Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

A Jewish Taylor Swift?

Could the next guitar-toting, post-adolescent pop sensation — a la Taylor Swift or Colbie Caillat — be a 16-year-old Jewish girl from suburban Montreal?

If the buzz around Brittany Kwasnik, a soft-spoken singer-song writer, is any sign, there’s a good chance.

Kwasnik, who started writing songs in her bathroom, went from musician in hiding to a record contract almost overnight. After hearing a song she wrote last year, friends encouraged Kwasnik to post it on YouTube, which she did with only an old photograph of herself.

A few days and 37,000 hits later, Kwasnik caught the attention of LA-based music impresario Greg London; a couple of months after that, she was on a plane to Los Angeles, where her debut CD, “I Don’t Know Me” was produced by ex-Rembrandts frontman David Zeman. With her first album out, The Gazette, Montreal’s English-language daily, has already linked her style to famed singer-songwriters Tracy Chapman and Joan Armatrading.

With her cousin, music-industry veteran Sheldon Cwinn, as her manager, Kwasnik’s getting a crash course in how show business works. And she’ll need to be a quick study; the next year includes plans for tours of Australia and Japan, as well as recording of her sophomore album.

While her profile climbs – her single, “Breathe”, has gotten over 130,000 hits on YouTube – Kwasnik is still a 10th grade student at Riverdale High School in western Montreal and lives at home with her parents. Her family’s telephone number is listed. And she doesn’t plan on leaving Canada’s second city for greener pastures anytime soon. “Montreal’s home and it feels like home. I feel in place because I’ve grown up here,” she said.

But if fans have their way, she may not be spending much time there.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.