Yonatan Razel

Razel was born in 1973 in New York to an American mother and a Dutch father, who met while pursuing postgraduate studies at New York University.[8][5] His family made aliyah and settled in Jerusalem’s Nachlaot neighborhood, where he later lived with his own family.[5] His parents initially maintained a secular household, and the family gradually moved toward religious observance.[3] Razel later described a childhood connected to the national-religious world and an adult identity within the Haredi world, while retaining influences from his earlier life.[9]

He began playing piano and composing at five, and his paternal grandfather, a cello teacher, taught him cello.[5] His early studies also included ear training and composition.[3] Classical music was emphasized by his father and grandfather, while his mother played rock music at home.[5] Sephardic synagogue music was another formative influence, and he served for years as a cantor, associating that experience with improvisation and singing “from the heart.”[5]

Razel attended the junior high and high school associated with the Jerusalem music academy.[5] At 13, hearing someone play “Hey, Jude” prompted him to recognize connections among the musical traditions he already knew; he identified this as the point when he began writing songs.[5] He started work toward a bachelor’s degree in classical music at 16 and also began conducting at that age.[5][2] During this period, he met Leonard Bernstein and received encouragement from him, and he studied conducting with Mendi Rodan.[2]

The eldest of four musical siblings, Razel joined his brothers and sister in forming the Razel Band after an impromptu performance for neighbors during a visit to their grandparents in the United States.[10] He was 15 when the group formed, and its youngest member was 11.[1] The siblings performed and composed together, released a record through Fonokol, and had a hit with “I Want to Be a Taxi Driver.”[10][1] Razel later traced his enduring interest in music production to the experience of making that record.[1] The band dissolved when he entered the army band, while his siblings continued their own musical paths.[10]

During military service, Razel conducted and played in the army band and worked as an arranger.[5][1] Afterward, he studied conducting and worked with the Israel Chamber Orchestra and the Ra’anana Symphonette.[2] Before releasing his own debut album, he also contributed arrangements and production to projects by Arkadi Duchin, Shlomo Artzi, Shlomo Gronich, Yoni Rechter, and Evyatar Banai.[1]

Razel had been preparing to pursue a master’s degree at Cambridge University but chose not to follow that path.[4] He later described having been on a path toward an international classical conducting career before deciding to step away from it.[4] During a period away from music, he lived with his wife in the Sussiya community, worked as a shepherd, and studied psychology.[6] He recalled spending about half a year herding sheep in the Judean Hills, explaining that he wanted to move away from the perfectionism and distance he associated with classical performance and toward writing his own songs.[4]

His debut album, “Sach HaKol” (“All in All”), appeared in 2007 after years of preparation and achieved gold status.[5] It combined religious texts with music rooted in classical traditions, and both its title track and “Zion,” a duet with Evyatar Banai, became mainstream radio hits.[1] Razel acknowledged that the music was relatively complex and not necessarily immediately accessible, but regarded its reception as an opportunity to reach people he otherwise might not have encountered.[1]

In 2007, thousands of readers voted him vocalist of the year in the alternative Jewish music category, narrowly ahead of his brother Aaron.[11] At the same awards, “Zion,” also identified as “Love Will Come Out of Zion,” was selected as song of the year.[11] The title track of his debut album also entered Army Radio’s playlist.[11]

“Vehi Sheamda,” based on words from the Passover Haggadah, became another turning point.[7] Razel said he had originally written it as an exercise, without expecting to perform it himself, and had left it in a drawer for a long time before producer Yoḥai Briskman recognized its potential.[7] Its success surprised him and brought wider exposure within the Haredi world.[7]

Razel’s religious identity and his varied musical background shaped how he approached different audiences.[7] In 2012, he released “Katonti” and the original song “Ga’agu’a” simultaneously, expecting the former to reach Haredi listeners and the latter to attract general Israeli media.[7] He described the songs as addressing different cultural worlds while also sharing points of connection.[7] At that time, he studied at a Haredi kollel and consulted Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and his own rabbi about decisions in his life, although not about individual songs.[9]

A family crisis gave several songs a deeply personal meaning.[3][9] In 2010, his four-year-old daughter Rebecca fell from the roof of the family home during Independence Day fireworks, after a railing gave way.[5][9] She was critically injured, required resuscitation, spent weeks in a coma, and underwent months of rehabilitation at Alyn Hospital.[5][9] Razel described her recovery as a miracle and expressed gratitude to those who prayed for her and to the emergency responders who helped her.[2][9]

