When It Comes to Childcare, Songstress Sings the Blues
She’s been called sacrilegious, sinful and a Jew for Jesus. For the first time, though, Neshama Carlebach — daughter of the late rabbi Shlomo Carlebach — is saddled with an adjective that hurts: nannyless.
Carlebach’s sixth CD, “One and One,” hits stores May 22. She will celebrate her newest full-length (and first English) record that night at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The concert — cue the epithets — will feature Reverend Roger Hambrick and 40 members of the Green Pastures Baptist Church Choir.
Still, with a 1-year-old son and a nanny who unexpectedly quit last week, Carlebach is less concerned with “people who say I must be Jews for Jesus” than with finding some childcare.
“The nanny just skipped out. It’s a woman I’ve been working with for months and months and months, and she just quit,” said Carlebach, who lives in New York. “I’m on the road for 18 days in May, plus my release, plus I’m going to Europe for 10 days without my son, which is the longest I’ve ever been away from him.”
As her father was wont to do, Carlebach works extensively in the gospel vein. Hambrick’s ensemble appears on two tracks on “One and One,” and Carlebach is arranging a live recording of her father’s music with the choir.
With a little intervention from Hambrick, funding may come quickly.
“I sang at their church for a Martin Luther King event, and the reverend got up and said, ‘This year, we and Neshama are going to do a record together, and we need some money,’” Carlebach said, laughing.
“At shul,” she offered meekly, “they’re like, ‘We need a donation.’”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
