Roughly based on the format that made VH1's Storytellers a hit, Lee's concerts feature the singer speaking with audiences about her upbringing and the changes she has undergone since, with songs from her Bamidbar EP and upcoming Underneath Your Smile album mixed in.

Between private music tutoring sessions, ulpan classes - she's now in her third course - and seminary classes in Har Nof, Lee is working to develop her musical career as much as she can. In the past year, she's performed for a birthright tour group, at the Tikva Center for at-risk youth and at a pair of women's study centers. "This is my service of God. It's not a hobby and it's not a career," she says.

Lee's career in Israel got started largely through Wanna Be a Star Professional Women's Theater, an arts contest and collective. The theater's shows began as open-mic events, culminating with two showcases at the Pargod Theater. The finalists - Lee, along with an opera singer, a rock band and a folk guitarist - combined their talents into a multi-act performance piece, but Lee is unsure about the collective's future, and she's now looking for new outlets.

Lee's Chinese parents had been happily married and living in Seattle for 13 years before they traveled to Taiwan to bring their first-born daughter, born Heidi Hsiao Chien Lee, closer to their families. Lee spent her childhood in Seattle, studying at an elite private school where she was ridiculed for being the only non-white student. "I got made fun of for my 'pancake nose' and funny eyes," she says. "So I wanted to [distance myself from] the Chinese language, because then, of course, no one would know I was Chinese anymore, right?"

As a schoolgirl, Lee found her relationships with Jewish students especially intriguing, and says that learning about Jewish culture and identity was a big part of her youth. As her mother slowly died of brain cancer, Lee's focus was elsewhere: "I was married to my studies, went to therapy and support groups and remained a part-time student and full-time spiritual seeker," she says.

She describes her parents' household as a "haredi goyish home" - one that was strict, wary of outsiders and demanded modest dress, no touching boys and no dating. The restrictions have become a source for some of her music, with "Little Mei Mei," a song on the Bamidbar EP, telling the story of Lee's aunt, whose life of alienation as a lesbian ended in suicide. "It's a culture that doesn't value life," Lee says of the song's subject.

Music became an early interest and outlet for the young Lee. "Basically, I knew at nine I wanted to be a singer, either like Whitney Houston, or Little Orphan Annie on Broadway or at the Fifth Avenue Theater in Seattle," Lee says.

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