זשאַבע-זיללאַ<p>Erez Zobary spent a long time downplaying her <a href="https://babka.social/tags/Jewish" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Jewish</span></a> identity in her <a href="https://babka.social/tags/music" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>music</span></a> career. Her earlier work—a blend of R&amp;B, pop, soul and jazz—dealt with issues relevant to her audience of largely twentysomethings: love lives, quarter-life crises, feeling stuck and aimless. It may not be surprising, then, that a woman whose songs so often looked inward would eventually turn to her heritage. As she tells Culturally Jewish, The CJN’s arts and culture podcast, her <a href="https://babka.social/tags/songs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>songs</span></a> began feeling increasingly disconnected from who she really was, and she wanted to try something drastically different.</p><p>The result is Erez, her new <a href="https://babka.social/tags/album" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>album</span></a>, which dives deep into her <a href="https://babka.social/tags/Yemenite" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Yemenite</span></a> family history—specifically her grandmother’s escape from <a href="https://babka.social/tags/Yemen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Yemen</span></a> to <a href="https://babka.social/tags/Israel" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Israel</span></a> as part of <a href="https://babka.social/tags/OperationMagicCarpet" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>OperationMagicCarpet</span></a>. Zobary joins the show to explain her process and backstory, and to share how she feels releasing an album with <a href="https://babka.social/tags/MiddleEastern" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>MiddleEastern</span></a> <a href="https://babka.social/tags/musical" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>musical</span></a> flourishes, covered in <a href="https://babka.social/tags/Hebrew" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Hebrew</span></a> writing, just one year after <a href="https://babka.social/tags/Oct7" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Oct7</span></a>.</p><p><a href="https://thecjn.ca/podcasts/erez-zobary-dives-into-her-yemenite-heritage-with-rb-soul/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">thecjn.ca/podcasts/erez-zobary</span><span class="invisible">-dives-into-her-yemenite-heritage-with-rb-soul/</span></a></p>