Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

It’s A Cappella Time!

Up there in the top five least favorite Jewish traditions is the custom of avoiding live instrumental music between the end of Passover and Lag B’aomer. Being a people of hairsplitting legalists, this custom has engendered a whole new genre, called “s’fira music” — albums upon albums of permissible a cappella tunes (from all male choirs since the adherence to this tradition usually comes with a healthy fear of kol isha and consequent rejection of female-sung vocals).

S’fira music is certainly an “a-choired” taste, but many Jews out there will be delighted with this thorough compilation.

To me, this music is reminiscent of Passover cakes, baked out of potato starch — trying a little too hard to be something they are not and not quite rising to the occasion. However, this year the style had some wonderful developments, capitalizing on the current beatboxing trend.

The new releases include Matisyahu’s “One Day” and rapper Y-Love/Yuri Lane collaboration “The Sefira Album.”

One can only dream of a Jewish Reggie Watts or his magical precursor Bobby McFerrin surfacing out there, one day.

If they do surface, odds are that it will be during the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot.

Watch the non-Jewish Reggie Watts out of control in Hymietown!

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version