Why does this Jewish music sound so Christian?
Joe Buchanan sets Jewish prayers and ideas into country ballads — an unusual combo
Joe Buchanan’s new country album, Heaven and Earth, features Jewish music. Screenshot of “Hashkiveinu” via YouTube
By Mira Fox October 26, 2025
When I first heard Joe Buchanan’s country music, I assumed he was a Messianic Jew.
“How good, how good,” he croons with a Texas drawl over a twangy guitar. “Yeah, God I love the house where you grow.”
Everything about the song sounds like Christian praise music or a Christian country band. Everything that is, before the next line, when Buchanan switches into Hebrew; the song is called “Mah Tovu,” and takes its lyrics from the Jewish prayer of the same name.
Buchanan, who was born in Texas, converted to Judaism 11 years ago after a visit to the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., when his wife told him, for the first time, that she was Jewish. (On Instagram, Buchanan said she thought he knew.) Though he said he was raised with a strong belief in God, he had felt unsatisfied with the attempts he’d made to connect. She wanted to reconnect to her roots, and Buchanan decided to convert.
Now, Buchanan performs his country renditions of Hebrew prayers at synagogues, Hillels and gatherings of military personnel. And, unsurprisingly, he told Israeli newspaper Israel HaYom, his music is also resonating with Christians — though not too many yet; he only has around 7,000 listeners on Spotify.
Country music has a long history, deeply tied to America’s own roots, including its Christianity; it grew out of Appalachian bluegrass, picking up influences from Cajun music, cowboy ballads, Gospel and hymns.
As a result of this patchwork history, a wide variety of sounds all often get grouped under the heading of country. But the slow, open major chords of Buchanan’s songs are most common in a type of country that I associate with Christian ballads, the type of songs that are as likely to mention Jesus as they are women, horses or whiskey. (Often, they combine the topics.) To me, this kind of Christian country music often feels like an attempt to use the deeply American genre to imply that to be American and to be Christian are one and the same — here’s a nearly 3-hour compilation of Christian country, one of many on YouTube.
This makes Buchanan’s Jewish country music something of an anomaly. But the Judaism in his songs is easy enough to miss; not all of his songs incorporate Hebrew, and if you’re not in the know you wouldn’t guess that they’re rooted in Judaism. Even his aesthetic markers — Buchanan usually sports a cowboy hat paired with a large belt buckle — read Christian. (He does also wear a guitar pick stamped with a big Star of David on a cord around his neck.)
“If I need to know that God loves the world, then she’s the sign,” Buchanan sings in “My Beloved,” his top song on Spotify. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” Presumably, the song is about his wife, but that latter phrase, the song’s refrain, is a translation of Shir HaShirim, or the Song of Solomon.
This draws an odd cross-section of listeners to Buchanan’s music; many of those commenting on his social media are Jews who love country music, Jews by choice and Southern Jews. But country music is so Christian-coded that even his Hebrew songs seem to draw a particular subsection of the Christian audience: Messianic Jews.
In one of the singer’s posts on Instagram, numerous commenters asked him if he still believes in Jesus. (He responded to one with a brusque: “No.”) Commenters then used the post to proselytize Messianic Judaism, excitedly telling other listeners that they did not have to give up Jesus to be Jewish — even though most Jews see Messianic Judaism as a form of appropriation.
I get where they’re coming from, though. We all know that Judaism has certain stereotypes; Hollywood imagines Jews to be nebbishy urbanites. We’re primed to expect a Jewish character to look like a hipster or a professor, not a cowboy. (Even though there were, historically, Jewish cowboys.) Musically, too, there are sounds that feel Jewish — minor keys and klezmer instruments like accordions or clarinets for Ashkenazi music, Middle Eastern scales and vocal ululations for Mizrahi.
Buchanan’s music, on the other hand, sticks to major keys. A pedal steel guitar — an instrument country star John Bohlinger called “the most American instrument” — gives the songs a sliding, characteristically country sound. Buchanan himself, with his denim shirts and drawl, reads Christian too. And if the music sounds like praise music, that’s because it is.
Jews have long since been assimilated into American culture, so there’s no real reason that we shouldn’t have embraced this particularly American genre of music. And some have — but they’ve tended to keep their Judaism out of it.
One notable exception is Kinky Friedman and the Jewboys, a satirical country act that sang songs like “They Ain’t Making Jews like Jesus anymore” — openly skewering the usual country subject matter. But Friedman didn’t sing prayers; his lyrics are closer to parody.
On the other hand, plenty of musicians have adapted Hebrew prayers into their music; there are techno renditions of various prayers and zemirot, or religious songs. Leonard Bernstein turned the Kaddish into classical music and Arthur Schoenberg set Kol Nidre to orchestra, even though classical music was birthed in, and funded by, churches, using almost exclusively liturgical texts, for centuries. Why should country be any more limited to Christianity than classical?
For me, the answer is just vibes. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with what Buchanan is doing. But the attraction of Messianic Jews makes me uncomfortable; Christians are increasingly adopting Jewish rituals — Seders, shofars, tallitot — and Buchanan’s Hebrew prayers sound so Christian that I get why they’re flocking to his music. I don’t want Judaism to feel any easier to make Christian than it already is.
So I won’t be trying out Buchanan’s tune for Lecha Dodi at Kabbalat Shabbat; for me, engaging in Jewish tradition should feel, well, Jewish. But if you’re a Jew who loves country music, maybe this is the music you’ve been praying for.
Correction: The phrase “I am my beloved and my beloved is mine” is from Shir HaShirim; a previous version of this article mistakenly said it was part of the “Lecha Dodi” prayer.
