Jewish Music

Album cover showing two faces and the words Monajat: Galeet Dardashti featuring Younes Dardashti

October 17, 2023

7 Questions For Galeet Dardashti

Mirushe "Mira" Zylali

JWA talks to Dr. Galeet Dardashti, cultural anthropologist and singer, about her new album Monajat.

Topics: Jewish Music, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Prayer, Cantors

Blue record player on black background with white Jewish stars

July 7, 2023

My Search for Meaningful Mainstream Jewish Music

Sonia Freedman

While I can bop to a prayer in the right setting, my playlists have a dismal lack of casual English music that reflects my Judaism.

Topics: Radio, Popular Music, Jewish Music

Album cover featuring a woman standing in a snowy field with tree, flowers

January 18, 2023

From the Archive: Cover of Adrienne Cooper’s Album, "Enchanted: A New Generation of Yiddishsong"

Carole Renard

The Yiddish Book Center shares the cover of Adrienne Cooper's final album.

Topics: Jewish Music

Photo of Daniela Gesundheit and her album cover, featuring a woman with her face in her hands and the words "Alphabet of Wrongdoing" in jumbled letters

October 3, 2022

Q & A with Daniela Gesundheit About her New Album, "Alphabet of Wrongdoing"

Sarah Jae Leiber

JWA talks with musician, vocalist, and composer Daniela Gesundheit about how her new album, Alphabet of Wrongdoing, makes the sacred accessible.

Topics: Jewish Music, Yom Kippur, Spirituality and Religious Life, Prayer, Synagogues/Temples

Brazilian singer Carla Sitton Berg releases “NES (Miracle),” a Ladino Hanukkah song

November 18, 2021

Brazilian musician and singer Carla Sitton Berg grew up singing Ladino songs in Jewish youth choirs. After moving to the United States and building a career in music, Sitton Berg reconnected to her roots and recorded her first song in Ladino, “NES (Miracle).” The song was released on all platforms on November 18, 2021, just in time for Hanukkah.

"Ora de Despertar," First Ladino Children’s Music Album, Released

March 25, 2016

On March 25, 2016, Sarah Aroeste, a Sephardi singer-songwriter, released the first Ladino music album for children, called Ora de Despertar (Time to Wake Up). Soon after, she adapted it into a project including a children’s book and animated video series.

Adrienne Cooper

A versatile performer, scholar, administrator, and activist who worked in the fields of Yiddish culture, Jewish music, social justice, and feminism, Adrienne Cooper inspired international audiences with her compelling performances and nurtured a generation of musicians, academics, and advocates.

Interior of synagogue in Belmonte, showing bimah and the traditional rezadeiras oil lamp

Rezadeiras among Bene Anusim in Portugal

The rezadeiras, prayer-women, began to play an important role in crypto-Jewish practice after the late fifteenth-century Expulsions from Spain and then Portugal forced anyone who wanted to live as a Jew to do so in secret.

Album Cover for "If Not Now, When?" by Debbie Friedman

February 24, 2020

Inspired by Debbie Friedman: Building Inclusive Movements

Maddy Pollack

I hope that contemporary feminists can learn from Debbie Friedman and bring people together through interactive art.

Topics: Activism, Jewish Music, Prayer

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