Midway through Yasmin Levy’s San Francisco concert, an audience member couldn’t take it anymore, and shouted “guapa!” — foxy — at the glamorous Sephardi Israeli singer.
It was not the most diplomatic utterance imaginable, but it did come with diplomatic approval.
“Oh, she is guapa, no doubt about it,” agreed Camilo Barcia, the Spanish consul general, who, along with his Israeli counterpart, David Akov, co-sponsored the Saturday, Aug. 27 event.
When the Israeli consulate’s cultural attaché, Tamar Akov, approached Barcia about co-sponsoring the free show, he jumped at the “natural” opportunity.
“The Sephardic phenomenon is quite unique. And, since the crown and democracy returned to Spain, there has been a significant effort to strengthen our ties with the Sephardim.”
As culturally significant as the night may have been for the nearly 500 people packing the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco’s Kanbar Hall, it was also a hell of a show.
Fronting a mesmerizing four-piece band — a woodwind-player, Spanish-style guitarist, percussionist and husband, Ishay Amir, on drums — Levy effortlessly blended the Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Spanish sounds, belting out Ladino melodies in a powerful and unforgettable voice.
Levy, whose soft-speaking voice recalls Marilyn Monroe, effortlessly directed a largely jacket-and-tie-wearing crowd to clap and sing along with her band, and anywhere between a third to half of the audience seemed to get her jokes when she spoke between numbers in Castilian Spanish.
She got a laugh from the San Francisco crowd when she remarked (in English) that the sharp inclines of the city’s streets terrified her, but, after the show, Levy let on that the comment wasn’t entirely in jest.
“Oh, that was a joke, but, then it was not a joke,” said the 29-year-old Jerusalem-born singer. Her shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New York City brought her to the United States for the first time.
The daughter of Ladino scholar Yitzhak Levy, Yasmin’s entrée into the world of Sephardi music was natural — but never a given.
While her onstage poise and breathtaking voice might indicate otherwise, Levy has only been singing professionally for five years, and at all for 12. Prior to this, she “wanted to be a vet.”
Levy spent a month in Spain at age 17, and took to Spanish with computer-like rapidity. She now speaks, thinks and writes in Spanish with such proficiency that she admits difficulty singing in her native Hebrew.
And, while playing in front of mixed crowds is no big thing for Levy, her San Francisco show offered the chance to sing before a mixed crowd of consuls general. In addition to sponsors Israel and Spain, diplomats from Germany, Nicaragua, Columbia, Guatemala, Mexico and Ecuador dotted the crowd.
Tamar Akov, the consul general’s wife, relished the eclectic makeup of the crowd, citing it as an easy opportunity to present a different side of Israel to a world audience that has generally dismissed the Jewish state as a nation of conflict, conflict and more conflict.
Levy, meanwhile, says she plans to branch out a bit from her Judeo-flamenco oeuvre, perhaps even releasing an album in Hebrew. But she’ll never give up the language of her forefathers.
“I know I will sing Ladino the rest of my life,” said Levy, who will headline Carnegie Hall in December.
“It is a dying language, and this is a holy mission.”