Chutzpah — “the world’s first Jewish hip hop supergroup” — is roughly what you would expect a Jewish novelty hip-hop group to be, provided you didn’t think too hard: On its newly released, eponymously named album the group raps about Hanukkah and about nagging mothers, throws in a smattering of Yiddish and peppers its lyrics with references to “the Tribe.”

What’s that you say? Jewish rap has been done? Well, let’s see: There’s been 2 Live Jews, Members of the Tribe, 50 Shekel (who now goes by his given name, Aviad Cohen), reggae rapper Matisyahu and a few score others. (And of course, long before any of them, there were the Beastie Boys.)

But wait, wait. These Jewish rappers know celebrities. Their mockumentary DVD, “Chutzpah — This Is?” includes appearances by Gary Oldman, Sharon Osbourne and ’80s heavy metal band Def Leppard’s Vivian Campbell. It features George Segal as rap pioneer Dr. Dreck. (Segal does not actually rap with Chutzpah.)

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The group’s three permanent members are Master Tav, MC Meshugenah, and Jewdah (born as Tor Hyams, Jerran Friedman, and David Scharff, respectively). Hyams brought in the celebrities from his career as a film composer, songwriter, record producer and Los Angeles preschool father.

He insists that Chutzpah is not just a novelty group: “Isn’t that racist? Why can’t Jews rap?” Rather, Hyams said, Chutzpah uses humor to convey a serious message. The message? “It all comes down to One Tribe.” In other words, Jewish unity, human unity, etc.

Serious or not, Chutzpah’s message is finding an audience. The group’s music video for “Chanukah’s da Bomb” is now appearing on MTV Online and on Video on Demand; Chutzpah is touring venues around the country, and, in perhaps the group’s surest sign of success, has been hired to play at a fancy bar mitzvah on New York’s Upper East Side.

Chutzpah’s rise confirms Hyams’s original instinct on entering the Jewish hip-hop world: “I felt like I was better than anything I had heard.”

Now that’s chutzpah.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount