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Harry Belafonte, singer and civil rights activist who popularized ‘Hava Nagila’ in the US, dies at 96
(New York Jewish Week) — Barrier-smashing singer, actor and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who once boasted of being “the most popular Jew in America” because of his rendition of a Hebrew classic, died Tuesday at his longtime Upper West Side home. He was 96.
The New York City native was the one of the first Black artists to achieve widespread commercial success in the United States, and while he was raised Catholic, his life frequently dovetailed with Jewish causes, values and people. Among Belafonte’s many Jewish connections — which included brokering a meeting between Nelson Mandela and Jewish leaders in 1989 — was his marriage to his Jewish second wife, dancer Julie Robinson. The couple, who were married from 1958 to 2004, raised two children, Gina and David.
In 2011, Belafonte revealed in his autobiography, “My Song: A Memoir” that his paternal grandfather was Jewish. Belafonte’s parents were both Jamaican immigrants: his mother, Melvine, was the child of a white mother from Scotland and a Black father, and his father, Harold George Bellanfanti, who later changed the family name, was the son of a Black mother and white Dutch-Jewish father. In his book, Belafonte describes his paternal grandfather, whom he never met, as “a white Dutch Jew who drifted over to the islands after chasing gold and diamonds, with no luck at all.”
Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr., in Harlem on March 1, 1927. His father was largely absent during his childhood; his mother, who struggled with finding work, forged a relationship with a Jewish tailor who taught her how to mend garments. “That tailor gave me my first sense of kinship with Jews, which would deepen over time,” Belfonte wrote in his memoir. He spent a portion of his childhood with his grandmother in Jamaica, but he returned to New York to attend George Washington High School in Washington Heights — where Alan Greenspan and Henry Kissinger were also educated — before dropping out.
Following a stint in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Belafonte was bitten by the acting bug when, working as a janitor’s assistant, he was given a pair of tickets to the American Negro Theater as a gift. “It was there that the universe opened for me,” he told NPR in 2011. “I decided with any device I could possibly find, I wanted to stay in this place. What I had discovered in the theater was power: power to influence, power to know of others and know of other things.”
In the late 1940s, Belafonte enrolled in acting classes, where he met his lifelong friend Sidney Poitier. The impoverished pair would often share a single theater ticket, trading places at intermission. He also befriended Jewish actor Tony Curtis, writing in his memoir: “He lived in the Bronx with his family; why live downtown, he’d say, when he could live uptown for free? And who cared if they still greeted him up there as Bernie Schwartz?”
He and Curtis frequently went to parties together, he wrote, sometimes with the actress Elaine Stritch, “who swore more colorfully than any sailor I’d known,” and “the blunt Jewish comic” Bea Arthur, “who’d start matching wits with Elaine until the two of them had everyone in uncontrollable laughter.”
To pay for acting classes, Belafonte began dabbling in singing at nightclubs, and it was there that a true superstar was born. One of Belafonte’s early successes were his performances of the Hebrew dance hit “Hava Nagila” at the classic downtown folk club the Village Vanguard. His rendition, Belafonte joked to The New York Times in 2017, made him “the most popular Jew in America.”
In that same interview, Belafonte recalled the tough uptown streets of his childhood, and how he was drawn to the fast money his uncle’s number-running business earned. “Everybody in that world were role models in how to survive, how to be tough, how to get through the city, how to con, the daily encounters,” he said. “But my mother saw to it that unless I wanted to live life absent of testicles, she wasn’t going to have me follow her brother Lenny. Somewhere in there is a Sholem Aleichem — a rich story to be told of the lore of that time.”
With his 1953 breakthrough album, “Calypso” — which included his most iconic work, “The Banana Boat Song” — Belafonte “almost single-handedly ignited a craze for Caribbean music,” according to The New York Times’ obituary. “Calypso” climbed to the top of the Billboard album chart shortly after its release and stayed there for 31 weeks; it is reported to be the first album by a solo artist to sell more than a million copies. By 1959 he was the most highly-paid Black performer in history, according to the Times.
