Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

Named for a Middle Eastern spice, Za'atar will be spicing up the 16th annual Jewish Music Festival in Berkeley with a performance and community jam session on Thursday, March 15.

The band, which will perform at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, specializes in Mizrachi music, the melodies of Jews rooted in Middle Eastern and North African traditions. The words may be Hebrew but the music has a uniquely Arab sound. There's a good reason why.

"I think you often get a picture of Jews in Arab countries being influenced by their neighbors," John Erlich, co-founder of Za'atar, explained in a recent interview at a Berkeley coffeehouse. "But what it really is, is that they were part of their countries and helped to make up what we traditionally think of as Arabic cultures."

While Mizrachi music is popular in Israel, it is relatively unknown in this part of the world, added co-founder and drummer Ron Elkayam. "Part of our mission is to show people another facet of Jewish culture," he said.

"Virtually nobody else in the U.S. is doing this professionally except some elderly gentlemen in the Syrian community in Brooklyn," Erlich added. "Kind of like a Jewish Buena Vista Social Club."

While Elkayam was born to Israeli parents and grew up with this music (his father is from Morocco), Erlich grew up in Sacramento. A jazz musician, he was first introduced to Arabic music when his sister took up belly dancing. He then became exposed to klezmer and Ladino music. On a trip to Israel he happened to pick up a cassette of Moroccan Jewish music. "It was like this light went off in my head," he said.

The two men met a few years ago, began playing together and added two more members, Daniel Eshoo and Daniel Ratner. Over the past three years they have brought their music to venues including the Warfield and Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, the World Sacred Music Festival in Los Angeles and the Sephardic Arts Festival at the Skirball Cultural Center, also in L.A.

"It's fun music," noted Erlich. "People love it. It's got a lot of rhythm to it. It's pretty hip.

"It's a combination of a complexity that engages the mind, strong rhythm that engages your body and a spiritual element that engages your spirit."

That spiritual element comes from the lyrics, which are taken from liturgical texts, such as Psalms or the Song of Songs. There are two major categories: piyuttim (hymns), which are old and tend to use the original melodies. These might be used as part of a religious service. Pizmon are relatively modern, having been composed in the last century. These have religious lyrics fitted to popular Arabic melodies.

In addition to the playing of exotic instruments such as the darbuka (drum), oud (a stringed instrument), kanun (a type of lap harp) and ney (reed flute), a performance might add a violin and a fretless acoustic bass.

"John goes to Israel and sends back crates of tapes," Elkayim said. "We listen to it and learn it and that's how we get much of our material."

The whole thing goes beyond music-making. All the way to peacemaking.

"For me, the music is important because it does build bridges between Arabs and Jews," said Elkayim, who is trained in conflict resolution and mediation techniques. "In this country," he added, we kind of take it for granted that Arabs and Jews are enemies. We've forgotten that Jews and Arabs used to be friends.

"John and I have both been involved in peacemaking efforts in Israel," Elkayam said. "We find that music is the best way to build bridges between cultures. Because music comes from the heart. Our hope is that, through our music, Jews who may not realize their shared connection with Arab peoples will recognize their kinship and shared culture. And for Arabs to know this, too.

"After all, Ishmael and Yitzhak were brothers. They were both the sons of Abraham."