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For rising star Joshua Nelson, a concert in Central Jersey during the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day comes at the perfect time to advance his goal of creating unity through music.

Nelson, who is black and Jewish, sets Hebrew texts to gospel melodies and creates gospel arrangements of Jewish hymns in what he calls "Kosher Gospel." He will perform in Red Bank Saturday night, Jan. 23, 2010, five days after MLK Day, in an event organized by Congregation B'nai Israel of Rumson.

People frequently ask Nelson if he is a convert, implying that being black makes him a "misfit" in Judaism, he said. Therefore, Nelson said he has taken up the mantle of King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who would march with King because he understood that Judaism is about social justice and identifying with the needs of mankind.

"Although I'm Jewish, my life is not just for Jews; my life is for everyone, to try to bring people together through music," Nelson said in a phone interview from Rome Dec. 17, in the middle of a tour that took him through Italy, France, and Sweden.

Once dubbed the "next big thing" in music by Oprah Winfrey, Nelson, 33, has made a habit of traveling the globe lately. He's flying right back to Stockholm, Sweden, after his concert for B'nai Israel, and is touring Spain in March.

On a two-year college and kibbutz program at the Hebrew Union College and Hebrew University, Nelson said he saw that Judaism in Israel was not seen as a race, as is often the case in America, but instead "an inherited monotheism that exists across the board within races."

"I realized that I'm not such a misfit after all; people are just uneducated about who we are," Nelson said.

Nelson prayed at Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange growing up, and attended Newark Performing Arts High School. At 8 years old, he discovered his love for music through his grandparents' recordings of gospel legend Mahalia Jackson.

Gospel music came from the "work songs" of black slaves who moaned and groaned in fields well before they were Christian, then combined that sound with Christian liturgy to make gospel, Nelson explained. What Nelson does to make "Kosher Gospel," he said, is simply combine that moaning and groaning with Jewish liturgy.

However, "Kosher Gospel" is more than just a novelty sound, Nelson said. Instead, it's an effort to create peace and harmony through a reflection of Nelson's personal experiences. In the Jewish arena, those experiences have included teaching Hebrew school at Sharey Tefilo-Israel, chanting Torah in synagogue, and regularly wearing his yarmulke, tallit, and tzizit.

"Art imitates life," Nelson said. "My life is real and my experiences are real, and I channel it into the music I create." Since he has been able bring the different aspects of his life together through music, Nelson said his style is becoming more focused, comparing his journey to seeing your mother's cake finally coming out of the oven. Still, he is often willing to incorporate different styles, like when he made an album with the Klezmatics, because he refuses to acknowledge "barriers" and "color lines."

"This concert in Rumson, it's going to be more of a refined Josh Nelson, over the years," Nelson said.

The concert's proximity to MLK Day is appropriate in a synagogue setting because the holiday's call for social justice can resonate with European Jews who went through hardships, just like blacks went through slavery, Nelson said. MLK Day is about letting the world know what is fair, he said, and shouldn't be a holiday just for blacks.

"These are two groups that can identify with each other," Nelson said of Jews and blacks.

B'nai Israel's concert with Joshua Nelson is at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 23 at Two River Theater Company, 21 Bridge Ave. in Red Bank, located one block from the New Jersey Transit train station. Tickets are $45 and $75 and are available at the box office, by phone at (732) 345-1400, or online at trtc.org. The $75 ticket includes an exclusive reception with Nelson following the concert.

The proceeds from the concert will benefit B'nai Israel. For more information about the event, contact joshuanelsonevent@cbirumson.org.