Walking the streets of Jerusalem's Nachlaot neighborhood during the Tishrei onslaught of holidays, Matisyahu, his wife Tahlia and their two sons, look just like any other young, haredi family out for a stroll. And that's just the way the 30-year-old American singer likes it.

Ultra-Orthodox reggae star Matisyahu.
Photo: AP/Wide World

"It's a combination of hanging out with my wife and the kids, and trying to get some spiritual clarity and strength from being in the Jewish homeland," said Matisyahu, who since his 2005 breakout hit "King Without a Crown" has helped make tzitzit and peyot cool among the MTV crowd with his free-flowing mix of hassidut, reggae and hip hop.

"I've been in Israel for the last three years on Tishrei, and part of what I come here for is to get away from music. In the US, it seems like every Jewish musician I bump into on the street wants to play with me," he said.

Despite the vacation, Matisyahu couldn't stay away from music too long, which is why he's appearing in Israel twice with his band, the versatile jamming Dub Trio, Wednesday night in Jerusalem's Sultan Pool, and the next night at a hastily added show at The Barby club in Tel Aviv. That's not to mention the impromptu appearances the singer has been making, like joining jazz saxophonist Danny Zamir onstage last week at Tel Aviv's Tmuna Theater.

"Danny is a really good friend. We were at the New School in Manhattan in the Village together back at the beginning of the decade. My roommate was a guitar player and hung out with jazz musicians, and Danny was part of that circle," recalled Matisyahu.

"We both started getting interested in Judaism and I would spend Shabbos with him across the bridge in Hoboken. Then we didn't see each other for a while. In the meantime, I became religious and moved to Crown Heights, and we sort of lost touch. When it came time for our college graduation ceremony, we both showed up fully religious with kippot and beards. We were both freaking out."

And Zamir isn't the only Israeli musician who pushes Matisyahu's eclectic buttons.

"There's also this guy I met last night at Danny's show - Duvdev [Amit Duvdevani ] from Infected Mushroom, the trance, electronic band. He's really cool, he did a remix in one day of one of my songs and turned it into a seven-minute dance track. We're talking about doing something together."

Clearly, Matisyahu's world revolves around music, and has done so even back in White Plains, New York, when he was growing up as Matthew Miller in a Reconstructionist Jewish household.

BUT BEFORE music, there was ice hockey.

"I never really thought about music as a kid. I wanted to play hockey. But then one year, I broke my collarbone before the season started. And somehow I developed a bad reputation and was kicked off the team. At that point, I started getting into music, particularly Bob Marley," he said. "From then on, that was all that was important in my life, not academics or anything else."

There was one other ray of enlightenment that entered Matisyahu's consciousness in his teen years that also tugged at his soul, and it was due to a high school semester in Israel, studying at the Alexander Muss High School in Hod Hasharon.

"It was definitely life-forming. I was 16 and it was my first time away from home," recalled Matisyahu.

"I remember one moment. They took us up to Mount Scopus around sunset to look at the Old City. For the first time I got all emotional and swept up in the idea of me being part of the Jewish people. Until then, it was a minor component of my identity, but it began to raise my awareness of the history and ancestry and rich background that I had. It was overwhelming."

Of course, that one experience didn't transform him overnight into an observant Orthodox Jew.

"The next day was Yom Kippur and I remember buying a bagelah from an Arab vendor. But that experience planted the seed," he said.

Upon his return to New York, the music seed took hold again, this time courtesy of hippie jam band Phish, whom Matisyahu became a fanatical devotee of.

"After my time in Israel and my spiritual life-changing experiences, I came back to high school and was depressed. But then I went to see Phish and took some LSD. At that moment, I knew exactly what it was that I wanted to do - to play music," he said.

However, the bedazzled teen didn't pursue his dream in any logical manner, and instead informed his perplexed parents that he was dropping out of school to follow Phish around the US on their tour.

"They weren't happy, but a lot of what I learned and the life experiences I had that have contributed to who I am today came from these alternative methods," he said.

Eventually, Matisyahu drew closer to Judaism, adopting an Orthodox lifestyle affiliated with the Chabad movement in 2001, and at the same time, launching his music career. In 2004, he released his first album Shake Off the Dust… Arise on the JDub label, and when his idol Trey Anastasio of Phish invited him onstage at the Bonaroo music festival the next year, his career took off.

THE DIZZYING spiral upward, complete with high profile appearances on The David Letterman show, knocked the singer off-kilter for a while, as he struggled to balance his spiritual and professional demands.

"At first, I was very strict with myself - the religion, praying three times a day, keeping kosher, I held tight to those things to keep some stability in my life," he said.

"I would find myself driving around in a van with the band and crew who were not even Jewish. It forced me to kind of reconnect with myself, and find some kind of balance of who I was and who I wanted to become. It's taken me a few years, maybe five years to become comfortable with who I am."