Joseph Leichman
By Joseph Leichman
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Culture Songs of a Lost Tribe’s Longing
In the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, far in the northeast near the Burmese border, some 7,000 people observe the Jewish Sabbath, kosher dietary laws and rules of family purity. Already, 1,400 of these people, known as Bnei Menashe, have immigrated to Israel. The remaining 7,000 wish to join their brethren as soon as…
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Culture Celebrating Remembrance
Yizkor, the memorial service chanted but four times in the course of the Jewish year, was composed in the wake of the Crusades, nearly 1,000 years ago. The spirit that spurred its creation has long since vanished. Undaunted, bassist David Chevan has tried to recapture it. Together with his band, the Afro-Semitic Experience, and renowned…
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News On the Scene: Young Jews Hit Music Fests
In the searing heat of a recent Saturday afternoon in July, three young men were disassembling a tent, cleaning out their cooler and packing up their car. After two days at Camp Bisco, a music-and-camping festival organized and headlined by the Disco Biscuits (“Bisco,” for short), the trio were hoping to beat the traffic out…
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Culture Homeschool of Rock
When Yuda Piamenta was 15, he skipped a day of school. His father, legendary Israeli guitarist Yossi Piamenta, punished his son in somewhat unusual fashion: He picked up a guitar, handed another one to Yuda and instructed him to start playing. Yossi then played a series of dissonant chords over Yuda’s melody. The cacophony might…
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Culture From the Depths
In a large oblong room with raised ceilings and a faded brick veneer, Shmuel Levy was picking up the pieces of his scattered songbook. “This is terrible,” he muttered, crawling along the floor, examining more than 100 three-hole-punched sheets that just a moment before had spiraled from his black music binder. “This is a really…
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Israel News 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…
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Culture The Hardest Working Men in Soul Business
Perhaps it was inevitable that David Krakauer, the virtuosic clarinetist and klezmer artist, would team up with Fred Wesley, a funk legend who played trombone and arranged for James Brown in the 1960s and ’70s. After all, Wesley rose to stardom playing on such hits as “Super Bad,” and Krakauer continues to garner equal helpings…
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