Last week, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy and his two sons, Spencer and Sammy, shared a moving rendition of Debbie Friedman’s beautiful tune for the Jewish prayer for healing, the Mi Sheberach. The recording is dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti shook the city.
“This is a song for healing. We send this to the people of Minneapolis,” Jeff’s Jewish wife and Spencer and Sammy’s mother, Susan Tweedy, wrote on Instagram. “What’s happening there is so terrible and traumatic. Sending love and strength to everyone there, including some dear friends, and to people struggling everywhere,” she continued.
The trio first shared their take on the Hebrew prayer six years ago, in a live social media broadcast during the pandemic. The family quarantined together in Chicago, sharing their musical missives with the world.
In that original recording, you can hear Susan’s soft sniffles in the background as she listens to her sons’ heartfelt, harmonious rendition of the Hebrew words that ask for healing.
It was the perfect tune for a moment when the world over needed healing — both physically, with the spread of COVID-19 raging, and emotionally, with isolation and fear taking a mental toll on us all. The song was originally written and composed by Friedman during the height of the AIDS epidemic.
Tweedy and his sons — who are both featured on his solo albums and tour with their father, but also have their own incredible musical projects — have shared the song on one more occasion.
It was October 9, 2023, just days after the October 7 attack in Israel. In a verdant setting, the Tweedys sent us exactly the kind of healing and peace we all needed, with empowering words at a time when we felt so powerless.
That video was actually recorded before the attack, possibly while Sammy was living in Tel Aviv. “[My] favorite part about living in Tel Aviv is that when I am surrounded mostly by Jews, I just feel a little bit more understood,” Sammy shared with Havurah.
Jeff Tweedy converted to Judaism about a decade ago.
“Sammy, our younger son, was struggling quite a bit with the [bar mitzvah] process, and kind of begging to not to be forced to go to Hebrew school,” Tweedy told JTA. “But it was important to us, and important to his mother.”
And so Tweedy decided that instead of dropping off Sammy at their synagogue, Temple Emmanuel in Chicago, he would join him, taking conversion classes while Sammy studied his Torah portion.
“I joked at the time, even to the rabbi, that I just thought that I should be on the same team as my family when something goes down. And now it’s not a funny joke at all,” he told NPR.
In the end, the plan worked. “He ended up getting bar mitzvahed and I ended up converting,” Tweedy shared. He sang at both boys’ bar mitzvahs, and even brought legendary folk singer and activist Mavis Staples, who won two Grammys this year, to sing at Sammy’s ceremony.
For Jewish fans of Wilco like myself, there’s something particularly moving about having the singer of the songs that helped you find comfort in your youth (lots of sleepless nights spent cuddling my Discman for emotional support as “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” and “A Ghost Is Born” played) strum along to this quintessential Jewish song for healing, as his two sons harmonize to the Hebrew and English words.
And those words, as ever, are so meaningful: “May the source of strength who blessed the ones before us. Help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing, and let us say Amen.”
It’s so very l’dor vador, though in this case, it’s the younger generation that led Tweedy to Judaism. Here’s hoping this talented family covers even more of Debbie Friedman’s amazing oeuvre.
