by Rachel E. Gross [dropcap]I[/dropcap]t was 2006 when Rabbi Sue Silberberg of the Indiana University Hillel got the call. Our nation had an urgent request: one Jewish a cappella group to perform at the White House’s annual Hanukkah party. Silberberg didn’t have an a cappella...
By Josh Tapper On February 15, 1981, Michael Bloomfield’s body was discovered in a parked car on a San Francisco side street. The 37-year-old Jewish blues guitar player, one of the most influential of the 1960s, was dead of a drug overdose. The body lay, unrecognized, in...
Brian Epstein, the man who discovered the Beatles and shaped them into the biggest music sensation of the 20th century, died 40 years ago at age 32. The pivotal role the enigmatic and charming Epstein played made him the world’s most admired band manager. But...
One of the last in a lineage of great Jewish violinists, this “farm boy” of the American heartland drives a Porsche and plays the world’s most famous “Jewish” violin. Joshua Bell’s tall frame tilts sideways on the sleek gray banquette of the Tamarind Tea Room, a...
By Steven Philp It goes without saying that these are trying times. Yet it is in the face of crisis that humankind produces its best music, art, and literature; while grappling with adversity, men and women exercise their creative abilities to express anger, sadness, and—above all—hope...
When New Soul peaked at number seven on the Billboard charts, Yael Naim became the first Israeli soloist to have a top-ten music hit in the United States. Four years later, the star of the Paris-based musician continues to rise....
By Beth Kissileff No one could have predicted thirty years ago that the cantorial school at Hebrew Union College would one day be named for Debbie Friedman. At the dawn of her career, Friedman was considered a maverick, someone who didn’t know about the traditions of...
By Merav Levkowitz For 25 years, the American klezmer band The Klezmatics has been unable to sustain itself solely from their Yiddish klezmer music. The reason is not for lack of talent: In 2006, they won a Grammy award for Best Contemporary World Music Album for...