‘We are a global and diverse people’

Do you think you know what Jewish music sounds like?

You’re right. You do.

But do you think you know what all Jewish music sounds like, or do you think that you could be surprised?

If you guessed that surprise is possible, you’re right again.

Laura Wetzler plays all kinds of Jewish music — the music she grew up with, rooted in Ashkenaz, and the music she’s discovered from Jewish communities around the world, from Sefarad and far beyond.

She’ll play some of that wide-ranging repertoire at Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell on Sunday night. (See below.)

Ms. Wetzler’s becoming a musician and musicologist probably was overdetermined.

She’s from Babylon, on Long Island’s south shore, and “I grew up singing Jewish music,” she said. “My mother worked in synagogues, and she had a radio program of Jewish music on WBAB when I was a child. There are pictures of my mother, Rosalie, when she was pregnant with me, working in a synagogue.

“I helped her with her program at times. And she also collected records of Jewish music from around the world. I remember, from when I was a kid, that we had some of the first recordings of immigrants’ music.”

Ms. Wetzler’s father, Rudi, was a refugee from Germany who “got out early, in 1935; he had been part of the resistance movement and was about to be arrested,” Ms. Wetzler said. Both her parents had a powerful influence on her development as a musician and as a Jew.

She first played professionally when she was 15, Ms. Wetzler said.

“I love to put together shows that broaden the idea of what Jewish culture is. We are a global and diverse people. Jewish culture really is many, many cultures, and Jewish music is a way to celebrate that.

“Song also is a way to share Jewish history.”

As a musicologist, Ms. Wetzler discovers — or, to be fair, uncovers for other parts of the Jewish world — the music of Jews from places far away from us.

“I have been researching since I was a kid,” she said. “I scour libraries, and I also do a lot of traveling.”

That part of her life began during her teens, “back in the day, when my friend Joe Elias and I would go to nursing homes in Brooklyn.” Mr. Elias was a well-known Ladino musician and researcher who did a great deal to keep the music alive.

“We’d listen to the people there speak and sing in Ladino; we’d notate their songs.”

People spoke Ladino then, still, in the 1980s? Oh yes, she said. “That generation of immigrants came from all over the world,” and the languages they spoke we might have presumed dead, but they still lived.

“Ladino speakers originally came from Spain, but after 1492,” when they were expelled from that Catholic country, “they were scattered all over the world — to Turkey, Greece, the Balkans. Joe Elias grew up as a native speaker of Ladino. We would go to visit elders from that community, who still lived in Brooklyn.”

Since then, she’s traveled the world in search of Jewish music. “I went to Israel. I went to Europe. I’ve worked with the Abayudaya in Uganda,” she said. “I have sat with them and shared songs with them. As a musician, every place you go, you pick up music. Every culture has its own style of singing, and its own techniques. You have to study it to be able to sing it well.” On the other hand, though, “music is the most fluid of the arts,” she said. “Songs are easily passed on.”

Much of Jewish music is about Jewish survival, Ms. Wetzler said. “A lot of the Ladino songs were carried by women, and a lot of Yiddish songs also were carried by mothers, who often are great carriers of music, particularly folk songs. The songs will be lullabies, teaching songs, cautionary songs, love songs — they tell us so much about their place and time. About their moment.”

The band Ms. Wetzler will bring to Agudath will play music from around the Jewish world; it includes bassist Wes Brown and Robin Burdulis, who plays Mideast, Latin, and African percussion. She’s also bringing a special guest, Alicia Svigals, the violinist who was a cofounder of the Klezmatics, back when klezmer music re-exploded into American Jewish life.

“We’ll play a wide variety of songs from around the world,” she said. “We rock out. We play a lot of dance music. It’s upbeat. It’s a lot of fun.”

Over the course of her career, Ms. Wetzler has put together more than 50 shows, she said, and they’re not all about Jewish music. “I also specialize in American music, particularly 20th-century American pop, which has been tremendously influenced by Jewish songs. So I do over 100 concerts a year, which include Jewish songs from around the world, the history of American popular music, and the intersection of Jewish and African-American songwriters. If you put those two groups together, you have American music.”

Overall, she said, “I have a great passion and love for Jewish music.”

That will be clear on Sunday night.

Who: Laura Wetzler

What: Will be in concert with her band

And who else: Her special guest, Klezmatics cofounder Alicia Svigals

When: On Sunday, December 15, at 7 p.m.

Where: Congregation Agudath Israel, Caldwell

How much: $20; $15 in advance; children 13 and under $10/$5 (Advance registration ends at noon on December 13.)

Sponsored by: The Spiegel Music Endowment Fund

For tickets: Call (973) 226-3600 or go to Agudath.org/event/Laura-Wetzler-Concert