Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
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News These New Yorkers were annoyed by anti-vaccine Holocaust comparisons. So they wrote a song.
(JTA) — It was a quiet Shabbat afternoon when the frustration that had been building up inside Michal Schick spilled out in a song. For months, Schick had been keeping a tally in her head — and sometimes on Twitter, where the New York City screenwriter is active — of pandemic-related Holocaust comparisons that, to her…
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Yiddish World After 67 years, ‘The Black Cantor’ finally gets a gravestone
Read this article in Yiddish. Musician and music archivist Hank Sapoznik has announced that he has raised enough money from private donations to put up a gravestone for the remarkable African-American cantor, Thomas LaRue Jones. The in-person unveiling ceremony will take place on Sunday, August 29th, at 11:00 am, 67 years after Jones’ death,…
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News For 35 years, this mother-daughter duo has run a radio show on Ladino and Sephardic Jewish culture from Madrid
MADRID (JTA) — Matilde Gini de Barnatán and her daughter Viviana Rajel Barnatán didn’t set out to make Jewish history in Spain. In the 1960s and ’70s, Matilde, now 85, established herself in Argentina as a prominent researcher, teacher and scholar of the history of Sephardic culture and the Spanish Inquisition in Ibero-America. Her extensive…
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Culture Oregon has finally scrapped its racist state song — thanks to a Jewish music teacher
Most of us think of Oregon as a liberal bastion, home to hipster baristas and organic farmers, a conception encouraged by shows like “Portlandia.” But much of Oregon is truer to its historical roots as a “whites-only utopia” that forbade Black residents and displaced its native tribes. It’s therefore unsurprising that the Oregon state song’s…
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Fast Forward Rappers invest in dating app for ‘Jews with ridiculously high standards’
Rappers Bhad Bhabie and Lil Yachty are teaming up with the Lox Club, a dating app for “Jews with ridiculously high standards.” The Lox Club is a private, membership-based app, meant to be an online version of the original 20th century Lox Club – a hidden speakeasy inside a New York City deli. Bhabie and…
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Fast Forward Patti Smith and Julian Casablancas among over 600 musicians to call for boycott of Israel
(JTA) — Patti Smith and Julian Casablancas of The Strokes are among the more than 600 musicians who have signed a letter calling for artists to avoid playing concerts in Israel. “We call on you to join us with your name in refusing to perform at Israel’s complicit cultural institutions,” says the letter, which began…
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Culture Musician Yoke Lore thrives as a pandemic hermit. Here’s what he’s gotten done
The last real concert I attended, before the pandemic hit, was at the Sinclair in Cambridge. I was seeing a band called Yoke Lore — really just one guy, who plays electronic-inflected, danceable banjo music. I’d just gotten into the band, and was listening to a few songs on repeat, but I didn’t know much…
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Culture ‘They Own The Media’: New Van Morrison song amplifies antisemitic trope
Legendary singer-songwriter Van Morrison released a new song on streaming platforms Thursday whose title espouses a classic antisemitic trope. The lyrics of the song, “They Own The Media,” never indicate who the pronoun in its title refers to. But Morrison, a two-time Grammy winner, was also accused of antisemitism for the 2005 track “They Sold…
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Music In 1964, when he was just 23, Bob Dylan wrote the prophetic anthem that encapsulates Trump’s America
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News Jewish groups targeted Columbia grad Mahmoud Khalil — then ICE arrested him
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Fast Forward Trump allies target Jewish judge — and his wife — after ruling on Palestinian activist
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Fast Forward What does the election of Mark Carney mean for Canadian Jews and Israel?
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion Trump’s crusade against Columbia is ripped straight from Hungary’s anti-Soros playbook
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Fast Forward How a Jewish man with Parkinson’s won ‘Jeopardy!’ after 24 years and a missed voicemail
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Fast Forward After welcoming far-right politicians, Israel’s antisemitism conference is hemorrhaging speakers
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Fast Forward Trump’s antisemitism chief shares ‘Jew card’ post from white supremacist
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