Not long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Cantor Jamie Marx of Temple Sholom in Broomall came to a couple of local music professionals with what he identified as a problem that needed solving.
Marx approached Philly Music Lab co-founders Samantha Wittchen and Alexandra Cutler-Fetkewicz and said he wanted to start an annual event that would bring together Philadelphia Jews and allow them to enjoy the music of their culture together.
“He was very clear that there wasn’t a way for the broader Philadelphia-region community of Jews to come together at a larger event that celebrates Jewish music,” Wittchen said. “He said, ‘I’ve been wanting to [change] this, might you be willing to help me with this?’ And we were like, ‘heck yeah!’”
Now, years after that idea first took hold, the team behind the first Philly Jewish Music Festival is set to hold its inaugural event on May 17, featuring local legends like Schmidty and internationally acclaimed headliner Matisyahu, among others.
While it took a few years for this idea come to fruition, the team behind the festival has been working diligently since that first conversation.
“For us, being able to lift up the music of the Jewish diaspora was something that was really, really interesting and attractive. When we started, we were kind of off to the races with figuring out, ‘what does this look like? How big is this going to be? What does it encompass?’” Wittchen said.
Ultimately, the group decided that the festival should be a mix of big and small, accessible and exciting. While Matisyahu brings his Grammy-nominated cache to the festival, the Philly Jewish Music Festival team wanted to make sure that local artists would be spotlighted, as well.
The festival starts at 10 a.m. but goes late into the night, with Matisyahu taking the stage at 9 p.m.
“We decided that it made sense to have a day-long festival that runs from essentially noon to 10 p.m., with some programming for kids in the morning that will start at about 10,” Wittchen said. “Then we [decided] we would have two stages, so that we have the ability to move people between the stages, plus certain groups are better on a smaller stage than they are on a really large stage, so we’ll have that flexibility as well.”
The kids program will be held in coordination with Jewish Learning Venture, which is well-versed in kids activities and events.
“From the beginning, we wanted this to be something that people could bring their families to,” Wittchen said.
The Philly Jewish Music Festival isn’t just inclusive of all ages — it’s also designed to accommodate and appeal to Jews of all racial backgrounds, nationalities and music preferences, too.
Ken Ulansey’s Whirled Music featuring Phyllis Chapell plays a unique blend of klezmer, jazz, Latin, funk and more. Souls on Fire is a Jewish Philly staple that plays progressive rock that is reminiscent of modern tunes and old Hasidic music, too. Lily Henley is a singer-songwriter and fiddler who plays Sephardic Jewish music. Schmidty and Rellik are both Philadelphia rappers. Matisyahu, born in Chester County, makes music in a variety of genres and styles.
While this event is novel for Philadelphia, there are other Jewish music festivals in the United States and abroad. Wittchen said that the team in Philly looked to these other events for guidance when planning what would work best for this community.
“After taking in all the information of what other musical festivals we could find, we landed on having a single-day indoor festival,” Wittchen said.
The festival is being held at 2300 Arena, which has a capacity of 1,000 people. There are still tickets for sale, and festival organizers are hesitant to say if they will sell out in 2026.“Because this is our first year, we’ve been very trying to be very conservative with our estimates of how many people might attend. We’ve been saying that, if we can get half of that, that would be amazing,” Wittchen said.
The hope, however, is the Philly Jewish Music Festival will be around for many more years.
“I can’t think of a single person I have talked to who has been like, ‘well, that’s a dumb idea,’” Wittchen said. “Everywhere we’ve been, all the conversations we’ve had, people have been really forthcoming with saying, ‘we need this right now.’”