He had composed “Katonti” before the accident, but said the experience deepened his understanding of its words and transformed the gratitude with which he sang it.[9] He wrote “Ashira” in the hospital and described it as addressing someone uncertain how a difficult situation would end, with the hope that it could help listeners believe circumstances might improve.[3] The song was recorded with his brothers Aaron and Yehuda.[3] Another composition, “Or Chadash,” acquired a more personal meaning after Shuli Rand suggested changing a lyric from “my soul” to “my daughter,” enabling Razel to sing directly about Rebecca.[3]

His second album, “Bein HaTzlilim” (“Between the Sounds”), was released in December 2012 and produced by Evyatar Banai.[3] Its 12 songs included original compositions and settings of traditional religious texts.[3] Recording began with the intimate combination of voice and piano, with additional instruments introduced afterward; roughly half the songs received arrangements Razel described as approaching the symphonic.[3] He connected this process to classical music’s attention to the character of each individual sound.[3] The album included “Katonti” and its title track and achieved gold status.[6]

Razel described the work on “Between the Sounds” as the point at which he found a musical language joining his classical training to Jewish spiritual song.[5] He often drew lyrics from the Bible and thought about albums as suites whose songs related to one another.[5] His stated aim was to combine “the smarts of classical music with the simplicity of a song,” while communicating with a broad audience.[5] “Katonti” was named ACUM Song of the Year, and “Va’ani Ashir,” performed with Shuli Rand, received an ACUM song-of-the-year award in 2013.[6][4]

His third album, “Poteach Lev” (“Opening the Heart”), appeared in 2017.[6] Cataloged in English as “Open to Change,” the Hebrew-language recording was released in Israel by Halamish Productions and NMC United Entertainment.[8] It contains 11 tracks, runs 42 minutes and 47 seconds, and includes “Pote’ach Lev,” “Keter,” “Hallelujah,” and “Aseh Lema’an.”[8] Razel contributed composition, arrangements, production, singing, and instrumental performance, as well as orchestral arrangements and conducting.[8]

Alon Yoffe contributed arrangements, production, and instrumental performance, while Tal Forer also worked on arrangements and production.[8] The recording’s ensemble included strings, winds, choir, percussion, oud, saz, santur, and ney.[8] A live recording dated 2018 documents Razel performing vocals and piano at Tel Aviv’s Heichal Hatarbut with the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion.[12] Dudi Zeva conducted, Kobi Aflalo appeared as a guest, and Yoffe played percussion; the recording runs one hour, ten minutes, and eight seconds.[12]

Family history also informed Razel’s later work.[13] His grandfather survived the Holocaust after jumping from a train bound for a camp, and a Dutch family helped save the family.[13] Razel named his daughter Chana after Hannah, the non-Jewish woman who saved them.[13] His grandfather had also introduced him to the biblical words he later used in “Katonti.”[13] In 2023, Razel co-wrote “The Number Song” with Guy Mezig, Doron Medalie, Harel Skaat, and Tal Kastiel, drawing on the story of 99-year-old Holocaust survivor Mordechai and the number tattooed on his arm.[13]

In December 2024, he released the singles “Ana Avda” and “Kama Tov BeYisrael.”[6] After being hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage in June 2026, he made a brief appearance at a Jerusalem event that October and sang one song.[14] He had attended most of the Kesher Yehudi events over the preceding three years.[14]

Razel’s work has connected biblical and liturgical language with classical arrangements, popular songwriting, and audiences spanning different religious communities.[5][7] He recalled that a record company initially rejected his debut album because it fitted neither conventional secular nor religious music and was thought to lack an audience.[2] He characterized his music as spiritual and inward-looking but expressed in a language accessible to a wider public, and later identified himself and his brother Aharon as contributors to the development of that musical space.[2]

His compositions have also entered religious settings beyond his own performances.[15] “Ashira,” identified as a setting of Psalm 13:6, was included as the processional in the 2024 Los Angeles ordination program of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, performed by Cantor Sara Hass and Cantor Lizzie Weiss.[15]

Music education and Torah study have formed another part of his public work.[2] In a 2023 interview, Razel said he had established the Shirat Halevi’im music school for religious and Haredi communities in cooperation with the Jerusalem Academy of Music.[2] He also led a kollel of the same name whose members combined employment with several hours of daily Torah study.[2] He described music as a potential bridge between people of different religious, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds.[2]

At a women-only concert in Jerusalem in 2017, Razel covered his eyes with masking tape for several minutes while women danced near the stage, then removed it and continued performing.[16] The organizer described this as his personal decision, and a representative emphasized that he had performed before women regularly for years.[16] Na’amat president Galia Wolloch criticized the behavior as religious extremism.[16]

The incident later formed part of a dispute over a planned performance in the mixed religious-secular community of Keramim.[17] Razel’s contractual request was for the concert to take place in a yeshiva without mixed dancing.[17] Some residents objected on grounds including respect for women, while the community’s religious-secular committee voted to hold the performance.[17]