JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Singing for Rubashkin

By Adam Soclof · October 7, 2010

A group of Jewish artists has released a music video on YouTube supporting Sholom Rubashkin. 

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Klezmer and kosher wine sate brunchers at City Winery

By Daniel Sieradski · June 4, 2009

City Winery brings klezmer and kosher wine to NYC’s Sunday brunchers. Video by Liz Nord. 

0 Comments | Share This | food, klezmer, music, new york, New York, nyc, wine, winemaking

Rap artist reps for French-Israelis

By Daniel Sieradski · October 7, 2008

Meet Shmoolik, A.K.A. Shmouel Halimi, the French-Israeli Chasidic hip-hop artist and graphic designer.  As a rhyme spouting ba’al teshuva Chabadnik, the comparisons to Matisyahu are inevitable, but Shmoolik is very much in a class of his own.

Now that you’ve met the man, hear the music. Here’s the video for his track, “Les Enfants d’Israël.” Written and recorded in the midst of the Gaza disengagement, the track samples Serge Gainsbourg’s 1967 coming-out-as-a-Jew song, “Les Soldats Et Le Sable.”

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JTA Exclusive: Diwon’s The Beat Guide to Yiddish

By Daniel Sieradski · October 6, 2008

Courtesy of Diwon, the artist formerly known as DJ Handler and otherwise known as the executive director of Modular Moods and Shemspeed.com, comes this fresh mix of pop, hip-hop, electronica and… Yiddish?

The Beat Guide to Yiddish

[audio:/images/archive/TheBeatGuideToYiddishbyDiwon.mp3]

Click the play button above to listen, or right-click here and click ‘Save link as...’ to download, exclusively from JTA.

We spoke to “That Yemenite Kid” and asked him what’s up with this unusual release.

JTA: As an artist and producer you’ve focused on highlighting Sephardic and Yemenite Jewish music as an alternative to what some see as the Ashkenazic domination of the Jewish cultural scene. With that in mind, what’s a nice Yemenite kid like you doing in a Yiddishe place like this?

Diwon: I’m half-Yemenite. My other side is Ashkenaz. That is the side that came out here. Don’t forget, I started a klezmer punk band in college called Juez. So this really isn’t too far out for me. I think just because of the recent change of my artist name from DJ Handler to Diwon and some of the press around the music, now I’m seen as very Yemenite and the past is sort of washed over. I’m definitely more passionate about the Yemenite music I’m making because I feel that there has already been a big Yiddish and klezmer music revival.

At the same time, I don’t know of any Yiddish mixtapes that have ever been made – you know, Yiddish through the eyes of a street mixtape DJ.  It was a challenge to take the source material flip it over my own beats and remixes and then throw in some of my friends who are fusing Yiddish with electronic music and what not.  Plus that Andrew sisters “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” is so hot. I DJ it in clubs all the time. That in itself was almost reason enough to create this mixtape.

I notice you have some Hebrew language stuff in there as well.  That’s going to make the Yiddishists angry...

Ha! I don’t know. I guess some controversy is good.

There is a lot of great classic Yiddish music out there that, beyond revivals from Golem and Socalled, most young Jews today are completely unfamiliar with. Do you see any potential for the reinvigoration of Yiddish music as anything more than a novelty for this generation?

I could see why people would say that Socalled is a novelty, but you could argue the music isn’t a novelty because he grew up listening to Yiddish records and this is how he makes Yiddish music – as opposed to say, an artist who put one Yiddish thing on their non-Yiddish album, as a novelty.

It’s a tough question to answer since most artists fuse different elements and genres and influences into their compositions. I don’t think that it’s novelty if an artist fuses their tradition into their music if it’s done in a sincere way and not with a smirk.

But what about for the consumer?  So let’s say your doing Yemenite music isn’t a novelty, it’s an expression of your identity, but for the average music consumer, it’s a novelty. Take Matisyahu for example. Did non-Jews buy his album because he’s a great reggae artist, or because he’s an amusement?

I think it depends on the consumer. One who isn’t that familiar with the tradition might buy it as novelty. But someone who knows the music and likes Yiddish or Yemenite music will buy it to expand their collection and for them its not necessarily a novelty purchase.

I know non-Jews who bought Matisyahu’s record because they like reggae. But then there are tons that probably bought it off the hype that was fueled by the novelty of it all. But I don’t think any of that matters.  If he had put out one record and then went to making regular, non-Jewish reggae, I think it would be different.  People would say “what a fake” and “what kind of marketing stunt is this?” But the fact is this is his true expression. He tours the world playing it and he is onto his third record, making it. It’s obvious that he doesn’t view it as a novelty. And the fact that he is still successful at it shows that it’s definitely more than a novelty. That and maybe the fact that he doesn’t wear a suit and a black hat anymore.

How’s the Jewish music scene holding up in light of the current economic downturn? Is your label, Modular Moods, surviving, thriving, dying?

Well stateside we’re still alright. It’s a bit harder when I tour internationally, but no matter what I’m still going to grind and get as much good music out there as possible.  If only to cheer up the people who are down due to the economy.

Well, giving away free music helps!

