Naftali Kempeh sings the language of simplicity and soul

Photos: Elchanan Kotler, Daniel Nefoussi

IF you want to find out why bochurim flock to Naftali Kempeh’s kumzitz concerts, don’t ask his wife. She won’t be able to tell you.

That’s because Leah Kempeh has never even seen Naftali perform in public.

And that’s perfectly fine with both of them. Leah is happy that her husband of seven years doesn’t sing in front of women, and Naftali appreciates the separation between his professional music side and his private family life. With three successful albums in just four years and a fully-booked calendar of concerts and events, Naftali is grateful for the advice he got from Rav Yaakov Friedman of Tifrach, the southern Israeli yeshivah town where Naftali grew up.

“When I saw that my star was rising, I went to Rav Friedman and asked, ‘How can I keep myself centered in this field?’ He told me, ‘Make sure that what you have at home is most important, make sure your home is your priority, and as long as you remember that, everything will be fine.’  He’s so right — I feel it every day. In this industry, sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, but my wife and family are always my anchor.”

That’s not to say that Leah doesn’t ever get to hear her husband interface with a listening public drawn to his sincere, unpretentious style and musical talent. He’s the Friday morning presenter on Radio Kol Chai’s Erev Shabbos music program, his broadcast coming from a little studio off the living room in their French Hill apartment.

“When we got married, he wasn’t the celebrity he is today, but the regesh of his music was so much a part of him that I felt an instant connection,” says Leah. “I might not go to the kumzitzes, but we’re on a journey together.”

Jerusalem’s French Hill neighborhood is a long way from Tifrach, and for Naftali Kempeh, that journey began as a young boy growing up in the somewhat isolated chareidi litvish enclave off the highway between Netivot and Be’er Sheva.

But don’t think Naftali was a kid who felt he was being raised in a ghetto and had to break free. “You know, people look at Monroe as the most closed place on earth, but ask a Satmar chassid from Monroe, and he’ll say, ‘I live in a ghetto? No way, I live in the best place in the world. I have a job, a house, a rebbe, good schools, what more could I want?’ True,” he says, “Tifrach was pretty isolated when I was growing up — in the makolet they didn’t even sell gum — but it was a happy, safe, secure place, filled with Torah, integrity and idealism, and our home was always  filled with simchah.”