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Music

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Collection
Adrienne Cooper at KlezKanada, August 19, 2008
December 27, 2011

Remembering Adrienne Cooper, mother of the Klezmer/Yiddish revival

Ari Davidow

Adrienne Cooper passed away on Sunday evening at the age of 65 after a long fight with cancer.

Topics: Music, Music
December 13, 2011

Are the Fountainheads my answer?

Leah Berkenwald

Last week after the release of Aish's terrible "Chanukah Jewish Rock of Ages" video, I asked: Where are the progressive Jewish viral videos? Are the Ein Prat Fountainheads my answer?

Topics: Hanukkah, Music
December 7, 2011

Where are the progressive Jewish viral videos?

Leah Berkenwald

Last week, Amy Klein bemoaned the arrival of religious Hanukkah viral videos in the Forward.

Topics: Hanukkah, Music, Judaism-Orthodox, Spirituality and Religious Life
"Lights Vol. 2: A Hanukkah Music Sampler"
November 23, 2011

'Tis the season (to start listening to Hanukkah tunes!)

Kate Bigam

If my friends who celebrate Christmas use the day after Thanksgiving as their start date for listening to holiday music, then so shall I.

Topics: Hanukkah, Music
Anna Solomon
October 7, 2011

Celebrating "The Little Bride" with readings and song

Ellen K. Rothman

Anyone who knows me would have been surprised to see me walking down Mass Ave in Cambridge the other night and into a hip club on the edge of the M.I.T.campus. What was I doing there?

Topics: Music, Performing Arts, Fiction
September 22, 2011

Rosh Hashanah video roundup

Kate Bigam

If YouTube searches are any indication, we Jews love making music videos, and holidays offer the perfect opportunity to create new ones and hope they go viral.

Topics: Rosh Hashanah, Music, Spirituality and Religious Life
"Baby It's You" Musical Poster
September 6, 2011

"Baby It's You!" deserved better reviews

Talia bat Pessi

I’ve been absolutely dying to see the musical Baby It’s You! for a while now, and was thrilled when I finally got tickets to see the show.

Topics: Music, Theater
Dinah Shore at the Miami Book Fair International, 1990

“Dinah Shore Show” debuts on NBC radio

August 6, 1939

Frances “Fanny” Rose Stein remade herself into Dinah Shore shortly before beginning a career on America’s airwaves with the debut of her variety show

Amy Winehouse, 2007
July 23, 2011

Amy Winehouse dead at 27

Leah Berkenwald

Today British singer Amy Winehouse passed away at the age of 27. She was found dead in her home in London. The cause of death is yet unknown, but considering Amy Winehouse's very public struggle with substance abuse and mental illness, there is an almost universal assumption that her death was somehow substance-related.

Topics: Music
Julie Rosewald

Julie Rosewald becomes the first woman to lead services in an American synagogue

September 20, 1884

As the solemn First Day of Rosh Hashanah (5645) got underway on a Sabbath morning in 1884, congregants at San Francisco’s Temple Emanu-El experienced something entirely new.

Julie Rosewald
July 21, 2011

Julie Rosewald: America's first woman cantor

Judith S. Pinnolis

She wrote a book. She was an actress. She sang opera. She became a professor. She toured the world by herself. She paid her own way. She was a musical superstar.

Topics: Jewish History, Music, Music, Music, Cantors, Spirituality and Religious Life, Synagogues/Temples
July 18, 2011

Dorothy Fields put the "broad" in Broadway

David Levy

Last Friday marked the 106th anniversary of the birth of Dorothy Fields, the first woman to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the only woman who holds an uncontested spot in the boys' club that is credited with creating the Great American Songbook. Fields was a member of a prolific showbiz family, with a father and two brothers in the business.

Topics: Music, Music, Writing
"Half You Half Me" Girls in Trouble Album Cover, 2011
May 27, 2011

Girls in Trouble: Telling women’s stories in a ‘language’ I understand

Etta King Heisler

“The world is woven through us/I swear I wont forget/how her fingers hold the thread.” This is the final line of the song “Rubies,” off the amazing sophomore album "Half You Half Me" by the group Girls in Trouble, released on JDUB records earlier this month.

