New York ? In the insular, Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, members of the Hasidic religious group rarely mingle with outsiders.

So it’s understandable that a young Hasidic woman grows alarmed when she happens by an unusual scene — a solemn Hasidic man being photographed by a secular group of people. But the woman breaks out into a smile when she learns the name of the man before the camera.

“Oh, Matisyahu,” she says. “Everybody knows who he is.”

Well, not yet. But the Hasidic reggae star — yes, reggae star — is gaining fans, respect and attention for his unusual hybrid of music and religion.

At a recent sold-out concert at a New York City club, Matisyahu emerged on the stage sporting a long beard, glasses and the black pants, white shirt and yarmulke worn by male Hasids. Standing against a backdrop that featured the star of David, he looked more rabbi than reggae artist.

But as his band began to play intoxicating rhythms, Matisyahu began to groove with the beat, singing and chanting in a Caribbean lilt so convincing one might think he was island-born. Halfway through the first song, the crowd — which included Jewish kids, Birkenstock-type music fanatics and black faces — was jumping up and down to the beat with Matisyahu, who held his hand to his head so his yarmulke wouldn’t fall off.

“There is a lot of very good in the music in the music business, and there is a lot of very bad, and it is very rare to find something truly great and extraordinary. We have found that in Matisyahu,” says Larry Miller, founder of Or Music, which released Matisyahu’s “Live at Stubb’s” album on Tuesday with jdub records, which originally signed the singer. (Matisyahu’s first album, “Shake Off the Dust … Arise,” was released last year.)

Extraordinary may be the best way to describe how Matthew Miller transformed into Matisyahu (Hebrew for Matthew).

Though Miller was Jewish, he was not born into the ultraconservative Jewish branch of Hasidism. Growing up in the New York City suburb of White Plains, Miller resisted any specific religious doctrine.

Orthodox Jewish reggae star Matisyahu is gaining fans, respect and attention for his unusual hybrid of music and religion. He is pictured in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y.

By the time he was a teen, he was a slacking off in school and squabbling with his parents. At 17, he left home to follow jam bands like Phish and search for a purpose in life. Even then, however, he says he knew there was a spiritual being that guided him: “I would always feel that God was with me.”

Eventually, he finished his high school studies at a wilderness school in Oregon for troubled teens, returned to New York and studied arts at the New School University. It was around that time he also became entranced with the music of reggae stars like Capelton, Sizzla and Buju Banton.

“That’s what really inspired me the most, the message and the method that I connected to,” says Matisyahu, 25. “The message was like some kind of connecting to your roots, going against the mainstream flow, searching for truth, believing in God and the unity of the world and the universe, and just a certain strength, a certain passion and a certain fire.”

He began playing in bands and making demos. But he also became entranced with Judaism, specifically the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of Hasidism. Eventually, he abandoned the secular lifestyle and became a member, and studied for two years in a yeshiva. At that time, he stopped listening to music, concentrated on his studies and got married. But after he finished his studies, the desire to perform music, specifically reggae, remained.

“His style, you can’t put it into a single category. He falls into like three different categories,” says Joel Chin, the director of A&R at VP Records, which has made reggae stars out of artists such as Sean Paul and Beenie Man. “I would love to hear some more stuff from him to hear how diverse he can be.”