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Moshav, formerly known as Moshav Band, is an Israeli-American Jewish rock band originating from Moshav Mevo Modi'im. Founded in 1996 by Yehuda Solomon and Duvid Swirsky, the group moved to Los Angeles in 2008 and have released ten studio albums. With a sound incorporating elements of alternative rock, Folk music, funk, and reggae, they were credited, alongside Soulfarm and Blue Fringe, with advancing Jewish rock in the early 2000s.
As the Moshav Band, they developed a live following in the late 1990s among North American college students studying abroad in Israel. A group of American fans raised money for the band to tour college Hillel Houses in the United States. Two other fans, Canadian Hebrew University students Sig Shore and Justin Korda, convinced philanthropist and Seagram CEO Edgar Bronfman Sr. to fund the band's first full-scale tour in North America and the recording of their debut album, 1998's The Things You Can't Afford. The album was recorded in Los Angeles, where the band would officially relocate as of 2000.
After changing their name from Moshav Band to simply Moshav, the group's mainstream profile was raised with the release of their sixth studio album, 2006's Misplaced, which was recorded with producer Ron Aniello, mixing engineer Brendan O'Brien, and musicians including drummer Matt Chamberlain, and was released by the Sony Music-affiliated Jewish Music Group (JMG) label. 2008 saw the band embark on a mini-tour of the East Coast with shows in Manhattan, Philadelphia, and New Jersey, followed by a series of concerts in Israel; during this time, the band acquired former Kelly Clarkson violinist Nimrod Nol. That summer, they performed at Vancouver Island's Big Time Out Festival alongside Matisyahu. In June 2009, they returned to Vancouver to perform at Granville Island Stage as part of a fundraising gala for Vancouver Hebrew Academy.
A seventh album, Dancing in a Dangerous World, was released in 2010. That same year, they gave a free public concert at United Hebrew Congregation in Chesterfield, Missouri.
In 2017, the band performed at Philadelphia's Gershman Y to benefit the Center City Orthodox synagogue Mekor Habracha; they had previously raised money for the synagogue with a 2012 show at Union Transfer. They also performed at the annual Jeffersonville-based Jewish music festival The Camping Trip in 2016 and 2017, alongside acts including Zusha, Matisyahu, Soulfarm, Kosha Dillz, and Levi Robin. They were set to return to the festival in 2018, with a lineup including Gad Elbaz, Hebro, and G-Nome Project, before its suspension due to legal difficulties.
In early December 2022, Moshav performed at the second annual "Shine a Light on Antisemitism" event in Times Square, alongside comedian Ariel Elias, rapper Nissim Black, former Miami Boys Choir member David Herskowitz, the Ramaz School Choir, and the cast of Folksbiene's Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. Later in the month, they returned to Newport Beach for another Chabad Center for Jewish Life menorah lighting and gave a pair of concerts at Brooklyn Made and Rutgers University, the latter to raise money for the charity Tomchei Shabbos. In an interview with Jewish News Syndicate, Yehuda Solomon teased a new upcoming album entitled World on Fire.
In April 2023, the non-profit The Shabbat Inc. organized a two-week Passover program hosted at the Las Vegas Strip's Resorts World, featuring performances by Moshav, Shir Soul, Six13, and comedians Mark Schiff, Daniel Lobell, and Brian Kiley.
In 2003, The New York Times described Moshav and their sibling band Soulfarm as being influenced by the improvisatory nature of the Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers Band, while their album Return Again had arrangements echoing folk rock artists Jack Johnson and Ben Harper. Other songs on Return Again have elements of Israeli folk, Celtic music, klezmer, and Latin music. The following album, Malachim (2005), continued a folk-influenced rock sound, split between jangle-driven pop rock and softer ballads and utilizing fiddle, mandolin, and . 2006's Misplaced saw the group expand into a more polished, Record producer-heavy sound with worldbeat and Electronic music elements akin to Peter Gabriel. Their 2014 album Shabbat Vol. 1 featured a blend of reggae, Middle Eastern, and traditional folk music with instrumentation including bouzouki, banjo, cello, trumpet and oud.
Yehuda Solomon has been noted for his unique vocals, which variously emulate Hazzan, Middle Eastern, and grunge singing styles, often drawing comparison to Eddie Vedder. His live performances are known to be exuberant and occasionally punctuated by "animalistic chants". Solomon has credited exposure to Sephardic music (by Moroccan Jews and Yemenite Jews friends), Ashkenazi Jews cantorial singing, and American rockers like Vedder with influencing his voice. In contrast, co-vocalist Duvid Swirsky typically sings with a softer folk-inflected voice, sometimes compared to Bob Dylan and Peter Gabriel, and he and Solomon are known to utilize close Vocal harmony. Summit Daily News noted that the vocals on Misplaced progress from being "steeped in Persian and Octatonic scale" on early tracks to emulating a cappella and country styles on later tracks.
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