Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
The Latest
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Community Should Jews Be Singing Christmas Songs?
Jews and Christmas music go together like bartenders and craft cocktails — they produce the vast majority of them, but things get awkward when they consume them in excess in front of the masses. But as the end of November draws near, it’s hard to escape Christmas music on every radio station. Some Jews have…
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Life Niggun, Meet Jam Session: Joey Weisenberg May Be The Future Of Jewish Music.
Joey Weisenberg has a quiet magnetism. Standing up in front of a conservative synagogue in New Rochelle a number of weeks ago, he asked the congregants to spread out to the far corners of the sanctuary. Then he asked them to sing together. The sound was unsurprisingly tepid. But then he brought them together –…
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Music LISTEN: Arik Einstein’s Yiddish Song “Meydele”
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Arik Einstein was the single most important figure in the rise of Israeli rock-music, as important to Israelis as Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley and the Beatles were to Americans. Although known exclusively for his songs in Hebrew, Einstein did record one song in Yiddish in 1971, a…
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Community Rappers And Rabbis Are All Singing The Same Song
…I wanna rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old Then magnificently we will float Into the mystic. —Van Morrison Pop singers waxing eloquent about love and sex freely borrow from the religious vernacular. Religion returns the compliment. In many synagogues these days, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah has been adopted as…
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Community The Crisis Of Faith In A Kreutzer Sonata
At age 18, David Lindenbaum finds himself suspended in between two universes that pull him in what he senses as opposite directions. On one side, there is his faith — a fervent Jew, Lindenbaum always wears a kippah (“Even while I’m sleeping,” he says with pride) and tries to maintain his religious identity also when…
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Fast Forward Singers Pull Out Of Berlin Music Festival Over Israeli Embassy Funding
(JTA) — Several artists pulled out of a popular Berlin music festival because the Israeli Embassy in Germany provided a financial contribution. The three-day Berlin Pop-Kultur festival, which runs through Friday, accepted 500 euros, or nearly $600, from the Israeli diplomatic mission. Israeli artists are among the 70 acts scheduled to perform at the festival….
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Fast Forward WATCH: Israeli Violinist Welcomes Radiohead With ‘No Surprises’ Cover
Many pro-boycotts, divestments and sanctions activists met the rock band Radiohead’s arrival in Tel Aviv on Wednesday with protests. Michael Greilsammer, a noted Israeli violinist, welcomed the band with a passionate cover of one of their songs. In a video posted earlier this week, Greilsammer plays Radiohead’s classic hit “No Surprises.” The song is from…
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Fast Forward Neo-Nazi Beaten And Marked With Swastika In ‘Antifa’ Music Video
A graphic new music video from a heavy metal band depicts anti-fascist (‘antifa’) activists tracking and abducting a neo-Nazi. The band Stray From The Path released the single, “Goodnight Alt Right,” on Wednesday to promote its upcoming album, “Only Death Is Real.” “If you preach hate, then expect hate,” the song goes. “What makes you…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture A Jewish prophet of the 1980s would be horrified to see that we didn’t heed his warnings
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Opinion With killing of Hezbollah’s chief, Israel occupies the inarguable moral high ground
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Opinion This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
In Case You Missed It
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Oct. 7: One Year Later On the eve of this grim anniversary, what we can — and cannot — control
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Fast Forward Antisemitism hits record high in the U.S.; new report shows most-ever incidents in single year
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Culture He founded the Harlem Globetrotters and is the shortest man in the basketball hall of fame. A new book tells his story.
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Oct. 7: One Year Later One year after Oct. 7, a Yom Kippur ritual of communal mourning takes on fresh meaning
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