Where Country and Soul Music Merge

He grew up in a home filled with song. His father, Reb Chaim Toiv, is a chazzan of great renown and a former talmid of Mesivta Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin. Reb Chaim sent his son to the yeshivah — which was then in Far Rockaway — as well. Yossi recalls sitting and chatting with a group of his friends one Friday afternoon, waiting for Minchah to begin, when he got his first glimpse of Reb Shlomo Freifeld. “He walked into the beis medrash, this immense man with peyos dripping wet, a flowing beard, and the widest hat I had ever seen. We had heard rumors about a new menahel, and we gulped at the thought that this might be him. He was huge. But then he smiled and introduced himself and said, ‘Come boys, let’s learn some Mishnayos together.’

For the next twenty minutes, they sat riveted while he taught, and by the time he rose, they were sold. “At the end of the year, Reb Shlomo informed me that he was starting his own yeshivah — Sh’or Yoshuv — and invited me to join. I was thrilled.”

Reb Shlomo had grown up in East New York, just like many of the boys, and he would remind them of that. “He would smile and place his arm on my shoulders, and say ‘I’m just like you!’

Musical Pioneer

Country Yossi was an early pioneer in the Jewish music scene. That, too, has its roots in Sh’or Yoshuv. “I was roommates with Shmelkie Brazil — today Rav Shmuel Brazil, a rosh yeshivah at Sh’or Yoshuv — and he had a guitar,” Yossi remembers. “He would come running into the room sometimes, totally aflame, and start playing. He’d had an inspiring thought or uplifting emotion that he had to commit to music. I remember when he composed his classics: “Bilvavi” and “Shmelkie’s Niggun.”