Menachem Mendel

NRG has an article (Hebrew) about modern Israeli songs as musical midrash on traditional Jewish sources that includes links to sources. The article is based on source sheets found at Midreshet.

Posted on April 15th, 2013 under Israel, Israeli Culture, Israeli Music, Music. Comments Off

Thanks to a colleague’s email, I am able to notify you that the Journal of Synagogue of Music is now available online (here). All of the issues are online, although while looking for a specific article I found a PDF of an issue that was incomplete. Hopefully that was an exception.

Posted on September 6th, 2012 under Music. Comments Off

It seems that as of late almost everyone, including the Hillary Clinton, has been talking about women in Israel. Whether it is women in the army, on advertisements, or the gym at the Technion. While there are definitely misogynistic Israelis and much that could be improved, I think that many people have an over simplified [...]

Posted on December 16th, 2011 under Israel, Israeli Culture, Music, Pre-Shabbat Song, Religion in Israel, Uncategorized. Comments Off

As the week of Abba/Daddy/Christmas-gate ends, I thought that this was an appropriate song to hear. סן פרנסיסקו אריק איינשטיין מילים: אריק איינשטיין לחן: שלום חנוך יושב בסן פרנסיסקו על המים שוטף את העיניים בכחול ובירוק יפה בסן פרנסיסקו על המים אז איך זה שאני מרגיש רחוק. ממול האווזים, שטים בין הסירות וגשר הזהב יפה [...]

Posted on December 2nd, 2011 under Israel, Music, Pre-Shabbat Song. Comments Off

Danny Sanderson, who has been an important figure in Israeli music since the 1970′s, is 61 year old today. The first video is from his early days with Poogy. The second is a more recent one, a duet with Ninet Tayeb.

Posted on November 30th, 2011 under Israel, Music, Popular Culture. Comments: 5

Here are some modern renditions of the traditional piyyut Adon ha-Selichot (English). The first is an instrumental version by Nikmat ha-Tractor (The Tractor’s Revenge). This version was released in 1990, years before modern renditions of piyyutim became very popular. http://glz.fm/music/traktor.mp3 The second version is another instrumental version performed by Eli Dali. This is by Koby [...]

Posted on September 24th, 2011 under Liturgy, Music. Comments: 1

Last week, the Israeli rock singer Barry Sacharoff paid a visit to the Chabad affiliated beit midrash in Tel Aviv, Bayit Ḥadash le-Midrash. Below are some videos of what resulted from that visit. For more on the visit, see this article (Hebrew) from Ynet.

Posted on July 21st, 2011 under Israeli Culture, Music, Pre-Shabbat Song. Comments Off

Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist for the E Street Band, died today at the age of 69 of complications from a stroke. It is hard to describe the close relationship that Bruce and Clarence have had for the last forty years. Since they met on a stormy night in Asbury Park in the early 1970′s, they [...]

Posted on June 18th, 2011 under In Memoriam, Music, Popular Culture. Comments: 4

Today is Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday, so below is a video of Dylan singing one of his most famous songs, Like a Rolling Stone. I also included a few of the dozens of covers of the song done by other artists. For those who really want to read up on the song and its influence, [...]

Posted on May 24th, 2011 under Music, Popular Culture. Comments Off