Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
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Culture Remembering Composer Vivian Fine on Her Centenary
September 28 marks the centenary of Vivian Fine (1913-2000) a Chicago-born composer who was profoundly influenced by Yiddishkeit. As Fine, who died in 2000 at the age of 87, told the composer Elizabeth Vercoe in a 1992 interview, her mother came from a “Russian Jewish family and started to work herself when she was 14….
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Culture 9 Top Hard Rock Anthems For Rosh Hashanah
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is upon is. It’s a time to reflect and repent, to eat symbolic foods, to shake the sins from our soul and celebrate our special relationship with God, so that we may be signed and sealed in the Book of Life for a good and sweet New Year. It’s…
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Breaking News Bar Refaeli Takes on Roger Waters in Israel Boycott Showdown
It’s not every day that a supermodel takes on a rock legend. But Bar Refaeli laid down a challenge to Roger Waters after the veteran musician published an open letter to his colleagues urging them to boycott Israel. In a letter published this week, Waters, the former frontman of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd…
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The Schmooze Cantorial Music Gets Jumbotron Treatment
When Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchok Meir Helfgot take the stage of the Hollywood Bowl this evening for the latest stop on their Eternal Echoes tour, audience members who are not fluent in Hebrew, Yiddish or Aramaic will be able to follow the lyrics via English supertitles projected on giant screens located on both sides…
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The Schmooze Toronto Jeweler Gets ‘True Blood’ Breakout
A song he composed 17 years ago has come back to bite a Toronto jeweler — but in a good way. Sam Rosenbaum made pop history this weekend when his ditty “Why Did You Leave Me Now” made the soundtrack rotation on Sunday night’s episode of True Blood. Rosenbaum, 61, told the Toronto Star that…
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Culture Barry Manilow’s 8 (Maybe) Most Jewish Songs
Though Barry Manilow’s musical “Harmony” tells a story about Jewish and non-Jewish singers whose lives and careers become upended by the Nazis, barely any trace of the multi-platinum-selling singer-songwriter’s Jewish heritage has been evident in his many pop hits. But perhaps we haven’t been looking closely enough. Extensive research combined with some imagination allows us…
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The Schmooze Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Opera
If all goes according to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s plan, we’ll be seeing her on the bench next term. And if all goes according to Derrick Wang’s plan, we’ll also be seeing her on stage. To be precise, it won’t be the Jewish Justice herself in the spotlight, but an opera performer playing…
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The Schmooze Sting Rocks Out At Auschwitz
Apparently Auschwitz, symbol of the Final Solution and gravesite to over two million Jews, is now a hot concert venue. Last weekend marked the third annual Life Festival Oświęcim 2013, which seeks “to build peaceful relations beyond cultural and state borders where there is no place for anti-Semitism, racism, and other forms of xenophobia,” according…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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Opinion Israel’s boycott of Haaretz is straight out of the authoritarian playbook
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Fast Forward Killing of Israeli rabbi in UAE could strengthen ties between Israel and Arab neighbors, experts say
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Opinion Despair is not a strategy. Here are 4 things those mourning the election results can do right now.
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Fast Forward Jared Kushner donates $1 million to Chabad of United Arab Emirates after rabbi murdered
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