Who's never heard of Shlomo Carlebach?

A many-sided, colorful personality, the "Dancing Rabbi" composed about 1,000 tunes that have become the inalienable property of Jews everywhere. They range from Essa Eyani, which every schoolchild knows, to Am Yisrael Hai, a song popular throughout the Jewish world.

"Reb Shlomele" as he was known to his friends, was the true pioneer of keyruv bringing lost souls back to their faith and drawing people closer to Jewish tradition. Less than a decade after the Shoah, when Jews were often despondent and confused, he started visiting remote communities and imbuing them with an authentic Jewish spirit through the magic of his guitar and his soulful voice. Most of those who heard him then are now fully involved in Jewish life.

His teaching are rooted in the simple faith of Hasidism. To make them palatable, however, he resorted to the language used by hippies and flower children of the 1960s. Although some rigidly Orthodox folk denounced his "permissive" religious approach, Shlomo Carlebach turned hundreds of people and their families into observant Jews and moved tens of thousands with his prayerful words and his call for brotherly love.