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A Brazilian, Moroccan and Israeli singer brings her unique North African sound to NYC

(New York Jewish Week) — Though she grew up in Israel, Tamar Bloch’s childhood was a mishmash of cultures. With a Moroccan mother and Brazilian father, Bloch often heard Portuguese and Arabic alongside Hebrew, and felt connected with the music from all three cultures.

It wasn’t until she was in her early 20s, however, that Bloch discovered the language and culture of “Haketia,” a Romance language once spoken by Sephardic Jews in North Africa. Haketia has elements of Darija (Moroccan Arabic), Spanish and Ladino.

“I was hooked immediately,” Bloch, 33, told the New York Jewish Week. She could only find ethnographic recordings of Haketian songs at the Israel State Archives and at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which she painstakingly transcribed and re-recorded herself — becoming the first modern artist to record an album in Haketia.

Over the last decade, Bloch — who goes by the stage name Lala Tamar; Lala is a Moroccan honorific meaning “Lady” or “Miss” — has traveled the world touring her music, working with bands and promoting the language and sound of Haketia.  

This weekend, Bloch is traveling to New York from her home in Essouria, Morocco to perform several concerts at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The New York Jewish Week caught up with her to talk about her performances in the United States and what Haketia means to her.

New York Jewish Week: How did you become aware of Haketía and then decide to pursue it in your music?

Bloch: I did not know it as a kid. I grew up with a mom who did speak Darija, which is Moroccan Arabic, which integrated and mixed inside Haketia, and with a dad who was born in Brazil, so there was Portuguese and a lot of Latin music in the house.

So I grew up with the basics of Haketia at home — the words and the Latin languages and the Arabic languages surrounding me. But I never really spoke it because they were speaking it with the older generations, with my grandparents and not with us, the kids.

When I grew up a bit I fell in love with Moroccan music. I happened to hear Haketia music. Immediately, I was hooked. For me, it was a very condensed cultural combination of my background, of the way I grew up. Not only literally, with the words and the language, but also musically because it has this combination of Spanish and Andalusian music and North African music. It’s all fused together in Haketia. I decided that I needed to investigate and to search for more of this music. These songs were never really recorded in an artistically contemporary way. If anything, they were recorded for the sake of preservation as a part of ethnographic research for universities. But it was not out there as music for everybody. I felt that this music deserves to be heard and to be served to everybody. It doesn’t have to be a part of a long forgotten tradition that’s lost in the archives. 

What has been like the most meaningful part of the last decade of bringing Haketia back into the modern world and of touring your music around the globe?

I think that the biggest moment was when I got into the playlist of Galgalatz in Israel, which is one of the country’s most popular radio stations. One of the singles got into a playlist, and it was the first time that Haketia was played on contemporary, popular radio. That was really exciting. Also when we released our album. Even though it was in the middle of COVID, so it did not get any of the attention we were expecting for it, it was still exciting to to release an album in this in this lost language, and to hear people play it at parties and to have people sending me videos in restaurants. It’s always exciting to hear it.

I didn’t feel like I had a mission to make Haketia or this music more mainstream. It just happened because I felt that this music was relevant for me. I felt very much connected to it in a way that made me just release it as if there was nothing different about it, as if I would be singing anything else.

Why did you decide to move to Morocco from Israel during the pandemic?

I started performing in Morocco and realized that it’s always been the source of my inspiration, the fountain of my creation. At one of the festivals that I did there, I met Maalem (Master) Seddik, a Muslim musician that teaches Gnawa, a specific style of religious Moroccan music that I was fascinated by and, also, I was fascinated by the connection with the Jewish history in Morocco. I was waiting for the opportunity to go and study with him and then COVID struck and I had no job, of course.

Also, my inspiration and everything in my life that I create comes from Morocco. (During the 18th and 19th centuries, Jews made up nearly half of the population of Essouira — then called Mogador.) So when I was not singing I felt that my fountain was being dried out, so I already had this dream of going to study with him and I managed to find a way to get into Morocco which was really complicated at the time. He [Seddik] was waiting for me and welcomed me in. I started studying with him and he really adopted me, almost as a daughter, cooking for me, making me all these Jewish foods that he knows how to make from his neighbors and all his Jewish friends, and I just stayed. I have a lot of followers and an audience in Morocco as well as a lot of musicians that I work with so for me, it really felt like home from the beginning.

How does it feel to be performing in New York for the first time?

I have been doing online shows for Lincoln Center, but I’ve never performed physically in New York. It’s really exciting. I can’t describe how blissful we feel to come all this way. It’s a really big honor for my band’s first live performance in the United States to be at Lincoln Center.

I can only imagine how it will be because I don’t know. I can say I perform around the world, more than in Israel these past few years. I feel that this music has something that just can reach people from whatever background they come from. I hope that’s going to be the case as well, here in New York and New Yorkers are very open minded, very aware of what’s happening around the globe culturally. 