Known around the world as the “King of Calypso,” Belafonte recorded and performed a wide range of global and folk classics throughout his wide-ranging musical career — Jewish standards among them. In 1959, he performed “Hine Ma Tov” in England, with what appears to be an Israeli military choir; his 1963 album, “Streets I Have Walked,” includes a rendition of “Erev Shel Shoshanim” (“Evening of Roses”), a popular Jewish wedding song.
Belafonte’s greatest passion, however, was neither acting nor singing — it was civil rights activism. There, too, he worked closely with many Jewish activists, as part of the historic Black-Jewish civil rights alliance of the 1950s and 1960s. But, as he recalled in his memoir, it was racism delivered by a Jewish TV executive that first inspired him to take on racial segregation in the United States.
The executive, a Jew from Montreal named Charles Revson, asked Belafonte to stop hosting white dancers on his performance show, citing the preferences of Southern viewers. Belafonte said he rejected the instruction and let Revson cancel the show. He realized, he wrote, that TV could only reflect societal attitudes, not change them. “To change the culture you had to change the country,” he concluded.
Through his civil rights activism, Bellafonte befriended Martin Luther King Jr. in 1956; the pair remained close until King’s assassination in 1968. “My apartment was a retreat for him,” Belafonte told NPR of King and his 21-room apartment in 2008. “He had his own entrance, his own kitchen. The home became, for him, a place where he could think and reside, take his shoes off, have his collar open and be him.”
Belafonte helped provide the seed money to launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and he was one of the lead fundraisers for that organization and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was “deeply involved” in the 1963 March on Washington and helped fund the Freedom Rides.
Belafonte’s commitment to social justice endured throughout his long life and career. In the 1980s, he helped organize the Live Aid concert, and he served as UNICEF’s goodwill ambassador after Jewish entertainer Danny Kaye pioneered the role. He was also a co-chairman of the Women’s March on Washington in January 2017, along with Gloria Steinem, though ill health kept him from attending.
Though primarily famous for his singing, Belafonte continued to make movies throughout his career; in 1970 he produced and co-starred in “The Angel Levine” alongside the original “Fiddler on the Roof” star Zero Mostel. Based on a story by Bernard Malamud, Belafonte starred as the titular Jewish angel. (The “project had a sociopolitical edge,” the Times noted, as the entertainer’s Harry Belafonte Enterprises hired 15 Black and Hispanic apprentices to work on the film’s crew.)
The cause of Belafonte’s death was congestive heart failure. He is survived by his two children with Robinson; the two children he had with his first wife Marguerite Byrd, Adrienne Biesemeyer and Shari Belafonte; and eight grandchildren. After divorcing Robinson in 2004, he married photographer Pamela Frank in 2008; Frank also survives him, along with stepchildren Sarah Frank and Lindsey Frank and three step-grandchildren.
“There’s just so much left that’s in my basket of possibilities,” Belafonte told The New York Times ahead of his 90th birthday in 2017. “I’m not as young as I feel, or as young as I would consider myself to be. The 90 figure is a blur. But I do know that if there’s anything left for me to do, I had best hurry up and do it, because time is not an ally.”
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Photos: Pro-Israel counter-protesters overwhelm anti-Zionist bike rally in Philadelphia, where police arrest 3
Hundreds of pro-Israel counter-protesters gathered around Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square Sunday morning ahead of a bike rally targeting six Jewish-owned restaurants. There were about 300 anti-Zionist protesters and about 200 pro-Israel counterprotesters, police estimated. Rally organizers said the timing — just before the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Nazis attacked Jewish shops and homes — was coincidental.
Three people were arrested Sunday, according to police. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, said a few hours after the crowd had dispersed, “In the midst of blatant antisemitic targeting of Jewish-owned restaurants on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the City of Brotherly Love showed up to support our neighborhood businesses and prove once again that hate has no place in our Commonwealth.”
The post Photos: Pro-Israel counter-protesters overwhelm anti-Zionist bike rally in Philadelphia, where police arrest 3 appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s President Herzog tasks Gadi Eisenkot with forming Israel’s next government
(JTA) — JERUSALEM – Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday formally tasked Gadi Eisenkot with forming the next government, nearly two weeks after the country held a national election and days after a majority of parliamentary factions said they would recommend Eisenkot as the next prime minister.
