Alexander Gelfand
By Alexander Gelfand
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Culture Reb Shlomo Meets Nigeria
Fela Anikulapo Kuti and Shlomo Carlebach are not an obvious pairing. The first was a Nigerian musician, political activist and devotee of traditional Yoruba religion who married 27 wives simultaneously, was jailed for his aggressive criticism of the Nigerian government and died of AIDS after a lifetime of inspired rabble-rousing. The second was an American…
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Culture Coming to Africa
When I heard that a West African-Israeli collaborative venture called the Touré-Raichel Collective was going to be performing this month at City Winery, an upscale venue in lower Manhattan, I had serious misgivings. Was I curious? You bet. Was I optimistic? Not in the least. My wariness had nothing to do with the band’s hyphenated…
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News Basya Schechter Sculpts World Music
Singer Basya Schechter, who for many years has led the band Pharaoh?s Daughter and who just released ?Songs of Wonder? (Tzadik), a collection of Yiddish songs based on the poetry of Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, is having a moment. And for good reason. Schechter makes music that is both appealing and intriguing. As an…
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Culture Jews Try To Ban Offensive Music
Had you been checking out the celebrity gossip website TMZ.com during Rosh Hashanah services — what else are iPhones for? — you might have been amused to learn that the rapper Tyrese was banned from the biggest hip-hop radio station in Delaware for addressing his audience as “homies.” Almost as entertaining was the news this…
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Culture Lost Music of Istanbul’s Sephardic Jews
‘It’s really changed.” My wife, Ingrid, and I were sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Residence in Istanbul, listening to an Israeli historian named Daniel wax nostalgic. Daniel’s mother, a native Istanbulu, had taken him there on frequent childhood visits in the years before the varlik vergisi, or “wealth tax,” of the 1940s and…
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Culture Metamorphoses: The Sources and Journeys of a Tune
Listen to a clip from “Di Tsvey Brider” (“The Two Brothers”) from “New Worlds: A Celebration of I.L. Peretz” produced by Folksbiene. From an original score by Dmitri Slepovitch, recorded with the musicians Dmitri Slepovitch, Matt Temkin, and the voices of Shane Baker and Mikhl Baran. ‘A melody lives and dies and it is forgotten,”…
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News Art Pop Indie Rock Meets Midrash
A tough room, lousy sound and half a band. Given the poor hand she was dealt, it’s a testament to Alicia Jo Rabins’s onstage appeal that she came across as well as she did at a showcase for emerging Jewish performers presented June 17 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to…
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Culture Everything Old is New Again
Analogies between music and language abound. Sometimes we liken music to a universal language that is able to transcend ordinary linguistic and cultural boundaries. Sometimes we talk about its innumerable local dialects, the genres and styles that mingle and give rise to yet more idiosyncratic forms. There are limits to these comparisons — scholars note…
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