Uncategorized
This rabbi and singer-songwriter is in a New York state of mind
(New York Jewish Week) — Rabbi Steven Blane is nothing if not an innovator: Way back in 2010, a full decade before the pandemic made Zoom services a regular part of Jewish life, Blane launched an exclusively virtual synagogue, Sim Shalom.
Among the many hats he’s worn throughout his professional life, Blane has also launched the Jewish Spiritual Leadership Institute, an online “trans-denominational” rabbinical and cantorial school. Prior to his virtual pursuits, he was a congregational rabbi — and before that, a cantor — and for many years he was also an audio producer, running one of the first companies to record audio books.
Now, at 66, Blane is pursuing yet another career: that of a professional musician. A dedicated singer and songwriter, Blane just released his tenth album, “Songs for New York Lovers,” a collection of 13 jazzy songs, many of which are inspired by the city. These days, in addition to his online Jewish ventures, Blane can be found performing live just about weekly, particularly at Silvana, an Israeli cafe and music venue in Harlem, which is run by “the greatest people on the planet,” he said.
When it comes to performing, “I can’t get enough,” Blane told the New York Jewish Week via a Zoom interview, in which he had both his guitar and a keyboard close at hand. (Ed. note: If you’re a journalist and have never had a source serenade you, I suggest you call up Blane and remedy this immediately!) “I always wanted to be a songwriter, that was my passion right out of college,” he said.
Many of Blane’s original songs reference famous New York City locations, such as “Central Park,” “The Ramble” and “Bleecker Street,” and one tune is even called “New York Is My Girlfriend.” Fittingly, Blane’s virtual background, as we spoke, depicted Central Park in the snow.
As a young man, however, Blane — who counts Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Billy Joel and Elvis Presley among his musical influences — thought his future lay in Nashville. In his early 20s, Blane packed up his car and started driving to Music City, where he hoped to make it as a songwriter. Along the way, however, he got cold feet and turned around. “I have slight regrets about not fulfilling that dream then,” Blane admits. “But don’t get me wrong: I’m very grateful. We’ve had a great, great life.”
Upon his return to New York, Blane gigged around the city, and even landed a role in the 1979 Broadway adaptation of a Leo Tolstoy story, “Strider: The Story of a Horse,” where he played a “gypsy.” At 30, he launched his audio production business and, from there, fell into the professional Jewish world by accident because, in synagogues, he could get paid to sing. “I was making money as a cantor,” he said. “I wasn’t selling religion, I was singing at a high level for a few alter kockers [old people] who appreciated it.”
In the ensuing years, Blane held various cantorial and rabbinic positions in the tri-state area (he was ordained by Rabbinical Seminary International in 2001) but regularly butted heads with more traditional factions in Conservative Judaism that felt playing music on Shabbat was taboo.
Eventually, Blane realized he needed to forge his own path — which led him to launch his online shul and rabbinical school, as well as his concept of “Universalist Judaism,” which, according to Blane, “is just an innate concept within its DNA that there are no barriers to Jewish worship, that there are no barriers to relationships in Jewish universalism.” All are welcome in Jewish Universalist spaces, said Blane — who, upon noticing my son’s budgerigar flying behind me during our conversation, stressed that parrots are welcome, too.
“I’m here for your Jewishness, to support you, to educate you, to be there for life cycles,” he said.
Blane began to pursue songwriting again in earnest in 2014, when he and his wife of 36 years, Carol, left the Bergen County, New Jersey home where they raised their three grown daughters and returned to New York City.
Here, Blane finds inspiration everywhere he looks. “I love the vibe, I love the energy,” he said of the city. “I walk around the city every day. My exercise now is to walk about five or six miles a day.” His favorite haunt, he said, is the Lower East Side — which is certainly a shlep from the Upper West Side one-bedroom where he and Carol live. He particularly likes the corner of Grand and Essex Streets, where his aunt used to reside.
For Passover this year, on Wednesday evening, Blane will perform at the Knickerbocker Bar and Grill on University Place. He’ll lead a group of celebrants through a 45-minute seder before a festive meal that includes braised brisket of beef and apple walnut strudel. “It’s the funnest seder — you have all these people from the neighborhood, and a few kids,” Blane said. “Before COVID, [it was] packed to the gills. So they’ve been trying to build it up again.”
Pre-COVID, Blane was also known for his High Holiday shows at the classic Bleecker Street rock club, The Bitter End.
Usually, however, Blane keeps his rabbinic identity separate from his singer-songwriter identity — at least officially. Though he may not introduce himself onstage as a rabbi, he sees his current dual careers as informing one another. “Performing for me is davening,” he said, using the Yiddish word for prayer. “It’s a spiritual event. Everything comes together.”
