Why Fiddler on the Roof Is the Opposite of a Jewish Musical

Adam Langer for The Jewish Daily Forward

In “Changing Places,” a terrific academic novel by David Lodge, a professor and his colleagues play a literary parlor game called “Humiliation.” In the game, the players attempt to one-up each other in admissions of ignorance by confessing the most inexcusable examples of books they haven’t read. When Professor Howard Ringbaum admits he never read “Hamlet,” he wins “Humiliation” and promptly gets himself fired.

Therefore, it’s with a bit of trepidation that I confess that until the other night, I had never seen “Fiddler on the Roof.” Not on Broadway, not in a touring production, not in the version that was performed in college my senior year. I never even saw the movie. So, if it turns out that I’m never allowed to write for this publication again, you’ll know why.

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The Rediscovery of a Great Jewish Composer

Simon Wynberg for Mosaic

Jerzy Fitelberg was a favorite of Aaron Copland and Arthur Rubinstein. Then he was lost to history. Now, sixty years after his death, his music is being played again.

Music that survives only in its written form requires an intermediary, sometimes hundreds of intermediaries, in order to bring it to life. This is one way in which music differs from other arts: no performer, interpreter, or outside actor is needed to experience a novel or a poem, a sculpture or a painting. But the fact that we experience musical pieces through hearing them in time is the source not only of their mysterious power over us but—when they have the misfortune to exist only in the complicated and inexact notation used to write them down—of their potential to be overlooked and lost. A major art gallery will have a keen sense of the extent and quality of its holdings whether or not they are on exhibit at any given moment; by contrast, a national music library or archive can possess the entire corpus of a forgotten composer and have absolutely no idea of its artistic worth.

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For Broadway Musicals, Jewish Involvement Proved to Be Just the Ticket

By: Marissa Stern | JE Staff

In Spamalot, the musical based on the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Sir Robin emphatically tells King Arthur that despite having animals from zoos or the finest of reviews, they won’t succeed on Broadway if they “don’t have any Jews.”

And, it appears, he is not the only one to have made this observation.

On Nov. 15, more than 40 people gathered at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel to hear Tom Stretton, a past Cheltenham High School teacher and Cabrini College professor as well as Broadway enthusiast, in a program titled “Do You Hear the Music? — Jews and the Broadway Musical.”

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From ‘Amy Winehouse Sound’ Creators, A Funky Hanukkah Anthem

By Gabe Friedman for The Jewish Week

Aside from “Dreidel, Dreidel” and Adam Sandler’s humorous tune, there are very fewHanukkah songs in the pop culture lexicon.

But a group of modern soul enthusiasts seeks to change that — and make the Festival of Lights a little bit funky, too.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings — a retro-sounding band that’s celebrated for its authentic Motown sound — kicks off its new holiday album, “Its A Holiday Soul Party,”  with “8 Days of Hanukkah,” a track that’s an upbeat marriage of catchy soul music and Jewish cultural references.

In a testament to the Dap-Kings’ throwback style, the band has also released the track as a 45-revolutions-per-minute record single. The B-side asks, “What does Hanukkah mean to you?” before providing a background track without vocals, allowing listeners to sing in their own lyrics.

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For more great Hanukkah ideas, check out our    page.

For even more great ideas, visit our Hanukkah Holiday Spotlight Kit