After Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg fell in love more than a decade ago, the now-married couple founded the progressive Americana bluegrass band Nefesh Mountain, which melds their love for Judaism with their passion for homegrown music. Combining influences including Appalachian bluegrass, blues and gospel, as well as American and Celtic folk, their songs at times have also drawn upon Hebrew lyrics, liturgy and inspiration from sources ranging from Rabbi Nachman of Breslov to Anne Frank.

The band’s name incorporates the seamless merging of the seemingly disparate material: “Nefesh” means “soul” in Hebrew, while mountains figure prominently in both Appalachian culture and the Bible.

Showing off Zasloff as chanteuse and Lindberg also providing lead vocals as well as playing the banjo and guitars, the group has been called “a powerhouse unit” by Rolling Stone while American Songwriter praised their “introspective lyrics and world-class musicianship.” With other musicians adding to the mix, Nefesh Mountain is among the first prominent Americana/bluegrass bands to infuse Jewish tradition and soul into the tapestry of American roots music.

On January 31, Zasloff and Lindberg will continue their journey with their sixth release and first double album, “Beacons,” which features one disc titled “Americana” and the other, “Bluegrass.” While the recording does not feature Hebrew lyrics or overtly Jewish content, it’s a deeper foray into the married couple’s personal lives, including their battles with infertility before Zasloff finally gave birth to their “miracle baby,” Willow, now three, as well as her struggles with alcoholism before she became sober 20 years ago.

Yet “Beacons,” in a way, profoundly reflects the couple’s Judaism. It’s no coincidence that the album presents 18 songs, a number that in Hebrew signifies the word for “life.” “It’s to me the spirit of tikkun olam – trying to heal the world, putting out love, and trying to be a better man, father and husband, which is part of my Jewish heritage,” Lindberg said in a Zoom interview.

During the same conversation, Zasloff said that “Beacons” is “an expression of us as Jews living in this really complicated world.” Each of the songs is meant to serve as a beacon of light to spread hope and unity, she said.

“We have many albums yet to make and at some point, there may be one that is all in Hebrew,” she added. “But with the state of things right now, we think that the message we want to share is a universal one – especially if we can be the Jewish musicians who are trying to connect with people of all backgrounds.”

Zasloff said she grew up “super Jewy,” attending Jewish camps and a day school while living in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. At the same time, she told Billboard, “I always felt like a cowgirl – like a wild-spirited thing, ever since I was little. I’ve always been attracted to this kind of music. I love the Southern soul.”

Lindberg was raised attending a Reform synagogue in Brooklyn and ultimately fell in love with the bluegrass tradition. “When we started making this band, it was sort of, how do we make music that is organic to us,” he said. “And it was very important that we were open about our Jewish heritage because we realized that in this Americana world that we both played music in, there’s a lack of a [Jewish] presence. There are diverse groups that play Americana music; it’s not just a cookie cutter white Christian male thing.”

In 2018, the couple took a “roots” trip to Poland and Ukraine to see the places their respective families hailed from as well as a number of Holocaust sites. “It was profound, it was life-changing, emotionally raw, almost indescribable,” Zasloff said. Then, six weeks after they returned home, an anti-Semite killed 11 people during a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh. “It really rocked our world; it really shook us up,” Zasloff said. The result was Nefesh Mountain’s last album, “Songs for the Sparrows,” which includes a song, “Tree of Life” — a plaintive tribute to the dead that is also meant to bring healing to those who were suffering. Returning home from the couple’s trip to Eastern Europe, Zasloff took solace in the fact that the Holocaust occurred long ago. “But all that has happened in the last few years, its all been one thing after another of radical hatred towards Jews and all people.”

The song, “Piece of the Sun,” also on the “Songs for the Sparrows” album, is more hopeful, based on something Zasloff’s older daughter said to her in the car when she was young. “She said, ‘Mommy, I think everyone in the world has a piece of the sun inside of them,’” Lindberg said. “It was one of these kids say the darnedest things moments, but it was also very wise. It was a very similar thought to what Anne Frank wrote in her journaling and diaries – her message that in the darkest times, people can still have this bright warmth, this light, that we have this piece of the sun, that maybe we’re all still good.”

Yet Zasloff and Lindberg were again devastated, on October 7, 2023, when news came of the Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens near the Gaza border. “We were just beside ourselves,” she said. “I don’t even know what the word is, but just grief and all the things we’ve all been feeling for everyone who’s in pain about this thing and feeling like we didn’t have a voice. We didn’t know what to say, we didn’t know how to make anything better, we just felt helpless.” In January, the couple began writing the songs that would become “Beacons,” their attempt to shine some light on a troubled world.

After an extensive tour, “the songs just came pouring out of us,” she said. “It’s a reaction to all these things that were happening globally with all these wars, what’s happening in our country because of divisiveness, what’s happening just with us. We had a baby during Covid, so now we’ve extended our family – we have three kids – so there are songs about parenthood, love and life and loss. It’s a continuum for me of writing about personal things that are going on for us and some of the troubling things in the world.”

One song, “What Kind of World,” features a verse about the tragedy of October 7 and the massacre of patrons at the Nova music festival in Israel.

A short documentary, “Becoming Beacons,” to be released in early 2025, chronicles the creation of the album, and a feature-length documentary is in the works for 2026. In the short film, Zasloff talks publicly for the first time about being a recovering alcoholic. “I just celebrated 20 years of sobriety, but it’s something I’ve never talked about ever, publicly. But I had this moment of, like, if I’m going to be an honest person and live this life that I want to live, I felt like I needed to share it …It’s almost like I owe it to somebody who might be struggling to know this is what I struggled with. But it’s very, very uncomfortable for me because it’s not something I’m used to talking about.”

Both Zasloff and Lindberg have publicly spoken out about the “deafening silence” regarding October 7 and the anti-Semitism they’ve encountered in the folk and Americana communities: “It’s been really hard,” Lindberg said. The couple described the hatred they’ve experience in depth in an article in Rolling Stone.

Zasloff told JLiving that “some people have implied we’re culturally appropriating by doing Jewish bluegrass; there are a few times where we’ve been made to feel that what we’re doing isn’t right. But for the most part, I would say the biggest thing we’ve felt is that many festivals wouldn’t bring us on…There are festivals that would never hire us be cause we’re Jewish, period, and have said that to us.

“We’ve also had some very terrible, awful messages on social media to the point I stopped posting because it was making me sick – the amount of hate we were getting and also towards our baby.

“I can also tell you that I don’t feel comfortable singing in secular places like I used to. I don’t know who’s in the audience and it’s not the same world as when we went on our ‘Love and Light’ tour last year. We had security. I also called every single city’s local police department to make sure they knew we were coming. I’m not sure what I’m going to do this year.”

Even so, Nefesh Mountain will embark upon an extensive national “Beacons” tour in February 2025 as scheduled, with concerts including a March 2 appearance at McCabe’s in Santa Monica. “We proudly wear the Jewish star on our chests, a Jewish voice of love,” Zasloff said.

For more concert dates and information, visit nefeshmountain.com. For information about the concert at McCabe’s visit: www.mccabes.com/product/nefesh-mountain/