Jewish a cappella band Six13 knows how to uplift us. From their Queen parody to this amazing Lion King Passover medley, the band just has some of the most exciting Jewish parody videos in town.
With the coronavirus pandemic, I had no expectation that the group would churn out another Passover bop. But, sure enough, they brought us the perfect Passover quarantine anthem! It’s so moving and so relatable.
The video features the band’s six members (in matching checked shirts!) and their families in their very familiar daily social distancing routines — from Zoom calls to nervous grocery shopping trips (with a mask, of course) to hand-washing and toilet paper hoarding to the struggles of working from home with kids (in this case, trying to record a Passover parody!).
In one frame of the video, the family of one of the band members is shown clapping for frontline coronavirus workers out of their balcony, a reminder that our sense of community right now is so important, even if we can’t physically be together.
The band took inspiration from the Haggadah’s “Vehi She’amda,” which is all about resilience. But while the Maccabeats took the song and gave it a solemn niggun treatment, Six13 turned the song into a true dramatic pop ballad, complete with original lyrics and impressive vocal riffs.
The lyrics are earnest and heartfelt, acknowledging the scariness and uncertainty of these times. However, they also remind us that, although we are far away from each other right now, “our tradition and our history/ keep us close as we could ever be.”
Thank you, Six13, for bringing us the quarantine pop power ballad we didn’t know we needed.