Yeah, well music is basically free nowadays anyway, so why try and front? I feel like I give 75% of my music out for free and use the other 25% to fund it all and survive.

So what can we expect from Modular Moods in the coming months?

Don’t miss the Sephardic Music Festival this Chanukah in NYC, the Shemspeed 40 Days 40 Nights Tour of college campuses in February, and a slew of new songs and albums unlike anything people have ever heard. We ain’t gonna stop now.

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Rosh Hashana Girl (and Guy) Come to Israel

By Daniel Sieradski · July 1, 2008

Michelle Citrin and William Levin

Dina Kraft, JTA’s Israel Correspondent met up in Jerusalem with singer Michelle Citrin aka Rosh Hashana Girl and her creative partner and friend William Levin. They are the team who brought the world the two YouTube hits “Twenty Things to do with Matzah” and “I Gotta Love You Rosh Hashana” – part of their attempt to bring a touch of the young, hip, and artistic to being Jewish today.

[audio:/images/archive/070108_kraft_citrin.mp3]
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Bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay, Snoop Dogg’s in the mother

By Ami Eden · June 13, 2008

Snoop Dogg is going to perform a concert at Ramat Gan Stadium in
Israel in September, Ha’aretz reports.

1 Comment | Share This | Israel, music

Unusual fans for an unusual metal band

By Matthue Roth · June 6, 2008

When my heavy-metal friends disclosed their secret pasts, it was a series of revelations: although they were muscly, pierced and dark-alley-nightmare-looking, when they told stories of their childhoods, each was nerdier than the last. Now, Spin Magazine reporter Mordechai Shinefield uncovers the newest of the nü-metal fans’ deep dark secrets: they’re ex-yeshiva boys.

Elie Hassan and Brian Brown, both 21, graduated from Baltimore’s Ner Israel, where kids in their dorm sometimes snitched on the pair for indulging their nonkosher music habits. “I would say that 30 to 40 percent of our class knew about [lead singer] Draiman and had heard Disturbed,” says Brown. Now college roommates at the more liberal Yeshiva University in New York, they’re free to enjoy the band in relative peace.

That’s right: David Draiman, the lead singer of Disturbed, grew up in the yeshiva system – he attended five schools, and was kicked out of three of them. It’s no surprise to the band’s fans (or rubberneckers) – Draiman has repeatedly thrown Hebrew words, Jewish concepts, and knowing winks to the haredi subset of his audience – but writing lyrics like “Elokai, bury me tonight” is probably not what got Draiman ejected. (Blowing up the rosh yeshiva’s car, on the other hand, might have.)

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Borscht Boss: Brooks Arthur on Catskills nostalgia, Barbra Streisand, and Adam Sandler?

By Matthue Roth · June 4, 2008

Brooks Arthur started his career as an audio engineer in the 60s, working on “My Boyfriend’s Back,” “The Locomotion,” and “Leader of the Pack” before building up to producing albums for the likes of Liza Minelli and Carole King. He struck up a friendship with a young breakaway comic named Adam Sandler led him to produce Sandler’s ubiquitous “Chanuka Song,” after which they co-wrote possibly the most scatological Chanukah movie ever, Sandler’s “Eight Crazy Nights.”

Arthur’s latest venture is The Jewish Songbook, a CD filled with new and veteran performers doing renditions of Jewish songs. Most hearken back to the Borscht Belt melodies of the 1940s and 50s, but there is also the liturgical (Barbra Streisand doing “Avinu Malkeinu"), the modern Israeli patriotic ("Hatikvah"), and the unexpected—Adam Sandler doing a version of “Hinei Ma Tov” that not only isn’t a joke song, but also manages to showcase his competent classical tenor. JTA spoke to Brooks Arthur the day before the CD’s release about the record, the performers, and how it felt to sing alongside Barbra Streisand.

[audio:/images/archive/060408_arthur_roth.mp3]
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Exclusive: Y-Love and Kosha Dillz, “Just Knowledge”

By Daniel Sieradski · May 29, 2008

Courtesy of Modular Moods Records, The Telegraph is pleased to present the new collaboration between Jewish hip-hop artists Y-Love and Kosha Dillz.

Y-Love, who is currently touring internationally, jumping from Jewish conferences to secular hip-hop events, released his debut album This is Babylon earlier this year to rave reviews from mainstream hip-hop publications like XXL, XLR8R and URB, several of which described his music as “revolutionary.”

Kosha Dillz, the latest addition to the Modular family, is an Israeli-American emcee who has been cited by URB as “a universal voice” and “a rarely seen culture clash in music.” Dillz has performed with the likes of Matisyahu, Pharcyde and Jurassic 5, and will see his first Modular recording, a collaboration with rapper C Rayz Walz, released later this summer.

You can listen to Y-Love and Kosha Dillz’s collaboration below.

[audio:/images/archive/y-love__koshadillz-justknowledge.mp3]
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4 Comments | Share This | music, Podcast

Neighborhood Bully: The video

By Ami Eden · May 27, 2008

This video of Bob Dylan’s pro-Israel song “Neighborhood Bully” is making the rounds on the Internet:

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