On this date in 1987, singer/songwriter Shelley Segal was born in Melbourne, Australia, to Jenny and Danny Segal in a traditional Jewish household. For years, her dad was president of the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, an Orthodox synagogue. He fronted a klezmer band that was often booked for celebrations of life-cycle events like bar and bat mitzvahs. Jenny, whom Shelley calls “Mum,” managed the band.
Displaying her own talent and surrounded by working musicians, Segal started sitting in with the group when she was 11, playing acoustic guitar and adding her voice to her dad’s. Her religious doubts started during school biology classes when the topic was evolution. “I probably called myself an atheist at 18, but I still thought religion was positive, if not for me. It was the beginning of learning to think critically.” (The Age, April 14, 2012)
“When I got some distance and perspective I saw things I might take issue with — women being separated [in synagogue] and not being allowed to take part in the service or lead the service and, looking back, it’s abhorrent to me that I didn’t see a problem. … When as a teenager I came home and said I didn’t believe in God, it must have felt like a complete rejection. The more I meet people in the movement and hear how hard it’s been for them, the more impressed I am by my family.” (Ibid.)
She released an EP composed of songs she wrote at ages 15–21 in 2009. “An Atheist Album” (2011) included the single “Saved.” It was the first time she’d ever written about her beliefs. “I was told very kindly and very politely by a preacher in the street that I was going to burn in hell forever. So I felt like I wanted to push back and say, ‘I won’t be told how to live my life.’ ” (FFRF’s “Freethought Matters,” Jan. 23, 2025)
“An Atheist Album” explored her beliefs and was hard for her dad to accept, she said, but they had reached common ground and could still play together. “My overall goals are to increase empathy and lessen suffering, humanist goals, those are things my dad can agree with me on.” (Melbourne Herald Sun, Feb. 27, 2013) One of their favorites to perform together is Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love.”
Segal performed at the Reason Rally for religious skeptics in Washington, D.C., in 2012 and 2016, then moved to Los Angeles. By then she had released five recordings. Segal co-produced the 2023 single and video tribute “Mother” with her husband Rob J Robertson. Her dad played violin.
She opened Secret Sauce Studio & Production House in Los Angeles and has been a guest several times on FFRF media and at events, including the 2013 national convention and FFRF’s 2024 winter solstice celebration at Freethought Hall in Madison, Wis.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Shelley Segal.
