Edgware bursts into song with Israeli singing initiative Koolulam

“Voice Number One! Are you ready?”

We were oh, so ready — as were the crowded group on the other side of the room, Voice Number Two. All 600 of us were hanging on every word and gesture of the electrifying figure of Inbar David as she skilfully, and with the greatest of good humour, moulded a motley group of Londoners into a belting choir — for one night only.

This was one more stop on the roller-coaster that is Koolulam, a unique social experiment founded in Israel in the belief that singing with (relative) strangers is good for us.

Koolulam, founded in April 2017 by Or Taicher, Michal Shahaf Shneiderman and Ben Yefet, is a combination of the Hebrew words kol and koolam, which mean ‘voice’ and ‘everyone’. It is a mass singing phenomenon which has attracted everyone from the former Israeli president Reuven Rivlin, who used Koolulam to kick off Israel’s 70th anniversary celebrations in 2018, to groups of Holocaust survivors and even Charedim.

Astonishingly, as Michal acknowledged, this is the group’s first time in London. She told Jewish News that she and Simon Maurer of Inspire, the Finchley-based production company, had tried five years ago to make it happen, but it didn’t work.

“This time we felt it was a good time to bring Koolulam to Europe. We thought that people needed to be together [after the events of 7 October 2023], and that we could help to uplift the Jewish community. For a few hours, people can step outside their comfort zone and sing in front of people they don’t know, and that’s where the magic happens.”

So — produced by Inspire and supported by the World Zionist Organisation — hundreds of us crowded into the auditorium of Barnet FC’s The Hive, some knowing what to expect and some not. It was a very ‘freeing’ event, insofar as no-one asked about the quality of singing and almost certainly some participants were tone-deaf and could not carry a tune if their life depended on it. But it really didn’t matter: what mattered was the camaraderie engendered by Inbar David and her three accompanying musicians — and the joy of singing Matisyahu’s best-known song, One Day.

The lyrics of One Day could not be more appropriate to a bruised and battered Jewish world in the wake of 7 October. “All my life I’ve been waiting for, I’ve been praying for, for the people to say, that we don’t wanna fight no more, there’ll be no more wars, and our children will play…”

In between the subtle teaching of harmony, Inbar allowed the crowd to let its collective hair down. We discovered that — even without the help of the two huge screens on either side of the auditorium — we all knew all the words to the theme song from Friends, Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now, Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel, and, inevitably, John Lennon’s Imagine.

I say “subtle” teaching of harmony. Cleverly, at no point does Koolulam ever use musical terminology which could have the effect of making people feel inadequate. Instead, Inbar sang all the melodies and encouraged us to copy her, with much animated raising and lowering of arms to show us when we should sing higher or lower.

And, fabulous to report, it worked. Voice Number One and Voice Number Two swept the air with three confident renditions of One Day, arranged by Koolulam. Matisyahu himself couldn’t have done it better.

Michal says that every time there is a Koolulam event she stands by the door as the crowd is leaving, catching their conversations and the glow in their faces. We — ranging in age from the very young to the very old — wore a universal grin and were justifiably pleased with ourselves.

Koolulam has one more show in London tonight, (Monday), Manchester on Wednesday and Amsterdam on Thursday; some tickets are still available

To book visit www.heartheharmony.com

Personally, I can’t wait for them to come back and teach us another song.