Yonatan and Aharon Razel, brothers with distinctive styles, have captured the spotlight of the Jewish music scene, creating songs that speak to religious and secular alike
BROTHER TO BROTHER “Since we’re so aware of each other’s tastes and tendencies we’re able to harmonize really well” says Yonatan. “I can sort of predict which chords Aharon will pick and he’ll guess how I’m going to improvise on a theme. In a profound way we each complete the other” (Photos: Eli Cobin)
Y onatan and Aharon Razel two brothers with their own distinctive styles have captured the spotlight on the Jewish music scene. Yonatan is the contemplative soul-singer whose music is shaped by classical motifs while Aharon fuses popular rhythms and his driving guitar with spiritual messages. As they’ve found their individual places in the modern musical landscape — creating songs that speak to religious and secular alike — they’ve also learned to harmonize the many mutual threads in the spiritual messages they weave with their music.
In their own words they trace the journey of their private symphony…
Yonatan: We were born in New Jersey in a highly musical home. Our grandfather Mark Rosler was a major influence on us. A Holocaust survivor and deep believer he was also a famous cellist and eventually taught me to play the cello too. Aharon: Our parents believed in exposing us to the world of music and developing our talents and self-expression so we were both writing music from a very young age. Later our family made aliyah and settled in Nachlaot which is a very musical neighborhood in Jerusalem so we continued to write and play and sing.
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