Jewish pianist, composer, writer, and professor Inna Faliks continues to highlight themes of collaboration and unity in her artistic output. Immigrating from antisemitic persecution and violence in the Soviet Union’s Ukraine to Chicago, Faliks was musically gifted from a young…
Keith Morris- A Jewish Perspective from the Punk Rock Legend
Playlist- https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1jeIT2vcF7Gep9WGBT7bJX Continuing our series on Judaism and punk rock, Ha’Am interviewed the half-Jewish, punk icon, Keith Morris. Morris’s influence on American hardcore punk rock cannot be understated. The genre began as a rebellion against the commodification of punk rock,…
Ladino: How a Romantic Jewish Language is Preserved at UCLA
Little is known about the traditional Mediterranean language of Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, aside from its association with Jewish life and history. The popularized and often cited representative of Ladino is probably the familiar “Ocho Kandelikas” Hanukkah song, and even that…
Separating a Person from their work: What do we do with Carlebach’s music?
One of the more obscure ‘secrets’ of the Jewish community involves the legacy of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Anyone who has been to a Friday night prayer service has almost certainly sung some of the many tunes composed by Carlebach. Many…
On the representation of Jews in rap music
Clipse, arguably the greatest coke rap duo of all time, has a Jewish problem. In their successful single “Wamp Wamp,” the pair uses an unfortunate metaphor to describe a step in the process of cooking cocaine: after they remove the…
Shtar shines at UCLA
Shtar (meaning “Talmudic contract” in Hebrew), a Jerusalem-based hip-hop group, made a stop on their tour at the UCLA Jewish Awareness Movement house on Thursday, April 11. Originally created by two Yeshiva students, Ori ‘M’Ori’ Murray and Brad ‘Binyamin Adam’…