Watch: Young Troye Sivan Singing Ani Ma’amim

In this clip, a young Troye Sivan sings Ani Ma’amin, sporting a large velvet kippah on his head. While today Sivan is best known as a global queer pop icon celebrated for songs that explore desire and identity, this video offers a glimpse into his less well-known modern Orthodox Jewish upbringing in Perth, Australia.

Sivan grew up in a small but tight-knit Jewish community where Orthodoxy played a central role, largely because it was the framework for the city’s only Jewish school. “No matter where you personally landed on the spectrum of observance, we all went to the Orthodox school,” Sivan told IndieWire in 2022.

As an openly gay artist, Sivan’s relationship to orthodox Judaism is nuanced. He acknowledges challenges in reconciling his identity with religious expectations but also speaks about the surprising support he found. “I had an Orthodox rabbi who was so cool about me being gay and so accepting, and literally wanted to invite my boyfriend up to the bimah in shul.”

Though Sivan no longer identifies as religious, his cultural connection to Judaism remains significant. His lifestyle brand scores a Yiddish title, Tsu Lange Yor, which translates “to long years and to good years.”

“I don’t believe in God, for example, personally, but I feel extremely Jewish in my culture. It’s the way I grew up. I think I would love to do Shabbat with my kids one day. There’s a lot that’s really important to me.”

This early video of Sivan singing Ani Ma’amin is a rare artifact of an artist whose work now sits at the intersection of queer identity and mainstream pop culture, but whose origins are deeply tied to Jewish community and practice.

Troye Sivan wearing a Star of David necklace in his “One of Your Girls” music video (2023)