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$31,662.10

Raised

Gifts

$30,000

Goal

Support Batya Levine’s Upcoming Album!

I am honored and humbled to announce my second album of original music, which I hope can be a balm for the heart and a source of resilience and healing amdist a broken world.

We need music.

These past few months have been devastating and terrifying. Song and prayer have been some of the few tools that have enabled me to connect to something wider than the impossible narrowness and pain of this moment. Song has carried me in the streets and in shul, and it has opened pathways for connection across political differences I was not sure were possible right now.


I know we need music.  It sustains and nourishes us. Music helps us be with ourselves - metabolizing our fear and stuck places, softening with compassion, tapping into the well of resilience, and directing our hearts in prayer and action. It reconnects us to the Divine, our ancestors, our communities, and a wider vision of the world we are fighting for. Music reminds us that we are not alone, and that another world is possible, if we can build it together. 

This Album.

I recorded my first album, Karov, in 2020, days before the pandemic hit. Then everything changed, and has kept changing since. It has been a wild and beautiful journey to watch this music travel and move with so many people and places – in prayer spaces, protests, song gatherings, and quiet moments. Thank you for giving this music life, and welcoming these songs into your communities and into the deepest parts of your being. So much has been new for me, and it’s been an exciting, challenging and generative time. Thank you for being with me these past four years as I’ve learned and deepened my practice as a musician, communal song and prayer leader, and cultural organizer.  Making this album is another big step on this learning journey, and I want to invite you, my community, to join me in making it happen.


This album will be released by Rising Song Records and recorded at Kol Tzedek (my home synagogue!), on Lenni-Lenape land, in West Philly. It is a collection songs written over the past 8 years, that are born out of grief and love. These songs have been medicine for me, and I hope they can be for you too. I hope they may offer resonance and accompaniment through the beautiful and the painful. I pray they can be an invitation to be held, as we move through this ever-changing, heartbreaking, and beautiful world. 

Join me in making this album a reality!

I believe in the power of communally funded music!! This music lives and breathes in community, and crowdfunding is a model that invites our communities into the vital role of partnering with artists to make albums, that in turn nourish and sustain our communities. In a world where artists no longer significantly profit from album sales or streams,  it is increasingly difficult to produce an album without funding. Rather than seeing listeners simply as consumers of the music, this model values the real mutual relationship between artists and their community of listeners. I see this model as a powerful opportunity for us to partner in this cultural work together. 


This album will take the work of so many, and I want to honor the labor and care of all those involved. In a time when the world is falling apart, it feels hard to ask for support for this music, especially in the form of $30,000!  This number is an attempt to value the time, energy, and gifts of a number of musicians, artists, community workers and engineers as well as pay for the costs of travel, housing, production, and distribution. In this way, fundraising isn’t just about the music, it is also about supporting the larger work of artists and cultural workers that is so vital right now. Any amount that you can give is incredibly helpful. 


Click the "GIVE" button to the right to see all giving levels and perks, including early access to music, tickets to the live video recording session, and bringing Batya to your community.


**** All contributions are made through Hadar (via this donorbox page) and are tax deductible. ****


The Album Team:

Batya Levine: Producer, Composer, Lead Vocals

Yoshie Fruchter: Producer, Guitar, Bass, Vocals

Anat Halevy Hochberg: Vocal Director, Vocals

Arielle Rivera Korman: Violin, Vocals

Aly Halpert: Vocals

Molly Bajgot: Vocals

Richie Barshay: Percussion

Jessie Reagen: Cello


Joey Weisenberg: Executive Producer

Deborah Sacks Mintz: Production Partner

Don Godwin: Audio Engineer

Jess Benjamin: Video

Sol Weiss: Album Art & Graphic Design

Sarah Chandler: Fundraising Advisor
Josh Fleet: Label Support


Releasing with Rising Song Records

Recording live at Kol Tzedek on Lenni-Lenape land (Philadelphia, PA).


…and more hands, hearts, and voices TBD!

Other Ways You Can Help:

There are many ways to support this work, and thank you for already supporting in the ways that you do. If financial support isn't feasible for you, you can help out by sharing this campaign!


About Me:

Batya Levine uses song as a tool for cultivating healing and resilience in their work as a communal song leader, musician, shaliach tzibur (Jewish prayer leader) and cultural organizer. They offer song, ritual, and workshops in a variety of communities, and compose original music made of Ashkenazi yearning, queer heart-medicine, and emunah (faith/trust). Batya is a co-founder and Director of Programs at Let My People Sing!. Batya is also an alumni of the Rising Song Fellowship and Residency programs. Batya released their first album, Karov, with Rising Song Records in 2020. Batya is also a lover of the ocean, queer dance parties, and puns. www.batyalevine.com


Redistribution / Matched Gifts :

Part of the kavanah (intention) of this album is to be part of creating the world we want. As someone with race and class privilege, I have access to networks and resources that indigenous people and people of color have had systematically taken from them. If you are able to donate to this campaign, please also consider joining me in the holy work of wealth redistribution and making a match gift to one of the following powerful organizations working towards our collective liberation:

Honorariums for the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation in Lenapehoking is way to support this Land Back effort and acknowledge the colonial theft and exploitation of the land encompassed in Lenapehoking (including all of New Jersey, northern Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania and southeastern New York) that was cared for by Lenape peoples since time immemorial. The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation will maintain self sufficiency and determination of how the funds will be used, internal to their tribe. 


The Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project is building a youth-led movement to end the practice of trying and incarcerating young people as adults and create a world without youth incarceration.  Through our work in the Philadelphia jails, YASP provides space for incarcerated young people to express themselves creatively and to develop as leaders both within and beyond the prison walls.  Young people who have been through the adult court system are at the forefront of YASP, leading the movement to keep young people out of adult prisons and to create new possibilities for youth around the city.

Anera is a nonprofit organization that envisions a Middle East where people live with dignity, purpose, and opportunity. Anera mobilizes resources for immediate emergency relief and for sustainable, long-term health, education, and economic development. Anera is delivering food, water, medicine and hygiene kits right now to those who are facing mass displacement in Gaza. 

Photo Credit: Jess Benjamin at Let My People Sing! Summer Retreat 2023