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The 10 most influential Jewish rappers of the past 50 years

(JTA) — Since the birth of hip-hop 50 years ago, plenty of Jewish rappers have picked up a microphone and rocked a crowd. They’ve spit rhymes in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, even Aramaic. Collectively, they’ve shattered stereotypes about what Jews look and sound like.

But hip-hop is hypercompetitive, so the question must be asked: Who are the Jewish artists who have made the biggest impact on the culture?

To try to answer that question, I solicited the help of some serious hip-hop heads: brothers Eric and Jeff Rosenthal, together known as ItsTheReal. They are New York City-based writers, sketch comedians and podcasters; their latest podcast, “The Blog Era,” tells the story of how anonymous kids on the internet helped obscure rappers become global superstars.

RELATED: From Rick Rubin to Doja Cat, Jews have helped shape the first 50 years of hip-hop

The rappers they chose for this list, which is organized alphabetically and actually includes 12 people (since the Beastie Boys were a trio), span generations and geographical regions. All of them have Jewish heritage, but they do not necessarily make use of it in their art. The only other traits they share, in the words of the Rosenthal brothers, are that “everyone loves hip-hop and everybody is authentically themselves.”

The Alchemist

The Alchemist performs with Boldy James at a festival in Oslo, Norway, Aug. 10, 2023. (Per Ole Hagen/Redferns/Getty Images)

Background: Born Alan Daniel Maman in Beverly Hills, CA; age 45; 3 solo studio albums, 15 albums as producer

Best known for: Producing songs for Nas, Eminem, Fat Joe, Mobb Deep, Jadakiss, The Lox, Action Bronson, among others

Most Jewish moment: In 2015, he released “Israeli Salad,” an instrumental album built around samples of Israeli songs that includes a track titled “Bone Thugs N’ Haifa.”

ItsTheReal says: “Alchemist is the guy who everybody looks up to like, ‘Oh, s—, that’s an actual cool Jew in this space.’ From his dress to his attitude to the music he makes, he exudes hip-hop. He lives in an apartment with his wife and kids on the westside of L.A., making beats for fun. He’s independent and lives in that persona. His journey from teenage rapper in Beverly Hills to essential production partner in the seminal Queens group Mobb Deep is genuine and way more impactful than being put in a box of ‘Jewish rapper who makes it big and sells out in some way or another.’”

Beastie Boys

The Beastie Boys, shown in an undated photo, were early rap pioneers. (L. Cohen/WireImage/Getty Images)

Background: Core members were Michael “Mike D” Diamond, Adam “MCA” Yauch, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, all born in New York City; active from 1981 to 2012 (Yauch’s death); 8 studio albums, 3 Grammys

Best known for: “(You’ve Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party),” “Intergalactic,” “Sabotage,” “No Sleep Till Brooklyn”

Most Jewish moment: In “Shadrach,” a song on their 1989 album “Paul’s Boutique,” the Beastie Boys compare themselves to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, three Jewish men who defied Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, in the Book of Daniel.

ItsTheReal says: “The Beastie Boys are the blueprint. They came from a punk background. They were hanging out with Rick Rubin, and shifted their love of punk and anti-authoritarianism across cultural lines. They’re notable for being early, obviously, and being part of that blueprint, but also for taking hip-hop into such weird and crazy places, fusing it with skate life and being progressive heroes.”

BLP Kosher

BLP Kosher in his music video for “The Nac 3.” (Screenshot from YouTube)

Background: Born Benjamin Landy Pavlon in Broward County, Florida; age 23; begins a national tour (“The Dreidel That Never Stopped Spinning Tour”) in September

Best known for: “Special K,” “Jew on the Canoe,” his unique hairstyle (a combination of Orthodox Jewish and Haitian styles)

Most Jewish moment: Every part of his rap persona references Jewish culture, from his MC name, to his nickname (“Dreidel Man”), to the Star of David necklaces he’s always wearing, to the title of his new album, “Bars Mitzvah.”

ItsTheReal says: “BLP Kosher is the future. He doesn’t have a huge catalog. I don’t know who his music is for, or who the joke is supposed to be on, if there is a joke. Honestly, he seems sincere, so give him the benefit of the doubt. But his existence flies in the face of every other trend. We live in a time now where there are a lot of stereotypes, antisemitism, and violence, and for him to be proudly and outwardly Jewish, to be accepted by the rougher edges of Florida and to be out there on a stage calling yourself that, I respect that.”

Doja Cat

Doja Cat performs at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., Aug. 11, 2019. (Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)

Background: Born Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini in Los Angeles; age 27; Ashkenazi Jewish and South African heritage; 3 studio albums; in the top 50 most streamed artists in the world on Spotify

Best known for: “Say So,” “Get Into It (Yuh),” “Mooo!” and her combative social media persona

Most Jewish moment: In an episode of season 2 of the FX series “Dave,” the character played by Jewish rapper Lil Dicky matches with a character played by Doja Cat on a dating app. His father asks if she’s Jewish, and he confirms that she is after consulting her Wikipedia entry.

ItsTheReal says: “There’s a small number of Jewish rappers who have broken through, and there’s an even smaller number of Jewish women who rap. There’s a Jewish stereotype where you get painted as not tough, but Doja is extremely tough, brazen, confident. She is somebody who has built up this massive audience and isn’t afraid to lose them if they don’t follow her lead. That’s brave. That’s exciting. That’s very punk. Two spaces she occupies, L.A. and pop music, can be so soulless, but she is bringing a realness to both.”

Drake

Drake performs at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Dec. 9, 2022. (Prince Williams/Wireimage/Getty Images)

Background: Born Aubrey Drake Graham in Toronto; age 36; Ashkenazi Jewish and African American heritage; former child actor on “Degrassi: The Next Generation”; 8 studio albums, 5 Grammys; Spotify’s most streamed rapper, with more than 72 million monthly listeners

Best known for: “Hotline Bling” (1.9 billion views on YouTube), “God’s Plan” (1.5 billion views), and dozens of other hits

Most Jewish moment: It’s a tie between his 2014 SNL skit, “Drake’s Bar Mitzvah,” and his music video for “HYFR (Hell Ya F— Right),” which was filmed inside Miami’s Temple Israel.

ItsTheReal says: “He’s from Toronto, Canada, he’s half singing, half rapping, and he’s Jewish. Those are all these things that are traditionally outsider-ish. And for him to come on the scene, for him to be accepted the way that he has, and for his music to cross over and become as dominant as it has — that’s a testament to who he is. He weaves his Jewish identity and his sense of humor into his videos and his output in a very smart way. Today, Drake is still the goofy, fun-loving, boastful half singer, half rapper that he was at the very beginning.”

El-P

El-P, right, performs with Killer Mike as Run The Jewels at the Reading Festival in Reading, England, Aug. 28, 2022. (Simone Joyner/Getty Images)

Background: Born Jaime Meline in New York City; age 48; 3 solo studio albums, 2 albums with rap trio Company Flow, 4 albums with duo Run The Jewels

Best known for: “Legend Has It,” “Ooh LA LA,” producing songs for a variety of artists

Most Jewish moment: He has said he “grew up loving Jewish deli food” and was an investor in Frankel’s, a deli in Brooklyn that opened in 2016.

ItsTheReal says: “His whole movement is about independence: independent record label, not going along with the mainstream, really concerned with staying true to who he is. That influence is so much greater than any of his solo albums or any of his work in Run The Jewels, which by the way has been super successful. Today, with so many people doing it on their own, because now technology has caught up — you can record music on your own, you can distribute it on your own, you can publicize it on your own — there’s a lot more stuff that El-P was early on that you see the influence of today.”

Mac Miller

Mac Miller performs in Long Beach, California, April 29, 2018. (Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)

Background: Born Malcolm James McCormick in Pittsburgh; died of a drug overdose in 2018 at age 26; 6 studio albums; Spotify’s 19th-most-streamed rapper

Best known for: “Self Care,” “Best Day Ever,” his 2018 Tiny Desk concert (which has 105 million views)

Most Jewish moment: In a 2010 interview with his hometown Jewish newspaper, the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, he talked about his “chai” tattoo and said the best Hanukkah present he ever received was a keyboard. “But the worst, and every Jew can relate to this, was being all excited to open up the present, thinking it’s going to be something big, and it’s socks,” he said.

ItsTheReal says: “He was a generational talent, and there’s a reason why he’s been lionized, and it’s not only because of his death. At the beginning of his career he was looked at with skepticism because he’s a white rapper, a frat rapper, and he lived in that world. But he didn’t want to. Much like the Beastie Boys — whom Mac studied, just like he did Biggie and DJ Premier — he evolved. He decamped to L.A. and forged a tight and genuine community. His home became the hub for an emerging sound: Kendrick Lamar, ScHoolboy, Odd Future. Everybody wanted to work with him because he was talented and true. He used his powers for good.”

MC Serch

MC Serch, left, with the other members of 3rd Bass in New York City in 1989. (Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives)

Background: Born Michael Berrin in New York City; age 56; 1 solo studio album, 2 studio albums with rap trio 3rd Bass (with Pete Nice and DJ Richie Rich)

Best known for: “The Gas Face,” “Pop Goes the Weasel” (a 3rd Bass diss against Vanilla Ice), “Back To The Grill,” executive producing the classic Nas album “Illmatic”

Most Jewish moment: In a 2018 VLADTV interview, he talked about growing up in a Conservative family in the heavily Jewish Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens. He recalled how he was asked to perform the duties of a Shabbos goy for his Orthodox neighbors. “To ask another Jew to break Sabbath because you don’t see them as being Jewish enough, it’s crazy foul,” he said. “I didn’t know until later that’s lashon hara, that’s crazy.”

ItsTheReal says: “White groups were so rare back then [in the late 1980s]. The Beastie Boys were the white crew, and then 3rd Bass showed up and they became the cool, white Jewish guys. Even more than the Beastie Boys, MC Serch lived all the early elements of hip-hop culture. He could battle somebody in a cypher and get busy on a dance floor. He’s gone on to have this career in lots of different lanes, including television and radio and as an executive, helping put Nas on.”

Mike Posner

Mike Posner performs in Cleveland, July 8, 2010. (Joey Foley/Getty Images)

Background: Born Michael Robert Henrion Posner in Detroit; age 35; 4 studio albums

Best known for: “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” (a remix of which has been streamed 1.7 billion times on Spotify); “Cooler Than Me”; writing songs for Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, and Big Sean, among others; walking solo across the continental United States “to remind people your life is now”

Most Jewish moment: During his Walk Across America in 2019, he told the Detroit Jewish News that his bar mitzvah speech was about the role Jews played during the civil rights movement.

ItsTheReal says: “Mike’s path was as unique as his sound — one that grew out of freestyling with his childhood friend Big Sean and turned into a rap/singing hybrid — and it hit at the right time. He was booked at college after college and earned such a loyal fan base. Unsurprisingly, Mike Posner copycats turned up by the dozens not long after. He wrote songs for a lot of people that he didn’t get recognized for, and his musical influence can still be heard today.”

Shyne

Shyne, born Jamaal Barrow, now serves in the Belize House of Representatives. (Royal Shyne/Flickr)

Background: Born Jamaal Barrow in Belize, he legally changed his name to Moses Michael Levi Barrow after converting to Orthodox Judaism in 2010; age 44; 2 studio albums; currently serves in the Belize House of Representatives

Best known for: “Bad Boyz,” his gravelly voice, his involvement in a 1999 nightclub shooting that resulted in his serving 9 years in prison

Most Jewish moment: Telling The New York Times in a 2010 interview in Jerusalem, where he was living at the time, “My entire life screams that I have a Jewish neshama [soul]” and “There’s nothing in the Chumash [text of the Torah] that says I can’t drive a Lamborghini.”

ItsTheReal says: “What a voice, what an attitude, what a swagger. He was sent to jail at the height of his superstardom. It’s hard to know how anyone could bounce back from that, evolve, reset. For Shyne, at life’s most trying intersection, he found Judaism. After he converted, there were lots of jokes — we made a lot of them — because it was so unlikely. But jokes aside, there’s no question that Shyne is the best Jewish rapper of all time.”


The post The 10 most influential Jewish rappers of the past 50 years appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote

Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.

The University of California (UC) Faculty Assembly has rejected a proposal to establish passing ethnic studies in high school as a requirement for admission to its 10 taxpayer-funded schools for undergraduates.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the campaign for the measure — defeated overwhelmingly 29-12 with 12 abstaining — was spearheaded by Christine Hong, chair of the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department at UC Santa Cruz. Hong believes that Zionism is a “colonial racial project” and that Israel is a “settler colonial state.” Moreover, she holds that anti-Zionism is “part and parcel” of the ethnic studies discipline.

Ethnic studies activists like Hong throughout the University of California system coveted the admissions requirement because it would have facilitated their aligning ethnic studies curricula at the K-12 level with “liberated ethnic studies,” an extreme revolutionary project that was rejected by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. Had the proposal been successful, school officials of both public and private schools would have been forced to comply with their standard of what constitutes ethnic studies to qualify their students for admission to UC.

Being indoctrinated into anti-Zionism and “hating Jews” would essentially have become a prerequisite for becoming a UC student had the Faculty Assembly approved the measure, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner on Friday. AMCHA Initiative first raised the alarm about the proposal in 2023, calling it “a deeply frightening prospect.”

“Ethnic studies never intended to be like any other discipline or subject. It was always intended to be a political project for fomenting revolution according to the dictates of however the activists behind the subject defined it,” Rossman-Benjamin explained. “And anti-Zionism has been at the core of the field, and this became especially clear after Oct. 7. Most of the anti-Zionist mania on campuses that day — the support for the encampments, the Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters — it was a project of Ethnic Studies. At UC Santa Cruz, 60 percent of Faculty for Justice in Palestine members were pulled from the ethnic studies department.”

Founded in the 1960s to provide an alternative curriculum for beneficiaries of racial preferences whose retention rates lagged behind traditional college students, ethnic studies is based on anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Western ideologies found in the writings of, among others, Franz Fanon, Huey Newton, Simone de Beauvoir, and Karl Marx. Its principal ideological target in the 20th century was the remains of European imperialism in Africa and the Middle East, but overtime it identified new “systems of oppression,” most notably the emergent superpower that was the US after World War II and the nation that became its closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.

UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department is a case study in how the ideology leads inexorably to anti-Zionist antisemitism, AMCHA Initiative argued in a 2024 study.

Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, CRES issued a statement rationalizing the terrorist group’s atrocities as political resistance. Additionally, the department days later participated in a “Call for a Global General Strike,” refusing to work because Israel mounted a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — an action CRES called “Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” Later, the department held an event titled, “The Genocide in Gaza in our [sic] Classrooms: A Teaching Palestine Workshop,” in which professors and teaching assistants were trained in how to persuade students that Zionism is a racist and genocidal endeavor.

Imposing such noxious views on all California students would have been catastrophic, Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner.

“The goal of admissions requirements is to make sure that students are adequately prepared for college,” she noted. “Their goal was to use their power to force students to take the kind of Critical Ethnic Studies that is taught at the university, with the goal of revolutionizing society. The idea should have been dead on arrival, being rejected on the grounds that there is no evidence that it is a worthwhile subject that should be required for admission to the University of California.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations

Paraguayan President Santiago Peña praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Dec. 12, 2024. Photo: The Western Wall Heritage Foundation

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Paraguay’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, and to broaden the country’s previous designation to include all factions of Hamas and Hezbollah.

The top Israeli diplomat congratulated the South American country and described President Santiago Peña’s decision as a “landmark move” in addressing security challenges and fostering international peace.

“Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens regional stability and global peace,” Sa’ar wrote in a post on X. “More countries should follow suit and join the fight against Iranian aggression and terrorism.”

On Thursday, Peña issued an executive order designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization “for its systematic violations of peace, human rights, and the security of the international community.”

The executive order also expanded Paraguay’s 2019 proscription of the armed wings of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon, to encompass the entirety of both organizations, including their political wings.

“With this decision, Paraguay reaffirms its unwavering commitment to peace, international security, and the unconditional respect for human rights, solidifying its position within the international community as a country firmly opposed to all forms of terrorism and strengthening its relations with allied nations in this fight,” Peña wrote in a post on X, emphasizing the country’s strategic relationship with the United States and Israel.

Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Islamist terror groups with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to launch the Oct. 7 attack months in advance.

Last year, Peña reopened Paraguay’s embassy in Jerusalem, making it the sixth nation — after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea — to establish its embassy in the Israeli capital. During the same visit, he condemned the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the perpetrators “criminals” in a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

The Trump administration also praised Paraguay’s decision to officially label the IRGC as a terrorist organization, describing it as a major blow to Iran’s terror network in the Western Hemisphere.

“Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and has financed and directed numerous terrorist attacks and activities globally, through its IRGC-Qods Force and proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.

The US official said Paraguay’s action will help disrupt Iran’s ability to finance terrorism and operate in Latin America — particularly in the Tri-Border Area, where Paraguay borders Argentina and Brazil, a region long regarded as a financial hub for Hezbollah-linked operatives.

“The important steps Paraguay has taken will help cut off the ability of the Iranian regime and its proxies to plot terrorist attacks and raise money for its malignant and destabilizing activity,” the statement read.

“The United States will continue to work with partners such as Paraguay to confront global security threats,” Bruce added. “We call on all countries to hold the Iranian regime accountable and prevent its operatives, recruiters, financiers, and proxies from operating in their territories.”

During his first administration, Trump designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), citing the Iranian regime’s use of the IRGC to “engage in terrorist activities since its inception 40 years ago.”

At the time, Trump said this designation “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”

“The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign,” he continued.

The post Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’

Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.

As darkness fell over Yale University on Wednesday evening, Jewish students faced intimidation that echoed history’s darkest chapters. The following day, as the sun rose on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world solemnly reflected on the devastating consequences of unchecked hatred.

Yet, disturbingly, at Yale, the shadows of that same hatred linger once again.

For several nights now, radical anti-Israel activists, primarily organized by “Yalies for Palestine,” an anti-Israel hate group, have targeted Jewish students at Yale — in many cases, based solely on their outwardly Jewish appearance. 

On Wednesday, protestors blocked walkways, physically intimidated Jewish students, and hurled bottles and sprayed liquids at them — all while campus police stood by and did nothing.

One Jewish student described her chilling encounter with the protesters the night before, on Tuesday: “When I tried to get through, they blocked me, ignored my requests to pass, and handed out masks to those obstructing me. Yale security told me they couldn’t help.”

The immediate trigger for this harassment is the invitation extended by Shabtai, a Yale Jewish society, to Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Israeli government minister. Whether one supports or opposes Ben-Gvir’s politics is beside the point. Notably, Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, was also protested and disrupted during a separate campus event in February, underscoring a broader trend of hostility toward Israeli speakers regardless of their political affiliation.

These events signal more than isolated protests; they constitute a redux of hatred that historically escalates when met with institutional silence or indifference. 

Yale’s administration, under President Maurie McInnis and Dean Pericles Lewis, has failed to adequately respond. Though Yale revoked official recognition from Yalies for Palestine, its tepid actions have not halted the dangerous slide toward overt hostility. The silence — from both the university and the Slifka Center, Yale’s center for Jewish life — is deafening.

This isn’t the first troubling instance at Yale. A year ago, similar demonstrators disrupted campus life with vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric, silencing dialogue and fostering an atmosphere hostile to Jewish students. 

Earlier this year, CAMERA on Campus documented Yale’s Slifka Center pressuring students to erase evidence of anti-Jewish harassment during a pro-Israel event, effectively whitewashing antisemitism and emboldening extremists.

As CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander has powerfully documented, the rhetoric of anti-Zionism today often revives the antisemitic patterns of the past, particularly those propagated by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. These tactics, she explains, echo Nazi-era propaganda that portrayed Jews as subhuman, sinister, and uniquely malevolent — a narrative used to justify marginalization and, ultimately, genocide.

These dynamics — scapegoating, dehumanizing, and ostracizing Jews under the guise of “anti-Zionism” — are not relics of history. They are alive and active across elite American campuses. And now, unmistakably, they have taken root at Yale.

McInnis must break the silence and condemn the open harassment and assault of Jewish students. She must also hold the perpetrators of the heinous actions and those responsible for the safety of students accountable for their inaction. 

This week has revealed a grave failure of moral and institutional duty on many fronts. When law enforcement stands by as Jewish students face intimidation and assault, it sends a chilling message: their safety matters less.

We must demand a full investigation and real accountability. Condemnations of antisemitism are not enough. Policies must be changed to ensure Jewish students and organizations can freely exercise their right to free expression without being subject to harassment and assault. Anything less would betray Yale’s stated values — and the promise of “never again.”

Douglas Sandoval is the Managing Director for CAMERA on Campus.

The post Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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