Six-Year-Old Australian Kid Sings an Impassioned Avinu Malkeinu in Hebrew and English

Bibi, the six-year-old son of Nina Shapiro loves to sing, and his singing is going viral because of an impassioned version of Avinu Malkeinu that has been spreading on the Internet since it mysteriously landed on Twitter and Facebook last week.

As Philissa Cramer wrote last week in JTA News,

Exactly how the video got from a family text chain to thousands of Jewish viewers is unclear, but there’s no question that Bibi’s performance of a song he learned at his school is resonating with many on the eve of the High Holidays.

Others who amplified the video did know who Bibi was, even though he is not identified in it. They included people associated with Sinai Academy, the school in Cape Town, South Africa, that he attended before the family moved to Australia two years ago. Shapiro credited both that school and the one he attends in Perth, Carmel School, with developing her son’s love for Judaism.

Bibi is adopted — we adopted each other when he was a baby. He has been raised Jewish, and it’s all he knows. Halachically [according to Jewish law] he is a Jew. I’ve come to realize he has a Jewish neshama [soul] even though entering the world he was not born into a Jewish family.

Here are the English words he sings before launching into Hebrew:

I’m sorry for all I did wrong. 

I’m sorry for all I did wrong. 

I’ll try to be better forever and ever I’m sorry for all I did wrong. 

I’ll try, I’ll try to be the best that I can be. 

I’ll try, I’ll try to do what is right, and be the best I can be.

Enjoy!

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