
PHOTO: Members of the Portland Nigun Circle share the wordless melodies of a nigun in this undated photograph. The Circle meets on the third Wednesday of each month. (Jesse Zook Mann)
By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
From their origins in the shtetls of Eastern Europe, nigunim have made their way around the world – including Portland, as a local group that gathers monthly to share these spiritual songs marks its first anniversary.
A nigun is a typically wordless melody that has its origins in Hasidic practices around experiencing spirituality, explained Aiden Kugelman-Samba, founder of the egalitarian Portland Nigun Circle.
Rabbis would experience, she said, “spontaneous moments of song in their personal practices, and then they would bring those to their followers.”
While the words of traditional prayers were sometimes incorporated, the lack of words meant that the only way to transmit and exchange nigunim was in person, in gatherings that usually included a meal, some study of Torah, and some singing.
“You would learn experientially about the hasidiut or the Kabbalah that you were learning through the song, because the person who taught it to you was having an ecstatic experience themselves,” Kugelman-Samba said. “Sometimes those experiences transcend words and you’re not able to communicate that experience to someone, and so you have to do it in other means, and song was a really great way to do that.”
As time has marched on, the tradition spread both geographically and demographically. While nigunum are alive and well in their original, Hasidic context, contemporary Jewish musicians have incorporated nigunim into their work - Joey Weisenberg, Aly Halpert and Rena Branson are just a few examples. Neo-Hasidic movements have also brought nigunim into progressive settings, opening participation to the full cross-section of gender identities and observance levels.
The latter was how Kugelman-Samba was first exposed to nigunim. Growing up without formal Jewish education, she was not aware of the practice until she attended a service at a synagogue in Denver where the cantor integrated a nigun by Weisenberg into the nishmat kol chai prayer.
“I started sobbing uncontrollably,” she recalled. “After I was done, I thought, ‘oh, this is what prayer is supposed to feel like.’ This is the first time that I fully had an ecstatic experience in prayer.”
Wanting to learn more, Kugelman-Samba dove into the work of modern artists like Weisenberg and Rabbi Deborah Sacks Mintz, as well as discovering recordings of traditional Hasidic nigunim and getting to know them.
“When you listen to them now, you can really hear like distinct regional differences,” she explained. “There’s ones that are sad and there are ones that are for dancing and there are ones that are for weddings and there are ones that are for banging on the table. They all have a different use in a different time, and I think that’s so beautiful.”
The wordlessness of most nigunim can be an advantage in terms of creating a spiritual connection, as liturgical Hebrew is not the everyday language of many people outside Israel.
“It creates a transcendent experience where you’re not in your intellectual brain,” Kugelman-Samba said of nigunim’s wordlessness. “You have an intellectual filter that you have to pass through when you’re saying [Hebrew prayers]. Doing just the melody, it removes that intellectual experience and just allows you to experience the song in your body and what the transcendent experience of that can be.”
Kugelman-Samba looked at getting involved in a nigun circle in Denver but was stymied by a relocation to Portland. In 2023, the Portland Klezmer Festival hosted a nigun circle. Kent attended, shared a few nigunim she knew and at the end of the evening asked the all important question to the assembled group – “Want to do it again sometime?” The collective answer was a resounding yes.
“I basically just collected emails and started an Instagram account and then people were following it and over time it’s grown,” Kugelman-Samba said.
Today marks the first anniversary of the first meeting of the Portland Nigun Circle. The group averages between 16 and 25 attendees each month, meeting in member homes or other spaces as available. Meetings are always the third Wednesday of each month, beginning with tea, kosher snacks and schmoozing before moving into singing. No experience is required – Kugelman-Samba teaches simple nigunim and many follow a similar structure that’s easy to master. You certainly don’t have to be a good singer.
“I’m not a very good singer, and I know that I’m not,” Kugelman-Samba said, “and that’s not what’s important. What’s more important is how it feels. It doesn’t matter how it sounds.”
No level of religious observance is required, either. While Kugelman-Samba often shares the Hasidic roots of a nigun, which she feels is important to understanding its context and history, the level of engagement with any song’s spiritual or religious connection is entirely up to the singer.
“You can come and just sing because you like singing and you like singing with other people,” Kugelman-Samba said. “Whatever your relationship to the G-word is, you can have an experience with a song that is meaningful and take it as far as you want.”
Many regular attendees do find a sense of spiritual connection through the circle – something they’re struggling to find elsewhere. It’s a theme Kugelman-Samba has noticed beyond the circle she has built.
“There’s a spiritual desperation that I think a lot of people, especially in Portland, are feeling,” Kugelman-Samba said. “I don’t know if it’s the moment we’re in or the political climate. I don’t know what’s happening, but all I can say is that people are hungry.”
Kugelman-Samba is looking to launch a second monthly gathering in a more workshop-style format.
For more information or to get connected, follow the Portland Nigun Circle on Instagram at @pdxniguncircle or email Kugelman-Samba at aidenkent13@gmail.com.
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