Isaac Bitton

Currently, Bitton makes new music, and performs at concerts occasionally. He performed at Yeshiva University on 6 May 2007 at a Lag B'Omer celebration concert. The opening group played with little response. Once Bitton began his set on the drums to the tune of "Im Ein Ani Li Mi Li" the crowd erupted.

In 1991, Bitton made headlines when he was hit by rocks and bottles, during the Crown Heights Riot. Due to the rioting, Bitton called a cab to take him and his son to his house. The driver refused to take them all the way to their house, letting them off one block away. Police were stationed at each end of the street. They informed Bitton it was safe to continue, and no police accompanied them. However, within a block, they were attacked by an angry mob of Caribbean American, West Indian, and African American rioters. The Bittons were removed from the scene by local residents and reporters, including Peter Noel, a West Indian journalist for the Village Voice.

The experience with the BSTB provided a transition for Bitton. Subsequently, he was the founding member of the Jewish music group "Raaya Mehemna" ("Faithful Servant" – a reference to a Kabbalistic work; the group was later renamed "Raava Mehemna"), which was formed in the early 1980s. Bitton was perhaps the first religious Jew to infuse music on religious Jewish themes with "non-Jewish" styles such as rock and soul. He helped establish the idea of Jewish rock with his heavy hitting style and brought real rock and roll showmanship to the Jewish stage. In the early 80's he released two albums titled "Songs for a Brother Vol 1&2".

Bitton is widely known for his energetic drumming style, soulful powerful voice, and for fusing traditional Moroccan tunes and scales with R&B, blues, and soul. He has served as leader and cantor for a Sefardi synagogue in Crown Heights since the early 1980s, where his musical signature is evident in his cantorial renditions.

With the addition of Bitton, Schmidt was able to move to lead guitar, Freeman to rhythm guitar, and Morgenstern to bass guitar. The combination of Schmidt's creative genius and powerful rock licks with Bitton's Sephardi/Moroccan rhythm and lead vocals produced an electric rock and roll sound. They played traditional Chabad nigunim (songs and melodies) to this beat at Chabad houses on college campuses and other venues, primarily on the Eastern seaboard of the United States. One of the highlights of each performance was Bitton's drum solo. A four-song demo was cut in a local studio, but the BSTB disbanded in 1978 as the rabbinical students began to graduate.

In 1977, the Baal Shem Tov Band (BSTB) was formed at the Lubavitch Rabbinical College of America, in Morristown, New Jersey, as part of an outreach program to college students. The regular members included Menachem Schmidt(snare drum), Tzvi Freeman (acoustic guitar), Moshe Morgenstern (cello), and business and equipment manager Shlomo Sawilowsky. They were occasionally complemented by a violinist and a flutist who attended the college. Subsequently, Bitton, who had moved to the nearby Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, joined and completed the group.

By the end of 1975, Les Variations, with their new singer Robert Fitoussi, were nearing a deal to tour with the Rolling Stones. The deal did not come to fruition, however, because the singer soon left the group. Bitton took the opportunity to go to New York, where he met the Lubavitcher Rebbe for the first time.

Born in Casablanca, Morocco to a Jewish family, Bitton moved from Morocco to France alone at the age of 18. Together with his friends, he formed a rock group and played locally until getting noticed in 1969. Les Variations opened for some of the top billed rockers of the day, such as Bachman–Turner Overdrive, Kiss, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, Taste and Aerosmith.

Isaac "Jacky" Bitton (born 2 December 1947) is a French-American musician. Initially gaining fame as the drummer for secular rock band Les Variations, Bitton became a baal teshuva through Chabad in the late 1970s and subsequently began a career in contemporary Jewish music.