Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
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The Schmooze Enrico Macias, Sephardic Superstar
If you’ve grown up as a Sephardic Jew, there’s one singer that you’ve reliably heard at every single wedding, bar/bat-mitzvah, engagement party, Shabbat, or celebration of any kind. His name is Enrico Macias. Born Gaston Ghrenassia in Constantine — then in French Algeria — in 1938, the Jewish “Pied Noir” singer has come to embody…
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Music Marissa Nadler Isn’t Afraid of the Dark
Boston-based singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler, long a critical darling with a cult following, seems poised to cross over with the haunting “July,” (Sacred Bones) her sixth studio album in ten years. Reviews have been the strongest of her career; UK pop bible NME called “July” “a career high,” and the PopMatters blog dubbed it “one of…
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Culture Why Jews Stood Up for Richard Wagner
There’s an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which Larry David is caught whistling Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” to his wife in front of a movie theater. A hysterical and unhinged nudnik accosts him, spouting the common litany of charges against Wagner (“history’s biggest anti-Semite,” “millions of Jews marched to the gas chambers with Wagner’s music…
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Israel News For Alice Herz-Sommer, Oldest Holocaust Survivor, Music Was a Religion
At 110 years old, Alice Herz-Sommer died too soon. As the world’s oldest Holocaust survivor, Herz-Sommer, a noted musician, was limited in recent years in her daily existence. She lived alone in London in a tiny cocoon-like efficiency apartment. But she revered life and mused on its mystery and majesty. Where others saw a tree…
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The Schmooze Growing Up Jewish in Rock’s Golden Age
At age 19, Graham Gouldman scored his first U.K. top-10 hit with “For Your Love,” the ageless tune first recorded by the Yardbirds. He went on to write smash songs for the likes of Herman’s Hermits, Jeff Beck, and the Hollies before forming the band 10cc — a hit factory in itself — in 1972….
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The Schmooze Bette Midler to Sing at the Oscars For First Time
Hey wait — is there an awards ceremony pegged to a Bette Midler performance on March 2nd? According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Divine Miss M will be performing at the 86th Annual Academy Awards, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres. Despite having been nominated twice, for her roles in”The Rose” (1979) and “For the Boys” (1991)…
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The Schmooze The Year of Jason Robert Brown
This will definitely be composer Jason Robert Brown’s year. A musical version of Robert James Waller’s “The Bridges of Madison County” (music, lyrics and orchestration by Jason Robert Brown) opens February 20 on Broadway. “Honeymoon in Vegas” (music, lyrics, dance and vocal orchestration by Jason Robert Brown), which received rapturous reviews during its debut at…
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Culture Neshama Carlebach Isn’t Just Shlomo’s Daughter
Our high school, the Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto was, as its name indicated, a community school. Kids entered ninth grade from the spectrum of Jewish day schools — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Sephardic. But it was also a community school in a different way; we were a small group (graduating class of 110), and…
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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 This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
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Fast Forward Meet Lev Kreitman, who brought down Tel Aviv shooter and survived Nova music festival on Oct. 7
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Fast Forward Suspect arrested in U of Michigan rabbi’s home robbery, with no evidence of antisemitic intent
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