“Yashar Leader Gadi Eisenkot, I expect you to do everything in your power to establish a government that will serve the entire people, those who supported it and those who did not, and that will be a responsible and decent address for all sectors, faiths, ways of life, and worldviews,” Herzog said in a televised ceremony held at his residence in Jerusalem.
Eisenkot has up to six weeks to assemble a coalition, a step that typically includes at least 61 seats out of 120 in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. If he fails to do so within that time, then the president can give another Knesset member the opportunity to form a government.
In his speech on Sunday, Eisenkot said that Israeli democracy was “at one of its most vulnerable moments.”
“The campaign to undermine the legitimacy of our democracy, together with the growing distrust in state institutions, fueled daily, has brought us to an extremely dangerous point,” he said, adding that continuing on this path Israel would reach the “point of no return.”
“The formal consultations held here, at the President’s Residence, have revealed a clear picture: an absolute majority of Knesset members, representing the Israeli public, support change and support me as prime minister,” he said.
Some 67 members of the Knesset recommended Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff, for prime minister during those consultations. Meanwhile, 46 members of Knesset recommended incumbent Prime Minister and Likud Leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. One faction, United Torah Judaism, with seven members of Knesset, refrained from recommending any candidate.
The consultations, Herzog said, “brought to the surface the disputes, the painful points, and of course, the multitude of voices within Israeli society and politics.”
He added that the differences “reminded us all that every citizen of Israel has an equal voice, from every side, every view, every way of life, and every faith.”
Eisenkot said he would work to bridge those divisions and attempt to form a national emergency government, even if it required “creative and unconventional political initiatives.”
For his part, Netanyahu has urged Eisenkot to join him in an emergency national unity government that will keep Israel strong against ongoing threats.
Eisenkot has responded that the “national emergency government” he will form will comprise the “four Zionist parties” of the change bloc – his own Yashar Party, B’Yachad headed by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu Party and the Democrats under Yair Golan.
He also said he would welcome “parties and Knesset members who support Yashar’s four principles” to join the coalition.
At the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on Sunday, Eisenkot said he would be sending out formal invitations as soon as possible “to every Knesset faction, calling on all their members, both as parties and as individuals, to take part in forming the government and bringing it to its swearing-in.”
“The rule is simple,” he added. “If you are prepared to sign on to the four principles I have set out, you are potential partners in a national emergency government under my leadership.”
Throughout his campaign, and particularly since the Oct. 27 election, Eisenkot has emphasized these four principles as the basis for forming the next government.
1) Recognition of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.
Eisenkot wants to define his coalition as a government that is committed to Israel’s Jewish national identity and to democracy, not simply an alliance united by opposition to Netanyahu.
Any party wanting to join must accept Israel’s identity as the national home of the Jewish people first. The requirement has historically been contentious for Israel’s two Arab parties, who represent 19 Knesset members.
Parties must also accept the country’s democratic institutions, which uphold equality and rights for all citizens and prioritize the rule of law.
This means parties, such as the far-right and the ultra-Orthodox, that, as members of the outgoing government, have been pushing to overhaul the country’s judiciary – a key institution in Israel’s system of democratic checks and balances – might think twice about joining.
2) Acceptance of the values of the Declaration of Independence.
Israel’s Declaration of Independence, proclaimed and signed on May 14, 1948, is a foundational document that has helped shape the country’s constitutional principles, although Israel does not have a single, formal written constitution.
In it, the signatories laid out their vision for Israel, including the historical ties the Jewish people have to the land of Israel and its place as a safe haven for Jews around the world who are in trouble.
For Eisenkot, the emphasis appears to be on one particular section that declares: “The State of Israel will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its citizens, irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; and it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
By embracing the Declaration of Independence, Eisenkot is recognizing the place of Israel’s minority groups, highlighting their “full and equal citizenship.” A point mentioned twice in the declaration.
The declaration also reaffirms that Israel is a country seeking peace, rather than endless conflict, at a time when Netanyahu has recently been criticized over his handling of the country’s wars on multiple fronts.
