I am always in pursuit of connecting with the Shekhinah, the Jewish mystical conception of the divine feminine. I feel it most strongly when welcoming the Sabbath bride on Friday nights or when the first buds of spring blossom or when biting into a particularly juicy orange slice over the kitchen sink. I now feel the Shekhinah, too, in “Hashem,” the latest single from Brooklyn-based indie band Wetsuit.
“Hashem,” which debuted as a music video last Friday, is a soulful tribute to Jewish matriarchy. “Don’t walk behind me I may not lead / Don’t walk in front I won’t follow,” Jewish frontwoman Allison Becker croons to the camera. “Just walk beside me and hold my hand / And together we will greet her / Hashem.”
She sits cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by four generations of Jewish women in her family, including her 93-year-old bubbe Dolores and 6-year-old niece Maya. Shots of Allison singing and each member of her family lip-syncing a verse are spliced with a video of the family baking challah together. At the same time, grainy VHS-style tapes interject Hanukkahs, Shabbats and other family gatherings of the past.
“Hashem” is a banger, sweet and fulfilling like a crown of challah. The inclusion of the Jewish women of Allison’s family makes it all the more sweet. Together, these women conjure a powerful incantation of divinity around the listener. For the music video’s four minutes and 10 seconds, no matter what else is happening in the rest of the world, you are safe with these present and future Jewish ancestors.
Allison tells me via email that “Hashem” grew out of the question: “What if I wrote an indie rock camp song?” She borrowed lyrics from the Uncle Moishy song “Don’t Walk,” which she grew up singing at camp, and added her own. “You are stronger than you think” and “Only pour as much as you can drink” come directly from adages her bubbe used to tell her growing up. As she wrote, Allison thought about her family tradition of spending a day before the High Holidays to gather and bake challah, freezing extra loaves to use throughout the year. Sometimes, she says, as the challah dough rose they would all drive to the cemetery to leaves rocks on the graves of loved one. Realizing how cinematic and meaningful this custom was for her, the idea to use it for the “Hashem” music video “just clicked.”
“The first person I asked was my bubbe because I didn’t want to do it without her,” Allison explains. “I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be. She immediately said yes. She was thrilled.” And so, Allison and her family descended on her sister’s home to make the music video, which Allison also directed. It was a little weird at first, she admits, but soon the atmosphere shifted. She explained, “Eventually it felt like we were creating our own home video instead of filming a music video. Even though it was for my band, it felt like we were doing it for us.”
And, of course, the best part was that they all got to enjoy the challah together when it was done.
Allison started Wetsuit while living with her parents during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. When she got back to her home in Brooklyn, she assembled bandmates guitarist Anders Nils, bassist Paul DeSilva and drummer Tess Kramer (Stephen Cadieux was the band’s first drummer). Since then they have released an album called “Sugar, I’m Tired” and numerous music videos. One of them, 2023’s “Local Celebrity,” also draws on Allison’s Jewish heritage and family. The video features footage of Allison’s 2004 bat mitzvah, spliced with an adult bat mitzvah party Allison threw for herself — necessary to rectify the fact that she forgot to do the hora at her childhood bat mitzvah party.
“I wanted the music video for ‘Local Celebrity’ to honor the childhood bedroom origins of Wetsuit, which is where I got the idea to use my original bat mitzvah footage that my mom recently digitized,” Allison told Hey Alma at the time.
Now, with the release of “Hashem,” Wetsuit is gearing up for a show at Main Drag Brooklyn on April 30 and the release of a full-length album sometime later this year. But of course, for Allison, the release is deeper than that. Over Passover, Allison returned home to St. Louis and was able to privately share the video with her family. “I can confirm that many tears were shed,” she says. “I feel honored that I got to make a new memento for my family.”
