Phish Performing ‘Avinu Malkeinu’ Is Pure Jewish Jam Band Joy

By Molly Tolsky

(KVELLER)  – It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jews love the band Phish.

Much ink has been spilled over the years about why that might be the case — including in a book of essays, “This Is Your Song Too: Phish and Contemporary Jewish Identity,” published in 2023. Some point out that many were first exposed to the jam band’s music at Jewish summer camp (guilty as charged over here). Others comment on their improvisational style, which lends itself to the questioning, curiosity-driven nature of Judaism. And for many, the live shows are a holy convening akin to — or more powerful than — a synagogue service.

That was even more true this past Monday night when the band, performing at Madison Square Garden in New York City, broke out into their version of the ancient Jewish prayer Avinu Malkeinu on stage.

It wasn’t the first time they’ve done so, even on their current tour, but it certainly is a rare occasion — and one that Jewish fans count themselves blessed to catch. They first performed the song back in 1987, just a few years after the band formed in Burlington, Vermont. They have since played it 85 times, which means it’s only been played at about 4% of live Phish shows (thank you Phish.net for the delightfully detailed statistics).

How did a band known for their psychedelic riffs, trippy lyrics and eclectic, genre-hopping performances come to turn a touchstone High Holiday prayer about God into a cult favorite hit on their setlist? That’s all thanks to Phish’s Jewish bassist, Mike Gordon.

Gordon grew up attending a Reform synagogue in suburban Boston led by the prominent rabbi and author Lawrence Kushner. Gordon recalled Kushner singing and humming the melody to Avinu Malkeinu all the time, and eventually, like all great earworms, it burrowed its way into the young rebellious Jew’s heart. “And so, when I’m bringing that song to the table, in some ways… I’m referring back to an experience that was a deep soul experience for me,” Gordon said in the aforementioned “This Is Your Song Too.”

“Looking out into the crowd, it was easy to see who the Jews were because their eyes would light up when we went into it, and that was kind of fun,” Gordon added of the band’s earliest performances of the song.

That’s still very much the case, as you can see and hear in a recording of their most recent NYC performance shared by the Instagram account @thephishjew run by Saul Teplitsky. Within moments of the song starting, before the first Hebrew words are uttered, you can hear one fan screaming, “Oh my God!” and see others in the front section literally jumping for joy.

“For everyone at MSG tonight we got to witness something incredible,” Teplitsky wrote in the caption.

He also went on to speculate on a particularly meaningful reason the band may have performed the song twice this tour, the first time being in Madison, Wisconsin earlier in July.

In June, Mike Gordon’s father, Bob Gordon, passed away. In a moving tribute on Facebook, Gordon wrote effusively about his dad, including how he continuously supported his son through all his artistic endeavors, and led by example as a tenacious, inventive, “profoundly inspiring” person.

“When Soviet Jews were denied exit visas and persecuted, my dad was afraid there could be another Holocaust, and he started a group in Boston to find ways to get them out. He became an international leader in this movement, working with U.S. congresspeople and activists around the world, helping to free almost 2 million Jews. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he turned his attention to helping those Jews start new lives, and he worked with Boston’s Jewish sister city in the Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk, to help serve the needs of the Jewish community there,” Gordon shared.

Knowing Gordon’s childhood connection to Avinu Malkeinu and how it stemmed from his family’s Jewish observance, it seems possible that the band’s recent performances could have been in tribute to Bob Gordon. “I’d like to believe the [first] time was in memory of Bob Gordon and this one was for all of us phans,” @thephishjew’s caption reads.

As a prayer, Avinu Malkeinu is recited on Yom Kippur and other fast days, and addresses God as “our Father, our King.” Phish is not the only band to bring it into popular music. Barbra Streisand recorded a version of it for her 1997 album “Higher Ground.” The first time she performed it live was in Israel, in 2013, at a celebration for former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres’s 90th birthday.

Phish has also performed “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav,” an Israeli song that translates to “Jerusalem of Gold,” and recorded a version for their 1994 album “Hoist.” Along with Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman is Jewish.

Their version of Avinu Malkeinu is upbeat and danceable, even for the non-Jewish fans in the crowd who may not understand its Hebrew words or context. But for Jewish fans especially, it offers some much-needed Jewish joy and representation.

“Phish has always brought people together across every background, but hearing one of our holiest prayers fill an arena of Phans is something I’ll never forget,” Teplitsky tells Kveller. “It’s a reminder that Judaism doesn’t just belong in a synagogue, it belongs wherever Jews show up, including festival parking lots and on the floor of a Phish show. At a time when there’s so much noise about what it means to be Jewish, hearing that prayer embraced by the band and community built on kindness and connection is something I’ll carry with me for a long time.”

This article was originally published in KVELLER.