3) Mandatory service for all — military, national, and civilian, to strengthen the IDF and expand its ranks.
Including this condition for joining the government is a direct message to the ultra-Orthodox parties, at least one of which is considering supporting Eisenkot’s coalition.
United Torah Judaism, which has been aligned closely with Netanyahu’s bloc for at least the past two decades, on Thursday refused to recommend the prime minister as Israel’s next leader. Instead, the party, which holds seven seats, abstained from recommending any candidate.
Both UTJ and the second ultra-Orthodox party, Shas, have resisted efforts that would include ultra-Orthodox young men studying in yeshiva under a universal draft law requiring all eligible Israelis to perform military service.
Previous exemption laws have expired, and Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s blanket exemption of yeshiva students from military service has no legal basis and violates principles of equality before the law.
By including this condition, Eisenkot is telling the ultra-Orthodox – and even the Arab community, most of whose members are also exempt from mandatory military service – that everyone in Israel must do their part, whether through military service or some type of national or community service.
This stipulation could either keep the ultra-Orthodox out of the government, even though Eisenkot’s partners have expressed willingness to allow their participation. Or it could force them to be more flexible on an issue that until now they have appeared unrelenting.
4) Recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organization and commitment to dismantling its military and governing power.
Leaders of the two Arab parties, the Islamist Ra’am Party and the more nationalist Joint List, have refused to make this statement out loud.
Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas, who has repeatedly condemned the Oct. 7 attack, has said he does have a clear position on this but refuses to state it publicly for several reasons ranging from concerns about his personal safety to his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Hamas is also affiliated. He has also questioned why Arab politicians are required to pass loyalty tests that are not applied equally to Jewish politicians.
When President Herzog pressed him on the matter last week, Abbas said: “I have an unequivocal answer, but leave me space to be a bridge. To also influence the other side.” He argued that maintaining channels of communication with Palestinians requires him not to adopt language that would immediately alienate them.
For the Joint List, the continued refusal to call Hamas a terror group appears to reflect the view that Hamas is part of the broader Palestinian political movement. Some of its members argue that labeling it a terrorist organization risks delegitimizing Palestinian political aspirations as a whole.
Members of the 11-member faction have condemned the Oct. 7 massacre, but are unlikely to accept this particular condition because it could be used to justify Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza and the West Bank. Its leaders also want to preserve their credibility among Palestinian voters, many of whom see the conflict through the lens of occupation and Palestinian national rights.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israel’s President Herzog tasks Gadi Eisenkot with forming Israel’s next government appeared first on The Forward.
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Boy George’s Tel Aviv concert was not perfect. For the crowd, that was beside the point
(JTA) — TEL AVIV — Sound problems, guitar trouble and an admission of forgotten lyrics punctuated Boy George’s second Tel Aviv show Saturday night. But the British pop star, irreverent, occasionally exasperated and frequently hilarious, could hardly have asked for a more forgiving audience.
At 65, the Culture Club frontman is no longer the chart-topping phenomenon of the 1980s. Although plenty of those who filled Menora Mivtachim Arena were old enough to remember his heyday firsthand, his appeal went well beyond nostalgia.
At a time when international stars have largely stayed away from Israel, George has become one of the country’s most outspoken supporters, enduring considerable backlash from within the music industry for his refusal to remain silent over the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
“Silence is not a f—ing option,” he said to thunderous applause.
Saturday’s concert, the second of two nearly sold-out performances following Wednesday’s show at the same venue, was dedicated to survivors of the Nova music festival massacre and bereaved families, with 1,500 tickets donated to members of the community. Israeli DJ and producer Ofer Nissim joined George onstage in the second half, bringing a dance-club element to an evening that mixed Culture Club classics, covers and newer material.
His habit of mocking himself and mimicking others repeatedly drove the crowd to laughter, turning interruptions that might have derailed a slicker performance into part of the entertainment.
The banter ranged from wisecracks about technical glitches to personal reflections on the hostility he has encountered over his support for Israel. When a guitar failed to produce any sound, he appeared mildly irritated, telling the crew, “You have to plug things in, you know.”
