The life of Yosef Bluman from Kiryat Gat was full of crises and upheavals. The 25-year-old had time to leave the ultra-orthodox home where he grew up in Beit Shemesh, enter and leave at-risk youth settings, leave the question and reinvent himself as a family man with a career in high-tech. Only now, after he has found happiness with his wife Yael and two children, is Bluman freed up to fulfill his childhood dream and become a singer.
3 Viewing the gallery
Yosef Blumen
(Photo: Jordan Rokh)
His first single “Everything is fine” which was recently released sums up the complicated path he has taken. “I wrote the song when I was 19,” he says. “The song talks about a person who is in a situation that is not good for him but broadcasts to everyone around that everything is fine. The song characterized me in different periods of my life and the crises I went through. You constantly try to broadcast that everything is fine but it is not really like that.”
“I’m not comfortable, I don’t build a box, sometimes I might drown in a flood of sadness. I can’t find the rhythm and run away to the grass again. I’m not a superhero and I don’t have a suit, I don’t try to fly, barely get up from the blanket. Everyone is worried about the situation, so I shout “.
In the second stanza of the song, Bluman describes the identity crisis he experienced in his youth as an ultra-orthodox boy. “I haven’t found myself and my identity,” he says. “It made me depressed. I wasn’t a brash, violent or vandalizing kid, but I did hang out with guys who did stupid things and even smoked soft drugs. Soft drugs were my escape in all that chaos of youth that also includes broken hearts, breakups and things that don’t Few boys experience puberty.”
Where were your parents during this crisis?
“Mother and father were the most amazing parents there are. In the end they were for me and for me. At first there were many difficulties because they saw that their son did not follow them in the matter of religion. The parents wanted to instill a certain view in me but I went in a different direction. Over time they realized that life in society The ultra-Orthodox don’t suit me and they knew how to accommodate and understand me.”
3 Viewing the gallery
Yosef Bluman as an ultra-Orthodox teenager
(Photo: Private)
Bluman was born and raised in the Ramot B neighborhood in Beit Shemesh to a pair of ultra-Orthodox parents. His mother Ilana, born in Yavne, married his father who immigrated to Israel from the United States and the two had five children. Bluman attended a Chabad school and went on to an ultra-Orthodox Lithuanian yeshiva. He tried to follow the path and be an ultra-orthodox boy like all his friends in the yeshiva, but deep down he wanted to be someone else. “At the age of 15, I no longer found myself in ultra-Orthodox settings,” says Bluman. He was sent to high school The Torah scholar was raised in Jerusalem and studied with students who, like him, had difficulty fitting into the strict ultra-Orthodox frameworks.
“I was a teenager who didn’t do the matriculation, my head was somewhere else,” he explains. “I went through a severe identity crisis and faced difficult emotional experiences. I grew up in a family that was not classically ultra-Orthodox and this confused me completely. My father immigrated to Israel from abroad and my mother converted, so we were not a defined family in the ultra-Orthodox sector.”
The only refuge the lost boy ran to was music: “I ran to it because I had nowhere else to go. I played a bit with my friends, composed a song called ‘Blue Bear’ and mostly spent hours listening to pop and hip-hop songs.”
The turning point in his life came during his military service. Bluman, who was already out of the question at this point, enlisted in a combat unit but was later injured and underwent complicated surgery on his neck. At that time he knew Yael who grew up in an ultra-Orthodox household in the Elad settlement and came out like him in Shalah. The two got married when Bluman was 20 years old and Yael was 18.5 years old. “Her father, the late Benny, was very ill and he wanted to see us under the canopy before he died,” Blumen says. “We even brought the event up a few months. He died a month after the wedding.”
3 Viewing the gallery
Yosef Bluman and his wife Yael
(Photo: Private)
Blumen aspires to follow in Zohar’s footsteps and devote himself entirely to music. “My dream is to leave my job in the high-tech field, appear everywhere and actually fulfill myself,” he says.
And do you believe it will happen?
“It will surely happen. When a person is in a place that is not comfortable and good for him, then he goes to another place where he feels good. It will happen to me too.”
In the meantime, the respectable livelihood in high-tech helped him finance the recording of the first single, including the shooting of the music video in Jerusalem. These days he is working on the second single which will be called “Blueman” (“Blue Man”), which is also his stage name. “I would like to be an artist who works full time”, he allows himself to dream. “I want to write and compose songs all the time.”
And give up a safe high-tech job?
“My mind is not in high-tech. A year ago I told my wife that I wanted to leave the field. We are in the reality of a higher cost of living and I currently have to support a family. I do the work on writing the songs and composing them at the same time, but I definitely want to build myself in the field of music and break through. I Waiting for the right timing to make the switch. My message is that even people who have established themselves in life like me can make a switch.”
Are you currently performing?
“I only perform in private and family circles. Not yet in shows or events. When I have more songs I will start thinking about performances.”
Did you think of breaking into the consciousness through reality shows like Zohar and Ninet Tube did?
“I’ve had a few inquiries but I want to establish myself first. I don’t think I’m fully ready for it. Eliav Zohar and Ninet are completely an inspiration to me. They both also write their own music and are loyal to their own content.”
How would you define your music?
“It’s a bit hard for me to define, but it ranges between hip-hop and pop. I like and connect with singers like Natan Goshen and Ravid Poltnik.”
Dreaming of Caesarea?
“I really don’t think about shows in big, crowded places. Caesarea or Menorah Hall sound too far to me at the moment, let me perform in an intimate place like Amphi Shoni.”