Pop Sensation Lorde, Now in Yiddish

By Daniel Estrin for Jewniverse

Do you wish pop star Lorde would lay down a track in Yiddish already? Well, the next best thing just happened.

The Technicalities, an Israeli husband-and-wife Yiddish music duo in their early 30s, recently recorded this cover of Lorde’s hit song “Team.” Shira Z. Carmel — who also sings in the popular Israeli doo-wop band The Hazelnuts — croons in the mamaloshen with her husband Alon Diament on accordion.

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Why the '60s Were the Most Interesting Decade After All

Philip Eil for The Jewish Daily Forward

Richard Goldstein has written a book that refutes the old saying, “If you remember the 1960s, you weren’t really there.”

Goldstein, the former Village Voice executive editor who helped invent rock criticism with his omnivorous “Pop Eye” column, seems to have been more “there” during the decade than almost anyone else. The self-described “Zelig of the counterculture” attended the March on Washington, befriended Janis Joplin, roamed San Francisco during the “Summer of Love,” received a subpoena to testify in the trial of the Chicago Seven, and had the Velvet Underground play at his wedding. And not only does Goldstein apparently remember everything, but as readers of his new memoir, “Another Little Piece of My Heart: My Life of Rock and Revolution in the ’60s,” will attest, he’s got the literary chops to describe it in incisive, lyrical detail.

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USY’s Jewish Recordings Collection

Whether you’re interested in leading a service at your next convention or need a refresher on your favourite ruach song, iDaven is here to help. USY’s Religion/Education newest project, the iDaven project features an extensive collection of Jewish recordings, including tefillot (prayers) and z’mirot (songs), put together exclusively by USYers. Each recording teaches the Hebrew words at a slow, easy-to-follow pace, making you an expert once you’re done. The database is updated regularly with new additions, so be sure to check back often. If you’re interested in contributing to iDaven, e-mail reled@usy.org.

If you are using iDaven to learn how to lead different Tefillot, use this service outline (Matbe’ah Tefillah) as a guide.

Want to check out a creative way to review/teach RUACH?? Click here for Camp XL 2011 (CHUSY, CRUSY, SWUSY and EMTZA) “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” Program!

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The Jewish Songwriters Behind the Elvis Presley Hit Machine

By Zachary Solomon for Jewniverse

Like Rodgers and Hammerstein before them, Leiber and Stoller were a songwriting duo to the stars.

Jerome Leiber and Mike Stoller, both born in 1933 to Jewish families in Baltimore and Long Island respectively, met in Los Angeles as teenagers and bonded over a mutual love of blues and R&B. With Stoller’s compositional acumen and Leiber’s talent as a wordsmith, they quickly found between them a sparkling collaborative energy.

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The Grateful Dead — Now in Hebrew!

By Matthue Roth for Jewniverse

Sagol 59 is the godfather of Israeli hip-hop — it’s not exactly a widely-contested title, but man, he’s good. Sagol has made a career out of doing what you’d least expect him to, releasing an American album at the height of his Hebrew-language popularity, then transitioned into a writer for Israeli newspapers.

Now he’s done what might be the most unexpected move of his career: He sings.

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Israelis Make Ultimate A Capella Bob Marley Tribute

This awesome a capella version of Bob Marley's 'Could You Be Loved' was made by Israeli musicians in honor of what would have been the late Marley's 70th Birthday. An event is being held in Israel on January 31 to celebrate in Tel Aviv.

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Where Star Trek and the Great American Songbook Meet the Jews

By Avishay Artsy for Jewniverse

What happened to the classic songs of the 1930’s and ‘40s? The standards of the Great American Songbook crooned by Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee or Ella Fitzgerald (and later made unforgettable by Star Trek‘s Data)?

“The B-Side” by Ben Yagoda reads like a detective story sniffing out a homicide, and the deceased is Tin Pan Alley, New York’s epicenter of songwriting and music publishing for decades. A surprising number of its authors and composers – George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen – were Jewish. In fact, Yagoda points out, they were almost all the same age, raised in middle-class New York families, and attended Columbia University.

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