JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
It’s Oscars weekend, and, for once, the often-predictable ceremony has the admittedly mild potential to be genuinely interesting. On the biggest night of Hollywood’s year, how will presenters, performers and award-winners address the ongoing revelations of pervasive sexual assault and harassment that began with The New York Times’s exposé on Harvey Weinstein? A surprising number…
When I heard that a West African-Israeli collaborative venture called the Touré-Raichel Collective was going to be performing this month at City Winery, an upscale venue in lower Manhattan, I had serious misgivings. Was I curious? You bet. Was I optimistic? Not in the least. My wariness had nothing to do with the band’s hyphenated…
Novelist Alice Walker explains why she is sailing to Gaza. The New York Times profiles Idan Raichel, Israel’s “musician of the decade.” JWeekly profiles the Ridin’ Chai Motorcycle Club of Northern California. In Souciant, The Arty Semite contributor Joel Schalit writes about Public Enemy in Arabic. In Tablet, The Arty Semite contributor Shulem Deen writes…
Crossposted from Haaretz When Mary Ocher participated in a singing competition at 14, Idan Reichel, who was working as a music arranger in the same competition, told her she would never be a singer. At 20, after hearing the same thing from a few other Israeli teachers, Ocher packed her bags and moved with her…
World music is a disingenuous marker for a genre. Besides presuming that popular forms of western (that is, American) music like pop, rock, rap, soul and country-western are something other than of the world, the term “world music” tends to flatten the rich idiosyncrasies and particularities of music coming from all corners of the globe….
David Grossman has won the German Book Trade Peace Prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Isaac Bashevis Singer comes to Carbondale, Illinois. As the music consultant for The Israeli Opera, Idan Raichel has chosen Vieux Farka Touré to open the new season on November 26. Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize in…
Dinner before a pro-Israel event, $31. Subway uptown to mingle with Jews, $2.25. Watching Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren and a reverend dance the horah in a cathedral to the sounds of The Idan Raichel Project…priceless. Approximately 1,500 New Yorkers, Israelis and representatives from countries as obscure as Moldova showed up last night at New York’s…
Last night India.Arie was a surprise special guest at Idan Raichel’s November 10 show at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Dayenu: It would have been enough to have seen India.Arie perform next to Raichel — the combination of musical talent (not to mention hair length) would have been impressive. But, showbiz trooper that she is,…
