Amichai Margolis: Visiting Shira Specialist

Incredible shira last night in the Chadar Ochel (dining room) of Palmer with visiting music specialists Amichai Margolis (photo above; bio below) and Phil Bressler joining Micah P. on guitar and Rabbi Bruce Bromberg Seltzer on drums for an exuberant, ruach-filled rikud (dance) and song (shira) session! The chanichim (campers) were able to dance and sing along, thanks to the words of each song being projected on to the giant screen in the chadar ochel.

Amichai Margolis is currently the Minister of Music/Musical Director of the Solomon Schechter Lower School, White Plains, NY, a position he has held since 2000. A graduate of Johnson and Wales University in Providence, RI, Amichai founded and directed the Jewish a cappella group “Kol B’yachad” at Brown University. He also arranged music and sang with “Pizmon” from Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. He was the Rosh Shira at Camp Ramah in N.E. from 1998 – 2005 and continues to teach an a cappella master class there every summer.   As the current Musical Director at Camp Ramah in Nyack, he is known as “Amichai the Music Guy!”

Amichai is also the Musical Director of the J.C.C. of Harrison, NY, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah teacher,  and the lead singer/band leader of “Scooby Jew,” an educational Jewish rock band. In his spare time, Amichai owns and operates Joyful Studios, a small professional studio in Orangeburg, NY, where he lives with his wife Kari and their two children.

Amichai loves traveling to communities across the US where he is able to work with congregations and children in a fun, educational and artistically challenging way.  With over eighty children in his volunteer choir he enjoys the informal educational opportunities along with spreading his love of Judaism, Jewish music, and Tfilah.