This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
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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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Culture Jewish music in Germany after the Holocaust
Read this article in Yiddish. Tina Frühauf Transcending Dystopia: Music, Mobility, and the Jewish Community in Germany, 1945-1989 Oxford University Press, 2021, 644 pp. Immediately after World War II, the German rabbi Leo Baeck, who had survived the war in the concentration camp Terezin, declared: “The history of German Jews has ended once and for…
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Fast Forward Jewish rocker Ezra Furman announces she’s a woman — and a mom
(JTA) — This article first appeared on Kveller. Jewish indie rocker Ezra Furman is a trans woman — and has been a mom for years — she revealed on Wednesday. In a moving Instagram post, the 34-year-old musician briefly explains her journey, her experience of motherhood and why she’s sharing her story. “I wanted to…
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Opinion A quiet diplomatic shift in the Middle East, with monumental consequences for Israel
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News This gaming platform has ‘zero tolerance’ for antisemitism. Holocaust reenactments keep reappearing anyway.
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Fast Forward Jersey City’s outgoing Jewish mayor Steven Fulop signs antisemitism orders as ‘guardrails’ for his successor
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Yiddish טשיקאַוועסן: אין שאָטן פֿון מלחמה בליט ייִדיש לעבן אין ראָסטאָווTidbits: In shadow of war, Jewish life thrives in Rostov, Russia
חנוכּה זענען בערך 2,000 מענטשן געקומען אויף אַ ייִדישן קאָנצערט, נישט געקוקט אויף דער רוסישער מלחמה קעגן אוקראַיִנע.
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Fast Forward In a Mamdani-era primary, J Street endorses pro-Israel incumbent — and, in a first, ‘approves’ his challenger
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