This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
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Fast Forward Lorde Cancelled Her Concert In Israel. Here’s What 5 Other Artists Did Instead.
(JTA) — Pop star Lorde’s decision to cancel her scheduled concert in Israel has sparked some fierce reactions, even if most of them were expected. The 21-year-old New Zealand native’s move earned praise from proponents of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, who said she was taking a stand for the Palestinians. Meanwhile, a range…
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News Jewish Convert Explores Faith And Belonging Through Country Music
At the largest gathering of Reform Jews in the country earlier this month, Joe Buchanan stuck out in the crowd. Thousands of Jews had gathered in Boston for four days of worship and learning. But Buchanan was the only Jewish cowboy. In a black felted hat and a patterned handkerchief tied around his wrist, Buchanan,…
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Opinion Should We Still Be Singing Shlomo Carlebach’s Songs In The #MeToo Era?
Though Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach has been dead for nearly as long as I’ve been alive, his music and ethos still echo throughout American Jewish communal life and liturgy. Carlebach’s music is almost childishly simple, often utilizing only a few easy chords and repeating a few short verses in Hebrew. In the right environment, it can…
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Community Should Jews Be Singing Christmas Songs?
Jews and Christmas music go together like bartenders and craft cocktails — they produce the vast majority of them, but things get awkward when they consume them in excess in front of the masses. But as the end of November draws near, it’s hard to escape Christmas music on every radio station. Some Jews have…
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Life Niggun, Meet Jam Session: Joey Weisenberg May Be The Future Of Jewish Music.
Joey Weisenberg has a quiet magnetism. Standing up in front of a conservative synagogue in New Rochelle a number of weeks ago, he asked the congregants to spread out to the far corners of the sanctuary. Then he asked them to sing together. The sound was unsurprisingly tepid. But then he brought them together –…
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Music LISTEN: Arik Einstein’s Yiddish Song “Meydele”
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Arik Einstein was the single most important figure in the rise of Israeli rock-music, as important to Israelis as Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley and the Beatles were to Americans. Although known exclusively for his songs in Hebrew, Einstein did record one song in Yiddish in 1971, a…
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Community Rappers And Rabbis Are All Singing The Same Song
…I wanna rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old Then magnificently we will float Into the mystic. —Van Morrison Pop singers waxing eloquent about love and sex freely borrow from the religious vernacular. Religion returns the compliment. In many synagogues these days, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah has been adopted as…
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Community The Crisis Of Faith In A Kreutzer Sonata
At age 18, David Lindenbaum finds himself suspended in between two universes that pull him in what he senses as opposite directions. On one side, there is his faith — a fervent Jew, Lindenbaum always wears a kippah (“Even while I’m sleeping,” he says with pride) and tries to maintain his religious identity also when…
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Fast Forward Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
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Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
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Opinion I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
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Fast Forward In Reykjavik, Hanukkah offers a chance for Iceland’s tiny, isolated Jewish community to come together
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