Topics: Women’s and Gender Studies, Music, Music, Spirituality and Religious Life
March 29, 2011

Labor History Landmark: No. 9 The Metropolitan Opera House

Leah Berkenwald

The Top 11 Labor History Landmarks in New York City is a blog series on Jewesses with Attitude created in honor of Women's History Month and the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Waist Factory fire. Learn more about the series here, or check out JWA's online walking tour.

Topics: Labor Rights, Architecture, Jewish History, Music
February 22, 2011

Jew Parodies: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Leah Berkenwald

Is anyone else getting sick of Jewish song parodies? Every month it seems a new Jewish group puts out a parody of some pop song where they change the lyrics from "I love you" to "I love Jews," add in a few references to bagels or bar mitzvahs, and suddenly the video is posted on every single Jewish website that ever existed. I will admit that a few of these videos are quite good, but the majority are blatant pandering or borderline offensive and overall just getting on my nerves. 

Topics: Music
January 26, 2011

A Musical Wedding Toast: To Life!

Kate Bigam

Lin-Manuel Miranda isn’t Jewish; neither is his new wife, Vanessa. But the 30-year old Puerto Rican composer obviously has a taste for musicals: He’s best known for writing and starring in the popular Broadway musical In the Heights, which has won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

Topics: Music, Music, Spirituality and Religious Life
Debbie Friedman
January 10, 2011

By Spirit Alone: Remembering Debbie Friedman

Judith Rosenbaum

Tonight I drove home to Boston with Debbie Friedman's memorial service streaming live on my phone.

Topics: Music, Music, Spirituality and Religious Life
"Debbie Friedman at Carnegie Hall" Album Cover
January 7, 2011

Debbie Friedman: In our thoughts

Leah Berkenwald

Fifteen years ago today, Debbie Friedman gave a sold out concert at Carnegie Hall, commemorating 25 years as one of the Jewish community's most beloved singers. Yesterday, Friedman was hospitalized for pnemonia. JTA reports that she is currently sedated and on a respirator.

Topics: Music, Music
December 20, 2010

"I'll be Jewish for Christmas"

Leah Berkenwald

Last week I wrote a blog post about the "Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah" issue. But now I'm thinking we should all just disregard what I wrote because today I found this video of Katie Goodman of Broad Comedy singing "I'll be Jewish for Christmas," and it says everything I wanted to say and more. In song.

Enjoy!

Topics: Hanukkah, Music, Comedy, Spirituality and Religious Life

Carolyn Leigh inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame

January 1, 1985

Carolyn Leigh wrote hundreds of tunes for Broadway, TV, and film and was twice nominated for a Tony award. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame two years after her death.

December 1, 2010

Happy Hanukkah (in song)

Leah Berkenwald

Happy Hanukkah! 

Topics: Hanukkah, Music, Spirituality and Religious Life
Hannah Block, 2009

Hannah Block, 1913 - 2009

It wasn't so much what the lady did – although she did much in her 96 years. It is what she meant to Wilmington [NC].

Adrienne Fried Block, circa 1995 Cropped

Adrienne Fried Block, 1921 - 2009

Through word and example, Adrienne taught countless women how to survive and thrive in male-dominated university settings. She firmly believed in the possibility of changing the world—or at least a piece of it.

Judy Wachs, cropped

Judith Wachs, 1938 - 2008

Having never heard of Sephardic music before her first exposure to it in the late 1970s in a Renaissance music group to which she belonged, she plunged headlong into an enduring passion to bring this music and the richness of its heritage to a greater audience.

Johanna Spector

Johanna Spector, 1915 - 2008

Dr. Spector always seemed happy and was full of laughter. Despite her tragic past, she knew how to enjoy life and made sure that you enjoyed it along with her. At the same time, she was principled. Deeply religious, her tenets in life were molded by her profound belief in the teachings of the Bible. She was also unbending: a determined lady who would brook no action that violated her principles.

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