Troye Sivan attends the Prada Dinner Party during the Milan Men’s Fashion Week Spring Summer 2024 on June 18, 2023 in Milan, Italy. Photo by Alessandro Bremec/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect

Australian Jewish pop singer and actor Troye Sivan recently released his own new luxury lifestyle brand that is an ode to his Jewish ancestry and derives its name from a Yiddish phrase.

The Australia-based company that Sivan, 28, independently started with his brother is called Tsu Lange Yor and it “means ‘to long years’ in Yiddish, which is the language that my great-grandmother spoke,” he explained in an Instagram video. “It’s all about taking a second to treat yourself, slow down, and be present in your space that you love.”

Tsu Lange Yor includes all Australian-made products like candles, fragrances, and some home decor pieces, such as a limited edition dreidel and base signed by Sivan. The Melbourne-based actor, who stars in the drama series The Idol on HBO Max, told the American fashion magazine W in a new interview that he really wanted to add elements from his Jewish heritage into the collection, saying, “I’m not particularly religious; I kind of tapped out after my bar mitzvah. But culturally, it’s a huge part of who I am.”

“A lot of the culturally Jewish stuff I do reminds me of my family; my great-grandmother spoke Yiddish in the house when I was young,” Sivan explained. “And I’ve always said, I don’t care if we don’t say the prayer necessarily, but doing Shabbat dinner is important to me. I did it every single Friday night growing up. That’s the kind of stuff that makes up my fondest childhood memories.”

The Rush singer went on to say that, despite struggling at times with his identity, he’s a proud Jew.

“And considering I’m not very religious and I’m queer, my Jewish identity was something I grappled with and was unsure about,” he added. “I liked the idea of reclaiming it and proudly saying, even to other Jewish people, ‘I’m queer and I’m also a Jew — and these are things that are both equally important in the makeup of who I am.'”

Sivan’s grandmother fled antisemitism in Eastern Europe. The singer was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, but his family moved to Australia when he was two years old. Some of his first public performances included singing at Yom Kippur services, according to Daze magazine.

Sivan — who played a young Wolverine in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine — told W magazine he had a “lit” bar mitzvah party in the garage of his family home and also showed off some of his Yiddish skills, saying some of his favorite words in the language include such as schlep, schmuck, nebbish, and davka.

He added that while Tsu Lange Yor features a dreidel in its first launch, he’s unsure if he will design other Judaica pieces.

“It was important to have an object off the bat that felt a little bit eccentric and indulgent and also spoke to the brand’s Jewish identity and my Jewish identity. But I don’t know that it’s necessarily going to be an ongoing theme,” he said. “I mean, if Jewish people all around the world are like, ‘Troye, make a mezuzah case,’ maybe I will.”