“This is a weird moment,” he added, before smiling and continuing, “but this whole night has been a weird moment.”
Introducing his cover of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” he explained that he had attempted it on Wednesday but forgotten the lyrics. “Luckily, this time I have autocue,” he said, breaking into his trademark laugh.
As for his detractors around the world, he made clear that he had little interest in winning them over.
“I’m 65. It’s too late to hate me, I don’t give a s–t,” he told the audience.
The one person’s opinion that mattered to him, he said, was his late mother’s. Recalling an Irishman who had suggested that his Irish mother would be ashamed of his support for Israel, given Ireland’s strong sympathy for the Palestinian cause, George was defiant.
“I can tell you categorically my mother will be more proud of me than she’s ever been,” he said.
In another characteristically unpredictable diversion, George dedicated his solo release “Clouds” to Philip Sallon, a longtime Jewish friend and influential figure in London’s club scene who helped introduce him to Jewish traditions when he was young.
The two have since fallen out. “He hates my guts right now,” George said, asking anyone who knew Sallon to tell him that he had sung the song for him in Israel as an act of forgiveness, “as a mitzvah.”
But the evening’s most emotional moments belonged to “We Will Dance Again,” the song George released in July about the Nova attack. Its lyrics explicitly reference the atrocities committed on Oct. 7, criticize fellow musicians for their silence and challenge accusations of genocide against Israel.
George’s eight-day visit included a meeting with President Isaac Herzog and a trip to the Nova massacre site near Kibbutz Re’im, where Hamas terrorists murdered more than 360 festivalgoers on Oct. 7, 2023.
Having visited Israel many times before, he told the audience that this trip had affected him differently. He also appeared uneasy about the gratitude being lavished on him.
“It’s awkward for me as an outsider to be in the midst of this amazing recovery and sadness,” he said.
Survivors of the Nova massacre and relatives of those murdered joined George onstage carrying Israeli flags for “We Will Dance Again.”
George, having changed into a colorful, geometric-print suit and rhinestone-studded black hat, performed the reggae-inflected song about one of the most traumatic events in Israeli history while embracing the survivors and bereaved relatives beside him.
At one point, he seemed close to tears. “I’m going to cry,” he said.
But even the solemnity didn’t last long. When George invited one of the bereaved women to address the crowd, she demurred because she didn’t speak English.
“I’ve never met a Jewish person who doesn’t have anything to say,” he joked, drawing laughter and applause from the crowd.
In the audience, people swayed to lyrics that included an explicit reference to girls raped against trees. Kay, a singer from Tel Aviv, remained seated, tears in her eyes.
“I can’t dance to that,” she said.
Yet she was deeply moved by George and the atmosphere surrounding the performance, and was untroubled by its hiccups.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be human, and that’s what connects us,” she said.
Tammy, a 60-year-old dance instructor who regularly plays Culture Club songs in her classes, hadn’t initially intended to attend. But after seeing footage of George’s Wednesday performance, she changed her mind.
“I saw the clips on social media and was jealous of people who went,” she said.
Lavie, a 24-year-old Israeli-born performer who divides his time between New York and Los Angeles, had never heard of Boy George before the singer began making headlines in Israel. He started studying his music ahead of the concert, hoping to learn from the veteran entertainer’s stagecraft.
“I learned a lot,” he said toward the end of the performance. “What impressed me most was how he handled all the glitches with grace and humor.”
Not everyone was quite so impressed.
Daniel, a Jaffa resident originally from Los Angeles, was scathing about the musical performance and even more critical of the audience’s reaction.
“Everyone was off-key, and it was just awful,” he said. “But what bothered me most was the crowd’s desperate need for approval.”
“We need a national therapy session to counter our neediness,” he added.
George saved “Karma Chameleon,” the 1983 hit that made him a household name around the world, for the finale. By then, the show had stretched to roughly two and a half hours, but thousands of people were still on their feet.
George contrasted the atmosphere in Israel with London, which he described as “full of anxiety and tension.”
“It feels so relaxed here,” he said. “I don’t want to go home.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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