Uncategorized
Ishay Ribo, Orthodox singer who has drawn religious and secular fans, will be the first Israeli to headline Madison Square Garden
(JTA) — The Orthodox singer Ishay Ribo, whose music has attracted a diverse audience of religious and secular Israeli fans, will be the first musician from Israel to headline a concert at Madison Square Garden.
“I’ve been keeping this inside for a long time and more than once I pinched myself to check if I was dreaming or if this is real,” Ribo wrote on his Facebook page on Monday. “It seems that both answers are correct, thank God.”
At a time when Israeli society is deeply divided by political and religious fault lines, Ribo, 34, has achieved crossover appeal by blending religiously-themed lyrics with pop melodies, and is a leading voice in Israel’s “faithful pop” genre. One of his songs, “Sibat Hasibot,” was the most-played song on the country’s radio stations in 2021, according to a recent New York Times profile.
Born in Marseille, France to parents from Algeria and Morocco, Ribo’s family moved to the Israeli West Bank settlement of Kfar Adumim when he was 8. He grew up in a haredi Orthodox family and was first exposed to secular music when it played over the speakers during bus rides to school.
Ribo self-released his first album in 2014, and four of his five albums have reached gold certification, each selling more than 15,000 copies in the Israeli music market. He has performed alongside popular Israeli musicians such as Shlomo Artzi and Idan Raichel, and has drawn some backlash from Orthodox Israelis.
The poster for Ribo’s show at the iconic 20,000-seat New York City venue, which is scheduled for September 3, highlights his religious identity. The concert is advertised with a photo of Ribo in silhouette, performing in front of a crowd full of flashing phone cameras. Block letters spell out his name in gold, above Hebrew text reading “Elul 5783,” — the month and year of the show on the Jewish calendar. One of the sponsors of the show is Bnei Akiva, the religious Zionist youth group.
Ribo is not the first Orthodox Jewish musician to have captured the attention of secular listeners. Other such performers include Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach — who blended liturgical lyrics with the sensibilities of the Greenwich Village folk scene and, later, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood — and the Miami Boys Choir, an American musical group founded in the 1970s that recently had a song go viral on TikTok.
Nor is Ribo the first Orthodox singer to plan a concert at Madison Square Garden. In 2008, a Hasidic charity concert was planned for the stadium, to be headlined by singer Lipa Schmeltzer, but Schmeltzer ultimately dropped out of the event after a group of 33 rabbis signed a decree saying the concert would cause “ribaldry and lightheadedness” and “strip the youth of every shred of fear of heaven and [lower] them into a pit of destruction.”
—
The post Ishay Ribo, Orthodox singer who has drawn religious and secular fans, will be the first Israeli to headline Madison Square Garden appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
VIDEO: Historian Vivi Laks tells history of the London Yiddish Press
די ייִדיש־ליגע האָט לעצטנס אַרויפֿגעשטעלט אַ ווידעאָ, וווּ די היסטאָריקערין וויווי לאַקס דערציילט וועגן דער אַמאָליקער ייִדישער פּרעסע אין לאָנדאָן.
צווישן 1884 און 1954 האָט די לאָנדאָנער פּרעסע אַרויסגעגעבן הונדערטער פֿעליעטאָנען פֿון אָרטיקע שרײַבערס וועגן אָרטיקן ייִדישן לעבן.
די קורצע דערציילונגען זענען סאַטיריש, קאָמיש און רירנדיק, אויף טשיקאַווע טעמעס ווי למשל קאַמפֿן אין דער היים צווישן די מינים; פּאָליטיק אין די קאַפֿעען, און ספֿרי־תּורה אויף די גאַסן. די דערציילונגען האָבן געשריבן סײַ גוט באַקאַנטע שרײַבער (למשל, מאָריס ווינטשעווסקי, יוסף־חיים ברענער און אסתּר קרייטמאַן), סײַ היפּש ווייניקער באַקאַנטע.
שבֿע צוקער, די ייִדיש־לערערין און מחבר פֿון אַ ייִדישן לערנבוך, פֿירט דעם שמועס מיט וויווי לאַקס. זיי וועלן פֿאָרלייענען אַ טייל פֿון די פֿעליעטאָנען אויף ענגליש און ייִדיש, און אַרומרעדן די טעמעס וואָס די פּרעסע האָט אַרויסגעהויבן.
וויווי לאַקס איז אַ היסטאָריקערין פֿון לאָנדאָנס ייִדישן „איסט־ענד“, ווי אויך אַן איבערזעצער און זינגערין. זי איז די מחברטע פֿון Whitechapel Noise און London Yiddishtown, ווי אויך אַקאַדעמישע און פּאָפּולערע אַרטיקלען. זי איז אַ קולטור־טוערין אין לאָנדאָן און האָט מיטאָרגאַניזירט סײַ דעם גרויסן ייִדישן פּאַראַד, סײַ דעם Yiddish Café Trust. זי זינגט פּאָפּולערע לידער אויפֿן „קאָקני־ייִדיש“ מיט די גרופּעס קלעזמער־קלאָב און קאַטשאַנעס, און פֿירט שפּאַצירטורן איבער דעם „איסט־ענד“.
The post VIDEO: Historian Vivi Laks tells history of the London Yiddish Press appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’
It’s not every day that a kosher dill pickle puppet gets a chance to learn some Yiddish.
Monty Pickle, star of the children’s series The Monty Pickle Show, recently joined Rukhl Schaechter, host of the Forward’s YouTube series Yiddish Word of the Day, for an episode teaching viewers the Yiddish words for various wild animals.
Or as they’re called in Yiddish: vilde khayes.
The Monty Pickle Show, a puppet comedy on YouTube and TikTok, aims to show young viewers what it means to be Jewish in a fun, lively way. The series was created by the Emmy Award-winning producers of Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock.
So far, he’s met a number of Jewish personalities, including rabbis, musicians and chefs, and explored holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah and Passover.
Sitting alongside Rukhl during the lesson, Monty eagerly tries to guess what each word means, providing for some very funny moments.
The post Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’ appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
IDF Nabs Islamic State Terror Suspect in Syria
Guns seized in the course of the operation. Photo: IDF Spokesperson via i24
i24 News – Israel Defense Forces soldiers conducted an operation on Wednesday in the area of Rafid in southern Syria to apprehend a suspected terrorist affiliated with ISIS, the military spokesperson said on Saturday.
The announcement comes as Washington announced a major operation to eliminated Islamic State terrorists in Syria after three Americans lost their lives in a jihadist attack in Palmyra.
The Israeli soldiers completed the operation in Syria “in cooperation with IDF intelligence,” the statement read, adding that “the suspect was transferred for further processing in Israeli territory.”
Additionally, during the operation, weapons were found and seized.
IDF troops “continue to remain deployed along the Golan Heights border in order to protect the State of Israel and its citizens,” the statement from the spokesperson concluded.