WATCH: Lipa Schmeltzer, AKA The Hasidic Lady Gaga, Shakes Up Purim
The stereotype-defying Orthodox singer and composer, also known as the Hasidic Lady Gaga, talks to the Yiddish Forward at his latest concert in Manhattan.
Lipa Schmeltzer
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Culture Lipa Schmeltzer Reaches For Broadway and Beyond
It’s not every day that Town Hall, New York City’s fabled home to Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan and other legendary performers, gets to welcome a yarmulke-clad crowd of 1,500. And it is not every day that the yarmulke-clad crowd of 1,500 gets to see one of its own perform on a Broadway stage. On the…
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The Schmooze An Exclusive Interview With Lipa Schmeltzer
Hasidic singer Lipa Schmeltzer is a true exception in the Haredi world, both because of his music and because of his personality. Frimet Goldberger lives a few blocks away from Schmeltzer in the community of Airmont, N.Y., and she and her family are members of his shul. In this exclusive interview with the Forverts, Schmeltzer…
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The Schmooze The Many Outfits of Lipa Schmeltzer
The other week we reported on a shoot of Lipa Schmeltzer’s latest music video, in which the popular Hasidic singer dressed up in an Israel Defense Forces uniform, along with members of the Nahal Hareidi, or ultra-Orthodox division of the IDF. That video, titled “Mizrach,” has now been released. The army uniform is just one…
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The Schmooze Lipa Schmeltzer in Uniform
Lipa Schmeltzer, the Hasidic superstar we can’t stop talking about, keeps pushing buttons. Yesterday the Orthodox news site Vos Iz Neias picked up reports from the Israeli newspaper Maariv that Schmeltzer is shooting a new music video with Israeli soldiers, dressed as a soldier himself. “Schmeltzer shot footage for the video several days ago in…
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News African Immigrants, Poverty by Choice, Lipa’s Latest
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis talks with Washington correspondent Nathan Guttman about how Jewish organizations are reacting to Israel’s deportation of Sudanese refugees. Then, Forward editor Jane Eisner stops by to discuss if it is Americans’ responsibility to financially support ultra-Orthodox Jews who choose to study rather than work. Then, staff writer Ezra…
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The Schmooze My Lipa Schmeltzer Problem, and Ours
When Lipa Schmeltzer’s new music video, “Hang Up the Phone,” hit the Internet last week, I didn’t know what to think. What on God’s green earth was this? The video is a study in contradictions. So much so that, as Josh Nathan-Kazis observes, it enters into the Uncanny Valley between Hasidic and mainstream culture. With…
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Opinion Lipa Schmeltzer’s Uncanny Valley
I think I’ve figured out why I find Lipa Schmeltzer’s anti-Internet-rally-meets-Lady Gaga music video so engrossingly weird. And it’s not just the break-dancing Hasidic robots. Lipa’s video is weird for the same reason that Tom Hanks looks strange in Polar Express and that this android is really creepy. That reason: Schmeltzer’s “Hang Up The Phone”…
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