Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
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Culture Ever Wonder Who Your Favorite Artist Was Reading? Now You Can Find Out
Have you ever wanted to know what your favorite author was listening to? What your favorite musician was reading? What your favorite chef considered to be a luxury item? Well, now you find out thanks to an archival project by the BBC. The network has recently digitized the entire catalogue of the Desert Island Discs…
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Culture Where Are All The Tu B’Shvat Songs?
Many Jewish holidays have inspired the people of the book to drop tomes and pick up instruments. And, in the age of YouTube, there’s plenty of evidence for the success of that substitution. And, since Tu B’Shvat — a kind of Jewish Arbor Day — celebrates the rebirth of the natural world, it should be…
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Food Meet the Jewish Punk Bands That Throw Gefilte Fish, Bagels and Hummus
Bagels, gefilte fish, Manischewitz, and other Jewish foods were used — and thrown — at Jewish punk concerts. In the early 1990s, Gefilte F*ck singer Howard Hallis would take the stage clutching a bottle of Manischewitz wine. The Los Angeles band threw matzo, chocolate gelt and even its eponym at concertgoers. At one raucous show,…
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Fast Forward Coldplay Denies Report It Will Play Israeli-Palestinian ‘Peace Concerts’
(JTA) — The British rock band Coldplay denied reports that it was planning two “peace concerts” for Israelis and Palestinians in November. A representative for the band said the report was not true, according to Rolling Stone. The Times of Israel had cited a report by Israel’s Channel 2 in an article that said the band was to perform on Nov….
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Breaking News Dutch Rapper: ‘Jews Like Money’ Song Is a Compliment
(JTA) — A Dutch rapper who sang that he “sits on money like a Jew” and “deports” greedy women defended the text as a “compliment” devoid of any anti-Semitic undertones. Ali Bouali, a best-selling performer of Moroccan descent who is also known in the Netherlands as an activist against discrimination, defended these lines from his…
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Breaking News George Michael, British Pop Star With Jewish Roots, Dies at 53
British singer George Michael, who became one of the pop idols of the 1980s with Wham! and then forged a career as a successful solo artist with sometimes sexually provocative lyrics, died at his home in England on Sunday. He was 53. In the mid-1980s, “Wham! was one of the most successful pop duos ever,…
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Opinion My Name Is Loolwa Khazzoom and I Won’t Change That To Come Off Less Middle Eastern
I just received a text from my guitarist, urging me to change our band name from “Iraqis in Pajamas” to something else — anything else, as long as it has no Middle Eastern connotation. A young Muslim woman at the local university was just attacked and hit in the head, he informed me, and the…
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News Ben Zion Shenker, a Master of Melodies, Made from Music a Life of Meaning
There are very few people who may honestly be referred to as “national treasures” — someone whose contributions are not to one or another group within our community, but to all of us together: old and young, wise and simple, religiously observant and less so. Rabbi Ben Zion Shenker, who died November 20 at the…
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Film & TV Bonhoeffer biopic tells of a pastor turned would-be Hitler assassin — but is the story true?
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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News What Mike Huckabee’s ‘Kids Guide to Israel’ says about his views
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Culture At 95, Shaindel Schreiber is still dispensing babka and advice on the Lower East Side
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Opinion Netanyahu was right to end the war in Lebanon — now Gaza must follow
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Culture 10 wicked ways to avoid talking about Gaza and Trump this Thanksgiving
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Fast Forward Israeli security cabinet approves ceasefire with Hezbollah, paving way for end of yearlong conflict in Israel’s north
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Culture Who are the most (and least) Jewish Peanuts characters?
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