They were very popular with Jewish Youth Groups and tourists in the early to mid-1980s, and became very well known in Jerusalem for their Saturday-night concerts at King David Tomb.
[6] It was originally named "Yeshiva Toras Yisrael", the name of its American charity,[7] and with the influx of students from the Diaspora after it moved to Mount Zion, Jerusalem following the Six Day War in 1967, it became known as "Diaspora Yeshiva", which the later Israeli charity registration as "Yeshivat Hatfuzot Toras Yisrael" reflects.
[11][12] The band was conceived as an outreach tool to college and hippie students and, later, post-hippie seekers, using theirJewish rock music to draw hundreds of them into the milieu of Torah study.
[13][11] The yeshiva itself offers programs ranging from basic Judaism to advanced Talmud – employing a methodology based on Ramchal (see Torah study § The Luzzatto method) – and emphasizes mussar, or character development.
The Diaspora Yeshiva Band staged its first concert at the Beit Ha'Am hall in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem during Hanukkah 1975.
[11] After that, the band became well known for its weekly Saturday-night concerts held in a room adjacent to David's Tomb (located in the same courtyard as the yeshiva) on Mount Zion.
[11][16][17] These concerts attracted secular American, British, and French youth; yeshiva and seminary students; tourists, and Israeli soldiers.
[23][24] Band leader Avraham Rosenblum was filmed accompanying Tom Petty, Benmont Tench, and Roger McGuinn at the Western Wall.
[24] In 2014, Rosenblum, Simcha Abramson, Gedaliah Goldstein, Ruby Harris, and Menachem Herman performed at the HASC 27 concert at Lincoln Center.
The band members viewed their music as a means of expressing their newfound connection to God, the Jewish people, and the Land of Israel in a medium that they were familiar with.
[1] Their on-stage presence also belied the traditional rock band image: they sported full beards, payot, and tzitzit,[36] and dressed in the dark-colored attire typical of yeshiva students.
[3][45][46] The six founding members of the Diaspora Yeshiva Band were:[11][22] Student-musicians who played with the band at different times between 1973 and 1986 include: Beryl and Ted Glaser, Shimon Green, Isser Blum, Amram Hakohen, Menachem Herman, Yochanan Lederman, Tzvi Miller, Yosil Rosenzweig, Chaim-Dovid Saracik, and Rabbi Moshe Shur.