torah orah
Torah Orah is my 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.
Torah Orah’s lyrics, visuals, and finances invite listeners to dance with the ancestral traditions of liberation, reparations, compassion, critical thinking, and ecological reciprocity. The most consequential ancestral Torah for me is the empowerment of the marginalized and oppressed, including the Earth and Earth’s children, through the practice of liberation.
Since Torah Orah adapts a pre-emancipation song, in which an enslaved lover pines for the enslaved Angeline the Baker, from whom he has been forcibly separated, Torah Orah’s cover art by illustrator Jacquelyn B. Moore remembers, centers, and reimagines Angeline the Baker as a Torah Tree of Life figure. By choosing to visually center a woman of color on my song that celebrates Torah, I am hoping to foster inclusion and representation, the dismantling of ubiquitous systems of oppression, and the beauty of the sacred Life Force.
Proceeds
All proceeds from the sale of Torah Orah go towards The Fund for Reparations NOW! (FFRN!)* for People of Color harmed by enslavement. I am personally familiar with the justice work of reparations. My father was a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp where 80 members of his family and 90% of his Jewish townsfolk of Drobin, Poland were victims of genocide during the Holocaust. My father received monthly reparation payments from Germany due to his forced incarceration, enslavement, and torture at the hands of their government from 1939-1945. I released Torah Orah on the 7th anniversary of my father, Cwi Jedwab’s, death.
*The Fund for Reparations NOW! (FFRN!) is the white ally initiative of the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC), dedicated to the immediate implementation of the 10-Point Reparations Plan. The Fund was launched in 2019 by David Gardinier and a nationwide group of white progressives to mark the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans landing in Jamestown, Virginia.
With Gratitude
I wrote Torah Orah’s lyrics, sang the main vocals, and was the executive producer for the project. Torah Orah was produced and mixed by multi-instrumentalist Daniel Ori, and was mastered by Jeremy Loucas at Sear Sound, NY. On the track, Megan Gould plays the violin and fiddle, Noah Solomon plays banjo and mandolin, Daniel Ori plays bass and guitars, and Renee Radharani Finkelstein sings harmonies. Torah Orah was recorded at Sherwood Ridge Studio in Pomona, NY. I am grateful to Ketzirah Lesser for helping me manifest Torah Orah and to Sarah Chandler of Shamir Collective for producing my release event and upleveling my artist communications.
“Shoshana Jedwab has done it again! In her inimitable style, she has repurposed a song from our nation’s complicated tradition of folk music and blown it wide open to allow it to be a vessel for Torah to shine through...and this time, it is the Torah of The Torah itself. From the opening strings to her crystal clarion harmonies, this song rings the bell of joy. You can’t help but dance with this Torah Orah. This is the Torah we need. This is the Torah of liberation; of kindness and generosity. She is a tree of life! May she blossom eternally.”
“Imagine Joan Baez meets Starhawk under a giant acacia tree, and the dybbuk spirits of Stephen Foster and Pete Seeger unite with them to birth a rousing chorus of Jewwy, earthy liberation. That dancing child is Torah Orah! ”
lyrics
Torah Orah Torah
Fire from the mountain
Torah Orah Torah
She’s a desert dwelling fountain
Torah Orah Torah
Wheels of wisdom rolling
Torah Orah Torah
She’s the Tree of Life we’re holding
And we bring her round
And we’re singing loud
Torah Orah Torah
Practice liberation
Feed the stranger and the orphan
Torah Orah Torah
Gather round and listen
Torah Orah Torah
To what’s written and what’s missing
Torah Orah Torah
For ancestors and children
Torah Orah Torah
Heal the planet, keep her rhythm
© & ℗ 2022 Shoshana Jedwab
Music adapted by Shoshana Jedwab from Angeline the Baker (1850) by Stephen Collins Foster