There is a particular atmosphere to the weeks leading up to the Jewish High Holy Days. As Elul begins, the rhythm of Israeli life starts to shift. Summer draws to a close, a new Hebrew year approaches, and words such as return, forgiveness, and reflection begin to appear everywhere. Forgiveness takes on a special meaning as the High Holy Days approach. Selichot, the prayers traditionally recited in the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, give voice to one of the most human questions in Jewish tradition: how do we acknowledge what has gone wrong, ask for forgiveness, and find a way to begin again? 

In Israel, this ancient practice has also taken on a wider cultural life. Selichot have moved beyond the synagogue into public spaces and cultural venues, where centuries-old texts meet contemporary voices. Music has a particularly powerful role in this process. The melodies of piyyut and prayer carry memories across generations, transforming ancient words into something immediate and personal. A prayer can become a song; a melody can hold both sorrow and hope; and a familiar text can suddenly speak differently when it is heard in a new voice. This meeting between tradition and contemporary culture is at the heart of the Elul and High Holy Day programming at Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem.

A Contemporary Jewish Cultural Space

Established by the AVI CHAI Foundation in 2007, Beit Avi Chai is a Jerusalem-based center for Jewish-Israeli culture and creativity. Located on King George Street, it develops and produces cultural content exploring Jewish and Israeli ideas and identity. Its programming includes music and stage performances, lectures, workshops, exhibitions, festivals, podcasts and digital projects, alongside educational programs for children, young people and adults. Much of its content is created by the center’s own creative team, often in collaboration with Israeli artists, educators and cultural figures. During Elul and the High Holy Days, this work takes on a particular meaning: Beit Avi Chai creates encounters between ancient texts and contemporary Israeli culture, through music, poetry, performance, study and conversation.

A Different Kind of Kabbalat Shabbat

One of the clearest expressions of this approach is Kabbalat Shabbat, Ktzat Aheret – “Kabbalat Shabbat, A Little Different,” a long-running series that welcomes Shabbat through music, poetry, interpretation and conversation. It is not quite a concert, and it is not a conventional prayer service. Traditional Shabbat melodies and piyyutim meet contemporary Israeli songs, while poets and spiritual figures add text, commentary, and personal reflection. The audience is invited to participate, turning the Friday gathering into something between a performance, a conversation, and a communal ritual.

The Elul edition brings together songwriter and musician Micha Shitrit, singer Esther Rada, Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum, poet Amichai Hasson and the Yagel Haroush Ensemble. On September 4, the last Kabbalat Shabbat of the Hebrew year features Riff Cohen and Daniel Zamir alongside Hasson, Rabbi Elad-Appelbaum and the ensemble. The combinations themselves tell a story. Esther Rada and Riff Cohen represent distinctive voices in contemporary Israeli music; Daniel Zamir brings jazz into the encounter; Yagel Haroush and his ensemble are deeply connected to Jewish musical traditions and piyyut; Amichai Hasson brings poetry, while Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum adds a spiritual and textual dimension. Rather than separating “Jewish music” from “Israeli music,” the series allows these worlds to exist together. A traditional melody can lead into an original song. A piyyut can sit alongside a contemporary composition.

Selichot: When Ancient Words Become Contemporary

Selichot are prayers of repentance and forgiveness, but they are also among the most poetic and musically rich texts in Jewish liturgical tradition. Across Jewish communities, they have developed different melodies and rhythms, carrying the cultural memory of generations. In Israel, Selichot have increasingly become part of the wider cultural landscape. People who may not regularly attend synagogue nevertheless encounter the music, poetry, and emotional vocabulary of Selichot in the weeks before the new year.

This is where Beit Avi Chai’s approach becomes particularly compelling. The center has a long history of bringing Jewish texts into dialogue with contemporary Israeli musicians. In this setting, Selichot are not just something to recite. They become something to listen to. A melody can carry a text across centuries. A singer can give an ancient prayer a modern emotional register. And a familiar phrase about forgiveness can suddenly sound different when it is heard outside its usual setting. That is perhaps the strength of Beit Avi Chai’s programming: it does not ask audiences to choose between tradition and culture. It places them in conversation.

From One Hebrew Year to the Next

The rhythm of the program follows the Hebrew calendar itself. On September 4, Beit Avi Chai hosts the final Kabbalat Shabbat of the Hebrew year, followed two weeks later, on September 18, by the first Kabbalat Shabbat of the new year. Together, the two evenings create a poetic frame around this transition: and then comes Yom Kippur.

One of the most striking works connected to the season is Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Yom Kippur War, an original multidisciplinary production by Beit Avi Chai based on journalist and author Matti Friedman’s book about Cohen’s experience in Israel during the 1973 war. The production brings together Esther Rada, Geva Alon, Maya Belzitsman and Matti Friedman, exploring Cohen’s encounter with Israel and the soldiers he performed for during the war. Through music, storytelling and documentary material, the production connects Cohen’s personal story with one of the deepest collective memories in Israeli society. It is a fitting work for the High Holy Days because it connects the personal and the collective. Yom Kippur is traditionally a day of introspection, memory, and reckoning; the 1973 war remains a powerful part of collective consciousness. Here, music becomes a vehicle for memory, grief, and consolation.

This movement between the intimate and the collective runs through Beit Avi Chai’s High Holy Day programming. The rituals may be ancient, but the questions surrounding them are not. What does it mean to return? What do we ask forgiveness for? What do we carry from one year into the next? And how can music help us say things that ordinary language cannot?

Perhaps this is what makes the Elul season at Beit Avi Chai so distinctive. Somewhere between the synagogue and the concert hall, the center creates a space in which Jewish culture is continually reinterpreted. And perhaps that is what teshuvah asks of us: not to erase what came before, but to return to it with new understanding. To listen again. To acknowledge what is broken. To ask forgiveness. And to imagine how we might carry ourselves, and one another, differently into the year ahead.

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