How to Get a Klezmer Record in Amazon’s Top Ten

Image by United Feature Syndicate
The short answer? Get Nat Hentoff to review it in the Wall Street Journal.
In Saturday’s paper, the eminent jazz critic published an appreciation of “Cantors, Klezmorim and Crooners 1905-1953,” a three-disc box set of remastered archival Yiddish music that was released in late 2009.
Hentoff had only good things to say about the remastered tracks: “Because of the extraordinary skills of engineer Christopher King, all of them bring you into the very presence of these carriers of the Yiddish ethos. At home in the Boston ghetto, I had grown up with a few of these, but they didn’t sound as if the performers were actually in the room with me. They do now.”
Hentoff’s praise has not fallen on deaf ears. Following the publication of his review, “Cantors, Klezmorim and Crooners” shot up into Amazon’s top 10 music bestsellers, reaching No. 4 on Monday morning, sandwiched between James Taylor and Carole King at No. 3 and Sheryl Crow at No. 5. As of this writing, it has slid down slightly, hanging on at No. 8.
Along with track-by-track comments on the music, Hentoff reminiscenced about his own childhood encounters with Yiddish music, and how, in part, they helped lead him to jazz:
“As a Jewish kid growing up in then virulently anti-Semitic Boston—a place where Henry Brooks Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, could say without censure that ‘snarling a weird Yiddish … the Jew makes me creep’—I got a kick out of defiantly playing this music at a proud volume.”
Read Hentoff’s review here, and my earlier piece on “Cantors, Klezmorim and Crooners” for the Forward here.
h/t Variety Soundcheck
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.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 2
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 3
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Israel is choosing to inflict misery on Gaza
-
Fast Forward Police clash with pro-Palestinian protesters in Brooklyn as Columbia library takeover fallout continues
-
Opinion This week proved it: Trump’s approach to antisemitism at Columbia is horribly ineffective
-
Yiddish קאָנצערט לכּבֿוד דעם ייִדישן שרײַבער און רעדאַקטאָר באָריס סאַנדלערConcert honoring Yiddish writer and editor Boris Sandler
דער בעל־שׂימחה האָט יאָרן לאַנג געדינט ווי דער רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.