Dan and Jeff met as college students in 1971. Rooming together as faculty at a Jewish youth retreat, they sang late into the night. Their voices immediately clicked into harmony, and they soon began performing for Jewish audiences.

From their beginning as songleaders and composers of new Jewish songs, through their individual careers as a rabbi and cantor, Kol B’Seder has helped create a unique canon of American Jewish music. The duo is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its most famous song, “Shalom Rav,” a Hebrew prayer for peace, which is sung around the world and often mistakenly thought to be a “traditional” melody.

Their singing style has been likened to Simon and Garfunkel, combined with the humor of musical comedians such as Allan Sherman and Weird Al Yankovic. For most of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, along with their close friend, the late Debbie Friedman, Kol B’Seder’s music defined a new Jewish sound that was joyous and spiritual. Spread by word-of-mouth and cassette tapes, their songs became a “Jewish soundtrack” for thousands of youth at camps, schools and synagogues worldwide. One commentator described them as “the Beatles of contemporary Jewish music.”

Kol B’Seder has performed throughout the United States, in Israel, England, and Russia. For many years they appeared annually at the CAJE conference for Jewish educators. In 1978 they sang in Central Park for the Salute to Israel Concert. In 1987 they led the music for Freedom Sunday, a rally in Washington D.C. supporting Soviet Jewry and attended by a quarter million people. And in 2007 they were honored with a special concert of their music given by the Zamir Chorale of Boston.

Their music was once considered too radical for the bimah, but over time, their songs became de rigueur at many synagogue services. Today, when guitars and synagogue rock bands are commonplace, Jeff and Dan have embraced their role as Jewish educators and spiritual leaders. From “Modeh Ani” to “Shalom Rav,” their melodies have given children and adults alike access to Jewish tradition and contemporary spirituality.

Both are now retired, Jeff as a synagogue cantor and college instructor in Boston, and Dan as a former Senior Vice-President of the Union for Reform Judaism and President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Their influence on several generations of Jewish musicians, cantors and Jewish leaders has been profound. Every year Jeff inspires budding songleaders at Hava Nashira, the summer workshop he and Debbie Friedman founded. Dan is on the board of the Zamir Choral Foundation and coordinates the annual North American Jewish Choral Festival.