Tikkun Leyl Shavuot with Performance by Anat Halevy Hochberg and Talk by Professor Yuval Evri: A Celebration of Mizrachi Music, History and Tradition

Please join us for a very special evening celebrating Mizrachi Music, History and tradition.  We will begin with a kosher vegetarian potluck dinner in our courtyard. RSVP here.

Here is our schedule for the evening as we celebrate the beginning of Shavuot!

6:00 p.m. Potluck Dinner in the Courtyard. Bring (or purchase) a kosher vegetarian/dairy dish. If there is a Mizrachi flavor to it, even better. Here are some amazing Mizrachi recipes!

Anat Halevy Hochberg

7:00 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. “A Taste of Yemeni Song”

Join Anat Halevy Hochberg for an evening of Jewish Yemeni song. Accompanied by percussionist Matt Meyer and bassist James Heazlewood-Dale, Anat will perform songs in Hebrew and Arabic from both the men’s and women’s singing traditions, encompassing the sacred and secular. We will also learn about the history and context of this music. Come ready to sing! – participants will learn two to three songs from the repertoire.

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 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.

Anat performs original arrangements of traditional Yemeni Jewish song. Drawing from both the sacred men’s singing tradition rooted in piyyut and women’s folk songs, her work brings forward a wide range of Yemenite Jewish musical life—prayer, poetry, and everyday song. With a voice of striking clarity, Anat sings with directness and care, allowing the weight and beauty of the repertoire to speak. Her upcoming album of this repertoire, Ahavat Hadassah, will be released late 2026.

Professor Yuval Evri

8:30 to 9:15 p.m. Teaching and Discussion on Mizrachi Jewish history by Yuval Evri. Professor Evri is assistant professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Marash and Ocuin Chair in Ottoman, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. He is a cultural historian specializing in Sephardi/Arab-Jewish modern history and culture, with a particular interest in Palestine during the first half of the 20th century. His current book project traces the invention of the Mizrahim/Sephardim as go-betweens and mediators on the borderline that emerged between the Jew and the Arab and between Hebrew and Arabic and explores how the fluidity inherent in this position became a source of resistance to the dominant national and monolingual forces. His last book, The Return to Al-Andalus: Disputes Over Sephardic Culture and Identity Between Arabic and Hebrew, was published by Magnes Press in 2020.

9:15 p.m. Maariv and Kiddush

9:30-10:30 p.m. Presentation and conversation with our Reyim community member Solomon Sheena