Updated on Oct. 7
It was a Wednesday night in Berkeley, and the momentum was starting to pick up for the dozen or so musicians at the Sacred Music Fellowship’s weekly jam. A slow and slightly off-kilter rendition of the early Eagles hit “Peaceful Easy Feeling” got the evening started, segueing into Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold.”
Ben Kramarz, founder and president, counted off the songs. Five acoustic guitarists, a cellist, percussionist, pianist, electric bass player and several singers sans instruments launched into the familiar chords, which were projected along with lyrics onto a wall of the 2727 California Street art gallery.
Kramarz — son of the late Ken Kramarz, whose decades-long tenure as executive director of Camp Tawonga was characterized by his love of guitar and song — has sought to transplant the Jewish summer camp musical ethos into the heart of the urban Bay Area through the Sacred Music Fellowship.
The organization works to unite people across religions and cultures through the spiritual and emotional power of music, offering weekly jam sessions, music workshops and holiday events, including for Lag Ba’Omer and Sukkot.
“Nothing facilitates oneness like music. I like to say that we’re like the Havdalah candle, which braids people together,” Kramarz said. “Music is the spark.”
Kramarz, 39, named the secular-inclined Wednesday night sessions “Kenny’s Jam” in memory of his father. Kenny’s Jam sessions, which started in 2022, were followed the next year by the launch of Sacred Music Sessions and the founding of the nonprofit itself.
The Sacred Music Sessions take place on Thursday nights at locations across the East Bay. Each week a music leader from a different faith or cultural community shares their music tradition — an expanding pool of practices that has included bluegrass, klezmer, Sufi and Indonesian gamelan.
The nonprofit has also become a vehicle for bringing together Jewish denominations.
“We seem to be one of the only places uniting all the denominations,” said Sherri Kronfeld, a percussionist and Sacred Music Fellowship’s director of growth. “At Lag Ba’Omer there were rabbis and cantors from Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Renewal congregations — just about every Jewish organization in the East Bay.”
In mid-September, the Sacred Music Fellowship met at UC Berkeley for the first time, specifically at the Berkeley Hillel, where Hillel’s Rabbi Maya Zinkow led a session called “Singing for the Season of Awe” ahead of the High Holidays.
“I was a little skeptical because that part of Berkeley is totally student oriented and parking is tough, but we had a really good showing from the community and five students,” Kramarz said. “It’s all about building connections across different communities and demographics.”
Jam participants range “from alter-kockers to teenagers,” though they tend toward the former, said Eric Siegel of Oakland, a regular participant and pianist at Kenny’s Jam sessions. “It’s great to get young energy, and every week we seem to see new faces.”
One of the fellowship’s next major events is a Sukkot Jam at Urban Adamah in Berkeley at 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 12.
Rabbi Chai Levy of Berkeley’s Congregation Netivot Shalom will show up on electric bass, while Zinkow will handle vocals and song leading. Multi-instrumentalist and veteran song leader Sam Saxe-Taller and percussionist Carrie Staller will round out the combo. Kramarz will make sure that lyrics and chords are readily available, and everyone is encouraged to bring an acoustic instrument.
“The idea is it’s a community jam,” Kramarz said. “Let’s get everyone to make music with each other. You have to choose songs that enough people will know, but you don’t want only old songs. A couple people I invited are keeping up with what’s current. I rely on other people for that.”
Kramarz knows how music can transform individuals into a group, and he carefully designs the sessions so that joining in is as seamless as possible.
“The lyric display makes it easy to bring people on board, and in a jam that’s huge,” Kramarz said. At jam sessions organized by other groups, he said, “people don’t have a song list, and there are no lyrics and chords ready. If you’re a great musician you can do it, but we want to make this accessible to anyone who wants to sing or play.”
Kramarz is grateful for the alliance with 2727 California, a nonprofit gallery and event space owned by Marc Hellerstein, a UC Berkeley professor of nutritional sciences and toxicology.
“It’s better skipping a week or two than being in a space that’s not good,” said Kramarz.
The Sacred Music Fellowship has received four grants so far, two from the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission, one from the Alameda County Arts Commission and a fourth from KlezCalifornia. While he’s rooted in the East Bay Jewish community, Kramarz sees his calling through a wider lens.
“I’ve always been a universalist,” he said. “Studying all these summer camps you see the theme is unity, oneness, like how aspen trees are all connected underground.”