Getty Images (JTA) — Moments before they were scheduled to start singing at an impromptu memorial vigil outside the Jewish Museum of Belgium, the 13 members of Yale University’s Jewish a cappella group were still unsure what number to perform. Fresh off the train from Paris, Magevet’s men and women had not initially planned to perform…
Axl Rose and his newest iteration of Guns n’ Roses brought down the house in Tel Aviv when lead guitarist Ronald Jay Blumenthal, better known by his alias Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, did an abbreviated solo version of “Hatikvah.” Blumenthal, who adapted his stage title from a colorfully named bacterial infection, had performed the national Israeli…
We’ve been thinking here a lot about the Israeli national anthem these days, and experimenting with some alternatives. But it’s also useful to be reminded why an anthem means so much to its citizens on a visceral, emotional level. And reminded we were when sent this feelgood of feelgood stories today. A wheel-chair bound Israeli…
When Neshama Carlebach recently recorded for us a slightly different, more inclusive version of Hatikvah (one first suggested by our language columnist, Philologos), the reaction from some was predictably pretty negative. As one commenter succinctly put it, “Israel is not a binational state. It is the national homeland of the Jewish people. I’d rather Israel…
There are times when beautiful, soulful music can transport us to a new and challenging place, a place we might never have visited were we not swept along with song. Neshama Carlebach performs that sort of music — when, for instance, she mixes ancient Jewish tropes with the pulsating rhythms of an African American Baptist…
When an Arab Supreme Court justice stood silent instead of singing the national anthem at a public ceremony in late February, it sparked a furor on Israel’s nationalist right. Some lawmakers said that the judge, Salim Joubran, should be dismissed, and Yisrael Beiteinu’s David Rotem went so far as to claim that he “spat in…
Back in 1998, I wrote a column about “Hatikvah.” It was occasioned by a European Cup soccer game between Israel and Austria, before which, as usual on such occasions, the national anthems of both countries were played. When the band struck up the Israeli anthem, the whole Israeli team joined in singing it except for…
The scandal took place at the home of Israel’s president, where members of the nation’s leading legal and political echelon had gathered to pay tribute to the retiring president of the Supreme Court and to welcome her successor to that august office. Among those present were the other justices of the Court, including Justice Salim…
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