Michael Isaacson
By Michael Isaacson
-
Culture You Shoot, He Scores: The Kibbutz King of Komposers
“My grandparents drained swamps and established Kibbutz Merchavia in northern Israel. My father, an actor/director, and my mother, a teacher/poet, lived on it and raised three sons there… They divorced when I was 20. I moved to Tel Aviv to study at the Music Academy and was advised by my guru, ‘There’s nothing more for…
-
Culture Bound Up for Two Decades: A Test of Faith
Twenty years ago, young composer Lawrence Goldberg entered his one-act opera about the binding of Isaac into The Jewish Music Commission of Los Angeles’ competition for a new pulpit opera. Of the resultant piece, “A Test of Faith,” Dr. Richard Braun, chairperson of the commission, reported: “It was just the kind of piece that we hoped…
-
Culture A Strong Voice Quietly Changing the Cantorate
In 1993, as I was preparing to produce a recorded anthology representing 25 years of my synagogue music, I found myself searching for a particular kind of voice — one that was harder to find than you might expect. I was looking for a cantor who could bring an authentic American/Ashkenazic vocal sensibility to the…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Holy Ground A Jewish farmer broke ground on a synagogue in an Illinois cornfield. His neighbors showed up to help.
- 2
Opinion I discovered anti-Zionism at the University of Michigan. I’m glad it lives on there
- 3
Opinion An alarming new battleground in campus fights over Israel
- 4
Culture An Israeli genocide scholar looks to Israel’s history to understand ‘what went wrong’
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Elected PA Jewish judge leaves Democratic party, citing ‘disturbingly common’ antisemitism
-
Fast Forward At Abraham Foxman’s funeral, an elegy for the last generation with direct ties to the Holocaust
-
Fast Forward Israeli report on ‘systematic’ Oct. 7 sexual violence seeks to shift debate from denial to accountability
-
News Mamdani supersizes NYC hate crimes office, as tensions simmer over synagogue protests