Crossposted from Haaretz When singer Zion Golan entered the wedding hall in Yehud at 7:10 P.M., the atmosphere was sleepy. Hardly anyone was there, not even all the waiters; it would be another two hours before the rest of the guests arrived and the wedding ceremony began. Those who were present no doubt wondered what…
It was small, low-key and the participants numbered in the hundreds, not the thousands. But a crowd of Israeli women took to the streets to speak out — or, more accurately, sing out — against the continuing attacks by religious extremists on women’s right to be seen and heard freely in the public square. The…
Good news — Israeli women are fighting back against those who would hide and silence them. Recent developments for women in Israel have been worrisome and depressing, as readers of this blog are well aware. There has been increasing gender separation on buses and on public streets, harassment of young Beit Shemesh girls whose only…
I recently went down to the Bowery Ballroom to see the rock band Wild Flag perform. They’re a fairly new all-female rock group consisting of two of Sleater-Kinney’s Jewish former members, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss, and two other pioneering female rockers, Rebecca Cole and Mary Timony. I’d been listening to their new album, “Wild…
Miri Ben-Ari, the Israeli “hip-hop violinist” who has played with Jay-Z and Alicia Keys and who recently was honored by Michelle Obama at the White House this week, has single-handedly turned the violin into a cool instrument. It’s wonderful to have a glamorous female role model who has mastered music. While “Tiger Mother” Amy Chua…
Singer and songwriter Sara Kamin jokes that she never sleeps. That’s because she’s juggling a burgeoning music career with teaching college-level psychology classes and completing her post-graduate studies in psychotherapy. The Toronto-based Kamin, 30. has three folk/pop/blues albums under her belt. And her music has been getting increased attention — and airplay — thanks in…
The 1990s era music festival Lilith Fair — like The Sisterhood’s fellow Jewish women’s magazine Lilith — derives its name from the Jewish medieval myth about the first woman on earth, exiled because of her refusal to submit to Adam’s rule. A nebulous character who shows up in various cultural myths, the Lilith figure has…
Growing up I didn’t much think about my wedding. This is not to say I didn’t dream about the man I would one day marry; I did that plenty. But the details — a white tulle dress, a tiered fondant cake — were never part of that revelry. I have stayed true to the girl…
Somewhere in the popular mythology of Jewish paranoia there was a time when everyone loved us. The legend goes that just after the goyim stopped believing we all had horns and just before they started hating Israel for, well, surviving, there was a moment where we were so deeply beloved that black icons, white icons,…
No one strums more sexuality from a banjo than Dan Saks. And no one squeezes more soul out of a Glockenspiel than Amy Crawford. The duo, two-fifths of Brooklyn-based alt-Sephardi indie band DeLeon, flew through an energetic set on September 24, the gig that started their 18 nights opening for Tropicália psych-rockers Os Mutantes. Too…
Jazz fans have long noted the talented Brooklyn-born pianist/composer Roberta Piket, who, mentored by a fellow Brooklynite, eminent pianist Richard Aron “Richie” Beirach, performs with sophisticated emotional astuteness. Piket, who will be performing at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola from Sept 22-26, delights audiences with urbane charm, meditative sensitivity, and even humor, in…
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