Binyomin Ginzberg
By Binyomin Ginzberg
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Culture Yosi Piamenta, a Virtuoso Guitarist Who Reshaped Jewish Music
Legendary Jewish guitarist Yosi Piamenta died on August 23 after a difficult struggle with cancer. He was 64. Piamenta was a virtuoso guitarist who had a long career performing original music as well as traditional Jewish, Israeli and Arabic songs arranged in his signature style. Born in Israel on November 29, 1951, Piamenta moved to…
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The Schmooze To Mindy Meyer, With Love
Modern Orthodox punk band The Groggers are known for tangling with controversial issues. From their first viral video hit, “Get,” to one of their latest, “Jewcan Sam (A Nose Job Love Song)” about, well, getting a nose job, the band has drawn equal measures of enthusiasm and scorn. Last May, Groggers front man L.E. Staiman…
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The Schmooze Monday Music: Making a Loving Mockery of Modern Orthodoxy
It all started with a video that went viral. Shortly after The Groggers’ frontman L.E. Staiman got back from studying in yeshiva in Israel, he began recording punk songs with quirky Jewish-themed concepts. The demos got positive feedback from friends, but he was told that there was no demographic that would “get” his songs. Then…
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Culture Chilik Frank Brings Soul of Hasidism to Klezmer
For my bar mitzvah, my great-uncle gave me a cheap GPX stereo system. Despite the fact that it was a piece of junk from the bargain retailer Jamesway (remember Jamesway?), given by a self-proclaimed audiophile who had promised to get me something good, that stereo had a huge impact on my musical life. That year,…
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The Schmooze Are Hasidic Singers Exploiting Leiby Kletzky’s Death?
There is a time for mourning and there is a time for PR. The shocking murder of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, z”l, in Borough Park this week, is an unspeakable horror. And yet, with what seems to be a total lack of sensitivity regarding what kind of public reaction is or isn’t appropriate, Haredi artists are…
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The Schmooze Is Haredi Music Video Activism Misplaced?
The new single and music video titled “The Japan Song,” released March 29 and featuring prominent Hasidic singers Avraham Fried and Shloimy Daskal, is not what you might expect. Although its purpose is fundraising for relief efforts, and the video includes some footage of the tsunami, it is not a fundraiser for Japan at all….
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The Schmooze Monday Music: A Simple Jew With a Touch of Gaga
Last month, the hugely popular Hasidic singer Lipa Schmeltzer, known simply as “Lipa,” released his latest album, “24/6,” a collection of cover songs currently popular at Hasidic weddings. The release comes almost exactly three years after the singer’s then-largest concert was banned by many prominent rabbis in the Haredi world, and it is only the…
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The Schmooze Remembering Influential Orthodox Songwriter Moshe Yess
The English-speaking Haredi Jewish community produces an awful lot of original Jewish music, though critics might consider it a lot of awful original Jewish music. With rare exceptions, the lyrics of popular songs in English — as opposed to settings of liturgical texts or Yiddish lyrics — come in just a few flavors, ranging from…
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