This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
The Latest
-
Culture The secret Jewish history of Prince
Fun fact: Half of the band on the artist's legendary 'Purple Rain' album were Jewish
-
Fast Forward HBO to produce comedy series about Hasidic rapper Nissim Black
The show will tell the story of his days in a Seattle gang to a devout Orthodox family man — and hip hop star.
-
Culture Leonard Cohen changed Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Did it change him?
In October of 1973, Israel was fighting the Yom Kippur War with Egypt and Syria and Leonard Cohen decided to visit. His exact reasons have long been a mystery. Hearing him clarify them, you may wish they’d stayed that way. In an unpublished manuscript, the 39-year-old poet wrote he “wanted to go fight and die…
-
Opinion An unlikely rap battle: How this Israeli-Palestinian duo forged a friendship and a movement
Sameh: When Uriya came to meet me 20 months ago at the bar I was managing in Jaffa, I suspected he was another patronizing Israeli looking for a token Arab for his project. I have always been an outspoken artist over my 20-year career as a leading performer in the Palestinian rap scene. I have…
-
Yiddish World Now streaming: Musician’s fascinating journey to find Ukrainian Jewish folksongs
In the 1920s, after the horrific pogroms that followed the Russian Revolution, a Jewish musician and ethnomusicologist named Moyshe Beregovsky, also known as Moisei Iakovlevich Beregovskii, travelled across Ukraine with a phonograph in hand, seeking to record the authentic Yiddish music of Ukrainian Jewry. Among the hundreds of songs that he collected were Yiddish folk…
-
Culture Finally, we can move on from ‘Dreidel Dreidel’ — a true Hanukkah bop has dropped
In the past few weeks, I’ve written about everything wrong with Hanukkah today — kitschy merchandise, Christmasification, the Maccabees. So as we approach the end of the eight nights, I wanted to finish on a sweeter note: a pop anthem made for the holiday that, in my humble opinion, does everything right. “Hanukkah” comes from…
-
Music What do Bible characters have on their Spotify Wrapped list?
From Abraham to Yael, here's what your faves were listening to this year
-
Opinion Our Reform leaders sinned. Should we still sing songs they wrote?
Reform synagogues across the nation are struggling to make sense of the damning report released earlier this month showing nearly unfettered patterns of unwanted sexual contact between male faculty and female students at Hebrew Union College over five decades. Released on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the report, conducted by an independent law firm, showed that…
Explore
Most Popular
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Netanyahu says ‘tragic mishap’ fueled Gaza hospital strikes that killed 20, including 5 journalists
-
Fast Forward Kneecap cancels sold-out US tour, one day after clash with Jewish protesters in Paris
-
News How the online knitting world unraveled over Israel and Gaza
-
Culture The Trump administration says it’s posting ‘banger memes’ — here’s why that’s a problem for Jews
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
