay “The Nintendo-fication of Jazz.” He currently serves as the co-chair for the American Musicological Society’s Ludomusicology Study Group.