—
The post This rabbi and singer-songwriter is in a New York state of mind appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
‘The Art of the Yiddish Monologue’ and other mini-courses in Yiddish
במשך פֿונעם חודש יאַנואַר 2026 וועט ייִוואָ פֿירן די ווײַטערדיקע מיני־קורסן אויף ייִדיש:
• „די קונסט פֿונעם ייִדישן מאָנאָלאָג“, וווּ מע וועט לייענען און אַרומרעדן מאָנאָלאָגן פֿון שלום עליכם, י. לץ פּרץ, דער טונקעלער, ב. קאָוונער, משה נאַדיר, רחל ברכות און יצחק באַשעוויס. מע וועט אויל אַרומרעדן די געשיכטע פֿונעם מאָנאָלאָג אין ייִדישן טעאַטער (שיין בייקער)
• שעפֿעריש שרײַבן, וווּ מע וועט אויפֿן סמך פֿון ליטעראַטור־מוסטערן באַטראַכטן די וויכטיקע באַשטאַנדטיילן פֿון פּראָזע — שפּראַך, סטיל, דיאַלאָג, געשטאַלט און פּייסאַזש (באָריס סאַנדלער)
• יצחק־לייבוש פּרץ און זײַנע באַציִונגען מיט די נײַ־געבוירענע ייִדישע סאָציאַליסטישע קרײַזן אין משך פֿון די 1890ער יאָרן (עדי מהלאל)
• די גרויסע אַקטריסע אסתּר רחל קאַמינסקאַ, וווּ די סטודענטן וועלן לייענען אירע זכרונות אויף ייִדיש (מיכל יאַשינסקי)
• די לידער פֿון דוד האָפֿשטײן, וואָס איז מערקווירדיק צוליב זײַן צונױפֿפֿלעכט פֿון דײַטשישע, רוסישע און אוקראַיִנישע ליטעראַרישע טראַדיציעס מיט תּנכישע און מאָדערנע ייִדישע השפּעות (יודזשין אָרנשטיין)
• די ייִוואָ־גדולים אין זייערע אייגענע ווערטער, וווּ מע וועט לייענען די שריפֿטן פֿון א. טשעריקאָװער, מ. װײַנרײַך, י. לעשטשינסקי, י. מאַרק, ש. ניגער, נ. פּרילוצקי, ז. קלמנאָװיטש, ז. רייזען, י. שאַצקי און נ. שטיף (דוד בראַון)
The post ‘The Art of the Yiddish Monologue’ and other mini-courses in Yiddish appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Suspect at Large in Brown University Shooting that Killed at Least Two, Injured Eight
Police vehicles stand near the site of a mass shooting reported by authorities at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S., December 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Taylor Coester
Police in Rhode Island were searching for a suspect in a shooting at Brown University in Providence in which two people died and eight were critically wounded at the Ivy League school, officials said.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley told a news conference that police were still searching for the shooter, who struck at Brown’s Barus & Holley engineering building, where exams were taking place at the time. Officials said police were looking for a male dressed in black and were scouring local video cameras in the area for footage to get a better description of the suspect.
Smiley said officials could not yet disclose details about the victims, including whether they were students. He lamented the shooting.
“We are a week and a half away from Christmas. And two people died today and another eight are in the hospital,” he said. “So please pray for those families.”
Brown is on College Hill in Providence, Rhode Island‘s state capital. The university has hundreds of buildings, including lecture halls, laboratories and dormitories.
President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he had been briefed on the situation, which he called “terrible.”
“All we can do right now is pray for the victims and for those that were very badly hurt.”
Compared to many countries, mass shootings in schools, workplaces, and places of worship are more common in the US, which has some of the most permissive gun laws in the developed world. The Gun Violence Archive, which defines mass shootings as any incident in which four or more victims have been shot, has counted 389 of them this year in the US.
Last year the US had more than 500 mass shootings, according to the archive.
Uncategorized
Rights Groups Condemn Re-Arrest of Nobel Laureate Mohammadi in Iran
Taghi Ramahi, husband of Narges Mohammadi, a jailed Iranian women’s rights advocate, who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, poses with an undated photo of himself and his wife, during an interview at his home in Paris, France, October 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
International human rights groups have condemned the re-arrest of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi in Iran, with the Nobel committee calling on Iranian authorities to immediately clarify her whereabouts.
Mohammadi’s French lawyer, Chirine Ardakani, said on X that the human rights activist was arrested on Friday after denouncing the suspicious death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi at his memorial ceremony in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
Mashhad prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters on Saturday that Mohammadi was among 39 people arrested after the ceremony.
Hematifar said she and Alikordi’s brother had made provocative remarks at the event and encouraged those present “to chant ‘norm‑breaking’ slogans” and disturb the peace, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
The prosecutor said Mashhad’s chief of police and another officer received knife wounds when trying to manage the scene.
CALLS FOR RELEASE
The Norwegian Nobel Committee called on Iranian authorities “to immediately clarify Mohammadi’s whereabouts, ensure her safety and integrity, and to release her without conditions.”
The European Union also called for Mohammadi’s release. “The EU urges Iranian authorities to release Ms Mohammadi, taking also into account her fragile health condition, as well as all those unjustly arrested in the exercise of their freedom of expression,” an EU spokesperson said on Saturday.
A video purportedly showing Mohammadi, 53, without the mandatory veil, standing on a car with a microphone and chanting “Long Live Iran” in front of a crowd, has gone viral on social media.
Ardakani said Mohammadi was beaten before her arrest.
Reporters Without Borders said four journalists and other participants were also arrested at the memorial for human rights lawyer Alikordi, who was found dead in his office on December 5.
Authorities gave the cause of his death as a heart attack, but rights groups have called for an investigation into his death.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said the crowd also chanted “death to the dictator,” a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as: “We fight, we die, we accept no humiliation.”
Mohammadi, who received the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, has spent more than 10 years of her life in prison, most recently from November 2021 when she was charged with “propaganda against the state,” “acting against national security,” and membership of “illegal organizations.”
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, said on Saturday that the opposition’s campaign in Venezuela was akin to that taking place in Iran.
“In Oslo this week, the world honored the power of conscience. I said to the ‘citizens of the world’ that our struggle is a long march toward freedom. That march is not Venezuelan alone. It is Iranian, it is universal,” she said on X on Saturday.