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Rachel Bloom has combined her passion for musical theater, her gift for comedy, her feminist sensibility, and her roots in Jewish humor to create the award-winning show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Folk musician Janis Ian won a Grammy in 1975 for her song “At Seventeen,” then won a second in 2013 for Society’s Child, her spoken word autobiography.
The first singer to have a Number One single in the US without a recording contract, Lisa Loeb has since proven that she is no one-hit wonder with a dozen albums to her credit.
Determined to have fuller control over her burgeoning music career, R&B singer Goapele Mohlabane formed her own independent music label, Skyblaze Recordings, in 2001.
Known for the feminist anthem “You Don’t Own Me,” teenage pop sensation Lesley Gore carefully negotiated which parts of her life the media did and did not own.
Shirley Cohen Steinberg helped make the Jewish holidays fun and interactive for children with her Holiday Music Box albums, featuring “One Morning” (popularly known as the Passover “Frog Song”).
Adrienne Cooper played a critical role in the revival of Yiddish music as founder of the Yiddish Folk Arts Program (KlezKamp), a group that brought together musicians, linguists, and anthropologists to recover the tradition of Klezmer.
As a world music singer, Yasmin Levy ignited interest in the Ladino music traditions of her family, weaving Greek, Turkish, and Persian elements into her soulful performances.
With her surreal lyrics and experimental vocalizations, Regina Spektor carved a place for herself in the anti-folk music scene and went on to conquer the pop charts.
Eydie Gorme’s regular musical appearances on Steve Allen’s Tonight! Show with her husband, Steve Lawrence, launched their joint careers as the duo responsible for hits like 1963’s “Blame It on the Bossa Nova.”
The first woman to run a major Jewish publishing house, Ellen Frankel revived the faltering Jewish Publication Society, making it once again a vital publisher of popular Jewish scholarship.
Even after their separation in 1947, Sylvia Fine collaborated with her husband, Danny Kaye, creating playful, complex songs to support his effervescent performances on screen.
Carole King not only wrote many of the best-loved songs of the 1960s and ‘70s, she was a performer in her own right, winning several Grammys for her music.
Dorothy Fields wrote songs for a wide variety of musicals that became dearly loved classics of American culture, from “Hey Big Spender” to “A Fine Romance” and “The Way You Look Tonight,” which won an Academy Award in 1936.
The first American girl to publically celebrate a bat mitzvah, Judith Kaplan Eisenstein went on to become a Jewish educator, composer, and musicologist.
Betty Comden wrote lyrics and librettos for enduring and beloved musicals like Singin’ in the Rain and Peter Pan, winning some of the industry’s highest honors.
