Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Ezra Ben-Shalom\u2019s debut solo album, Known and Unknown, was released in 2025. <\/i>(photo by Michelle Behr)<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n
With his debut solo album, released last year, Kelowna musician Ezra Ben-Shalom shows off his personal side, with a uniquely Jewish touch.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For Ben-Shalom, who reconnected to Jewish ritual practice around five years ago, Known and Unknown<\/i> \u2013 his first solo project \u2013 is a deeply personal one. The focus of his music and daily life has become all about asking questions, he said. It\u2019s about finding ways to be of service in the world and creating a connection with something larger than himself. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m doing my best to be of value to the world and to the culture. And, you know, you step in front of a room of people and take a deep breath and open your mouth and sing \u2013 I want to offer something that\u2019s real, that\u2019s authentic and that\u2019s meaningful,\u201d the 43-year-old said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n The album is highly Jewish-inspired, owing to his own reconnections \u2013 and, he said, he hopes it will encourage empathy among listeners. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think the album title was maybe a hint to myself to come from that place of humility, that we don\u2019t have the answers, as much as we think we know or that we learn,\u201d said Ben-Shalom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The songs on Known and Unknown<\/i> include some Hebrew words, and the sounds of a shofar on two tracks, though the lyrics are largely in English.<\/p>\n Jewish themes shape much of Ben-Shalom\u2019s interpretation and highly personal expressions; however, he emphasizes that, while his path is Jewish, he sees the disc\u2019s new compositions as something more broadly accessible. The songs, he said, are \u201cabout inner experiences and feelings and reflections, and they\u2019re about living in the world as a human being, not as a Jewish human being.\u201d<\/p>\n Themes of transformation, vulnerability and boldness underline the album\u2019s adult alternative and folk-adjacent sounds, and Jewish references abound, with songs titled \u201cShechina,\u201d \u201cShake the Dust,\u201d and \u201cEl and Gil.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n New name, old passion<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n Ben-Shalom is the new-ish musical handle of producer and multi-instrumentalist Ezra Cipes, who grew up in Kelowna and has played in bands since he was 14 years old, he told the CJN<\/i>.<\/p>\n By the time he was 19, Cipes and one of his three brothers co-wrote a song with Indian-born Canadian punk\/alternative music icon Bif Naked, who grew up in Winnipeg. He\u2019s also performed regularly and recorded with the Calgary-born indie-pop-folk artists Tegan and Sara. (Bif Naked\u2019s bassist, Chris Carlson, produced, co-wrote and played most of the other instruments on Ben-Shalom\u2019s 2025 album.)<\/p>\n Prior to the new project, another band featuring the musical Cipes family had been nominated in 2022 for a Juno Award in the children\u2019s music category for the second disc by the troupe, called the Oot n\u2019 Oots. The five-piece band comprised Ezra; his three brothers, Matthew, Gabe and Ari; and his daughter, Ruthie, who was the singer.<\/p>\n When that project wound down following the end of 2023 summer festivals, the guitarist and keyboard player turned to exploring a different expressive musical language. He had set out on that musical exploration when the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas in Israel, which triggered the Gaza war, refocused his artistic lens.<\/p>\n \u201cOct. 7 put a lot of things into focus and showed the ways that, really, we\u2019re all lost in one way or another,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The way the world responded after Oct. 7 was a \u201cfrustrating and painful\u201d experience, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou think, \u2018What can any of us do?\u2019 And none of us can fix it \u2013 you can\u2019t completely change all these cultural narratives and people\u2019s ideas and correct the record or bring a higher perspective on our own, but we can do our part. We can stand strong in our own truth and share it, proudly and with strength and humility.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Explaining that he\u2019s always needed \u201ca little spiritual medicine in my life,\u201d Ben-Shalom described reading at night, from literature and philosophy to spiritual and self-help books, and had long realized he needed to do that, even before he connected with Judaism. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Pivotal turn to Judaism<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n Growing up, while his family \u2013 who own a successful organic vineyard \u2013 belonged to a local synagogue, they weren\u2019t traditionally observant, though he became bar mitzvah and attended Jewish summer camp.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But, as an adult, he reflected, he was \u201ctotally disconnected\u201d when it came to traditional Jewish practice and observance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It was a moment in 2020, early during the pandemic, following a sweat lodge ceremony led by Ron Hall, a longtime family friend who\u2019s an Indigenous artist and biologist, that brought Ben-Shalom an epiphany.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt [the sweat lodge] was one of those moments that really flipped a switch in my whole life, and it was just a hinge moment. I thanked him [Hall] for the ceremony, and I shared with him how powerful it was and how meaningful it was, how deep it was,\u201d said Ben-Shalom.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I said to him that he\u2019s lucky to have the traditions to draw on to connect with his own soul and with the creator and I said to him: \u2018All I have is this shallow materialistic Western culture.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd he said, \u2018What are you talking about, Ezra? You\u2019re Jewish. You come from an Indigenous people.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Nobody had ever said that to him before, Ben-Shalom recalled, and it became a turning point. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI had grown up thinking it was cool to be Jewish and, like, neat, but also vaguely embarrassing to be Jewish, and it was something I didn\u2019t really like to talk about or get into very much because \u2026 I always felt othered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The COVID-era wave of social justice movements brought a resurgence of ideas \u201cabout decolonization and equality,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s good to support the Indigenous people keeping their culture, keeping their language, keeping their tradition, keeping the oral culture alive.\u201d<\/p>\n He felt a tinge of hypocrisy. \u201cAnd then I realized I was not honouring my own ancestors and I didn\u2019t know my own language. I didn\u2019t know my own story,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ben-Shalom now attends the local Chabad, lays tefillin and wears tzitzit and a kippah.<\/p>\n He described one of the first times he performed the new music at a live show at the Kelowna venue Revelry in 2024.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI got off stage and my whole body was sore, from holding myself and breathing and keeping myself grounded and keeping myself in a state of service,\u201d he said. (Since then, he\u2019s felt \u201ca little bit more relaxed\u201d performing the new material.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe songs are almost like prayers, and you have to kind of get into that place to sing them, where there\u2019s a genuine connection and not just notes and not just words.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ben-Shalom hopes to bring the album in a live performance to audiences across Canada, and to ensure that includes Jewish audiences, he told the CJN<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to play for all audiences that will have me, but, in particular, I want to go and play for Jewish people,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to share these songs with Jewish people. I want to bring inspiration, pride and honour to our tradition, to Jewish people.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Jonathan Rothman<\/b> is a reporter for the <\/i>CJN based in Toronto. This article was originally published on thecjn.ca and is reprinted with permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Ezra Ben-Shalom\u2019s debut solo album, Known and Unknown, was released in 2025. (photo by Michelle Behr) With his debut solo album, released last year, Kelowna musician Ezra Ben-Shalom shows off his personal side, with a uniquely Jewish touch.\u00a0 For Ben-Shalom, who reconnected to Jewish ritual practice around five years ago, Known and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,788],"tags":[24764,218,2995,3036,22725],"class_list":["post-48688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-music","tag-ezra-ben-shalom","tag-judaism","tag-kelowna","tag-music","tag-oct-7"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}