The Righteous Gentile With The $4 Million Violin

Founder of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, rescuer of over 1,000 Jews from Nazi persecution, world-renowned virtuoso violinist. This is a guy we can get behind.

Born in Poland in 1882, Bronisław Huberman had an ear for the harrowing trends of Nazi ascension. After writing an open letter in 1933 calling upon German intellectuals to denounce Nazism, Huberman recruited Jewish musicians from across Europe to join him in Palestine.

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- Zachary Solomon for Jewniverse

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Jewish Music in Berlin

From Yiddish Pop to Unkosher Parties

More than just klezmer: in Berlin's vibrant music scene, young artists combine Jewish traditions with modern styles.

Anyone who associates Jewish music exclusively with klezmer will be in for a surprise in Berlin. Increasingly, young artists are combining Jewish musical traditions with elements of modern styles. The range covers the entire gambit of genres. While events across the city have looked back on the capital's cultural diversity in the 1920s as part of Berlin’s current theme of the year, "Diversity Destroyed", a vibrant and forward-looking development can also be seen on the stages of today.

This is because Jewish Berlin is much more than just a past phenomenon to be remembered and commemorated; it is an active part of the present-day identity of the city. It's exciting to discover the diverse ways Berlin artists are mixing their own styles with Jewish traditions and experiences to create something entirely new. We've put together a small selection for you here below.
Yiddish Evergreens in a New Guise

Classics such as "Bei mir bist du sheyn" are anything but old-fashioned or pure nostalgia for singer Sharon Brauner. Brauner, who grew up in West Berlin, combines the songs of her childhood with elements from jazz and pop, Balkan polka, Arabic music, and even South American rhythms on her album Jewels.

Yiddish Way of Life in the 21st Century

On her album Jewdyssee, German-Israeli artist Maya Saban celebrates the "Yiddish way of life in the 21st century" by taking us on a musical odyssey through tradition, present and future, in a mixture of electro beats, trumpets and clarinets. The musician has been recently working for Lena Meyer-Landrut’s team on the German TV show The Voice Kids, but also appears regularly on Berlin concert stages.

Jewish Avant-Garde with Tradition

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The Secret Jewish History of Tupac Shakur

Was Bad Boy Rapper Just a Nice Jewish Son?

By Seth Rogovoy for The Jewish Daily Forward

Tupac Shakur, the notorious rapper whose career was cut short when he died in a hail of bullets at the age of 25 in 1996, may seem an unlikely candidate for memorialization in the form of a Broadway musical. Yet sure enough, “Holler if Ya Hear Me,” an $8 million production “inspired by” the work of the gangsta rapper which includes 21 of his songs, is currently playing the Palace Theatre in New York.

This is not some off-the-wall, crass attempt to cash in on the controversial legend of Shakur. Among the musical’s producers is Afeni Shakur, Tupac Shakur’s mother, a former member of the Black Panthers. Afeni Shakur is nothing if not protective of her son’s creative legacy; his brief but astounding career on the rap charts made him one of the best-selling recording artists of his time. In other words, she’s not doing it for the money.

There’s something else going on here, and it just may be that finally the stars have aligned to present Tupac Shakur — the man whose music former Vice President Dan Quayle said “has no place in our society”; a convicted felon who in a few years was in and out of prison and court for a variety of violent crimes; a man accused of being the perpetrator of several shootings who was himself gunned down in an infamous drive-by that has never been solved — as what he may really have been: a nice Jewish boy who loved his mother.

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in East Harlem on June 16, 1971, to parents who preached a violent form of black nationalism. Despite chronic poverty, Shakur’s mother made sure he always had access to a well-rounded education, especially in the performing arts.

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Meet the Skirt-Wearing Rock Star Cousin of Moshe Dayan Who Could Be Prime Minister

Touring on a new album, Aviv Geffen talks about Rabin, Mizrahi music, and why the Dayans are no Kennedys

By Adi Gold and Yoav Sivan for Tablet Magazine

Aviv Geffen wasn’t Israel’s first rocker, but he may have been the first to adopt the rocker’s role in an unprecedented totality: The unrelenting struggle for an audience coupled with the refusal to please fans, to whom the wrong things must be said at the wrong time. Indeed, Geffen, one of Israel’s most iconic and enduring rock stars, was, for years, filled with rage. He used to chant, “We’re a f*&#ed-up generation” and sing songs that dealt, not always kindly, with Geffen’s favorite subject matter of the last 20 years: his painful childhood, courtesy of a father who wasn’t available when the son needed him most. (The father is Yonatan Geffen, a songwriter who penned some of Israel’s greatest hits.) His musical influences include the local—notably Shalom Hanoch and Arik Einstein—and the foreign—David Bowie, Bob Dylan, and Supertramp. A dozen of his albums in Hebrew, for which he wrote most of the lyrics and music, reached gold and platinum.

But on “Pain on Top of Pain” (ke’ev al ke’ev), the second single off Geffen’s upcoming album, the singer strikes a different tone. The song begins, “I made a promise that I will not return here. … My childhood is buried in some song which I cannot recall,” and ends with very un-Geffen-like sentiment, “I forgive because there’s no time left.”

A country that extols family life might have needed the son of perhaps its most illustrious family to introduce the notion of unapologetic individualism. Geffen’s uncle was Moshe Dayan, the general-turned-politician; another relative was Ezer Weizman, the general-turned-president. To list all of Geffen’s famous relatives in arts and politics is nearly impossible. Geffen recalls how he, then a young boy, together with his Uncle Moshe (“an amazing uncle”), would piece together ancient shards onto an archaeological artifact in Dayan’s collection. Geffen purports to follow the example of his most famous uncle, but with a twist. “I’m the radical who wants to do the opposite of everything he did. He conquered Jerusalem, I want to give it away. He was macho, I want to be gentle.”

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