Mama Doni

Jersey singer makes hip music for Jewish kids!

by Ron Kaplan
NJJN Features Editor

June 19, 2008

The sweltering temperatures on Sunday didn't keep the young fans away. Although the heat played havoc with the sound system at the outdoor June 8 mini-concert in Montclair, the Mama Doni Band provided cool relief to new fans and old. (On this 90-plus degree day, it was appropriate that one of the tunes was titled "Shvitzin'.")

Lead singer Doni Zasloff Thomas moved to Montclair with her family from Manhattan three years ago, and her entry into the business was serendipitous: About a year and a half ago, the head of her children's preschool at Child's Way*Derech HaYeled in West Orange heard her reciting Shabbat blessings with them and asked her to be the school's music teacher.

Doni wasn't content just to recycle the same old stuff. She wanted to write her own songs, but had never done so before.

"I went on-line and looked up 'how to write a song' on the Internet, but that didn't go well. Nothing came."

A week later, "The Kipa Song" "just came out of the heavens," she said – beshert. "The next thing you know, I was writing every day, three songs, just absolutely going crazy. And I put the album together."

Her effort, I Love Herring (and Other Fish Shticks for Kids), was released in May and includes such ditties as "Jewperheroes," "Bubbie's Big Bluff," and "Oy Yoy Yodel." The band – which includes guitarist Adam Nelson (who also serves as the group's producer), bassist Alex Tyshkov, and drummer/percussionist Ken Walz – won the Simcha Prize at the 2008 International Jewish Music Festival, held May 9-12 in Amsterdam.

Doni admits her target audience is somewhat limited. She could have reached a wider audience merely by singing generic children's songs rather than tunes for Jewish kids.

"It's so important to me. I feel passionately about making Jewish culture hip and cool. Everything about being Jewish, I love so much, and I want to make it accessible for kids.

"I do these songs in my preschool class. The kids love it and the parents love it." Maybe that's because it reaches them on different, albeit still enjoyable, levels. The little ones love the energy that Mama Doni and company bring, while the parents and grandparents relate to it on a more thematic level.

"My demographic is Jews and people who dig crazy Jewish stuff."

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