Lala Tamar will perform a series of five concerts between May 5-7 at Lincoln Center for Performing Arts (113 West 60th St.). To find concert times and purchase tickets (choose-what-you-pay), visit their website


The post A Brazilian, Moroccan and Israeli singer brings her unique North African sound to NYC appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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‘Why do we have to waste a few weeks?’: Satmar rabbi congratulates Mamdani during Williamsburg sukkah hop

This piece first ran as part of The Countdown, our daily newsletter rounding up all the developments in the New York City mayor’s race. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. There are 25 days to the election.

🫂Mamdani on tour

  • Zohran Mamdani met with Orthodox Jewish leaders at their sukkahs in Williamsburg yesterday, an overture to a community that has leaned toward Andrew Cuomo in polls.

  • Mamdani had a warm welcome at the sukkah of Rabbi Moishe Indig, a leader of the Satmar Hasidic community. One rabbi announced that Indig had called Mamdani “a friend of the Jewish people” and said he would make “the best mayor.”

  • “Congratulations — why do we have to waste a few weeks? — on becoming the mayor of New York City. We hope you come back,” said the rabbi who greeted Mamdani. Indig also hosted Brad Lander, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and several NYPD officers at his sukkah.

  • The seal of approval marks a shift in Mamdani’s fortunes with Orthodox leaders. In early June, before Mamdani beat Cuomo in the primary, the Satmar community endorsed Cuomo.

  • Mamdani also stopped at the sukkah of Rabbi Shulem Deutch, who represents another Satmar faction.

  • The Satmars prioritize keeping their religious ways of life free from regulation by local governments. When Cuomo was the governor of New York, he cultivated close ties with Satmar leaders and struck deals with them over yeshiva rules.

  • While the frontrunner’s staunch criticism of Israel has prompted skepticism among some Jewish New Yorkers, it’s a different matter for Satmar Jews. Traditionally, they are among the ultra-Orthodox who identify with religious anti-Zionism and do not recognize the state of Israel.

📊 Numbers to know

  • Mamdani leads the race with 46% of likely voters, according to the first poll released since Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race.

  • The Quinnipiac poll showed most of Adams’ support transferring to Cuomo, but Cuomo still trailing Mamdani with 33% support. Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa amassed 15% of likely voters.

  • While Mamdani continues to lead, the poll showed little new support for him as he failed to clear a majority of the vote.

  • Quinnipiac also reported that 41% of likely voters aligned with Mamdani’s views on the Israel-Hamas conflict, more than those who aligned with Cuomo (26%) and Sliwa (13%) combined. And their sympathies lie more with Palestinians (43%) than with Israelis (22%). These findings match up with those of a New York Times/Siena poll last month.

  • But Mamdani’s vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hasn’t gained the same traction, with 43% of likely voters opposing his pledge and 38% supporting it.

  • The poll was conducted from Oct. 3-7 and has an error margin of 3.9%.

🕺 Curtis Sliwa dances for Sukkot

💰 Following the money

  • Cuomo scored a big boost yesterday, with the NYC Campaign Finance Board awarding his campaign $2.3 million in public matching funds.
  • Mamdani, who halted fundraising in early September when he hit the $8 million spending cap, also received $1 million from the CFB. Sliwa got $1.1 million.


The post ‘Why do we have to waste a few weeks?’: Satmar rabbi congratulates Mamdani during Williamsburg sukkah hop appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Palestinian Authority Slams Trump as ‘Criminal’ and ‘Unstable’ as He Tries to Help Bring Peace

US President Donald Trump gestures during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Aug. 26, 2025. Photo: Jonathan Ernst via Reuters Connect

President Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to improve the lives of Palestinians. He has invested tremendous political and financial capital to genuinely attempt to give Palestinians a future of opportunity instead of one of violence and terror.

Yet, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has responded not with appreciation, but with vicious demonization.

Jibril Rajoub, one of the PA’s most senior officials and among the closest to Mahmoud Abbas, has unleashed multiple hate-filled rants against Trump in recent weeks.

Rajoub mocked Trump as frivolous, childish, and unstable — “a puppet” of the “Nazis who control Israel”:

Click to play

Jibril Rajoub: “An [American] president is in power who speaks in a language of frivolity, childishness, and instability and lack of perspective, even at the minimum level …

This [pro-Israel] bias — in my opinion, it is even more than that. He has even become a toy, a puppet in the hands of the group of Nazis who control Israel.” [emphasis added]

[Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Sept. 11, 2025]

The previous week, Rajoub accused “criminal Trump” of being a partner to and supporting “neo-Nazi” Israel:

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Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “The American administration gave the green light to this fascist [Israeli] government, the neo-Nazi government, to treat the Palestinian issue as if it were an internal Israeli matter, including the continuation of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the slow annexation of all Palestinian territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

This, of course, aligns with the belief of these neo-Nazis who control Israel … Those who are doing in Gaza what the Nazis did in the 1940s will undoubtedly have no problem taking any [further] step … They behave like the neighborhood bully… with the support of the criminal Trump, who is their partner.”

[Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Sept. 2, 2025]

Rajoub’s hate speech is not isolated. Earlier this year, Palestinian Media Watch reported on how Rajoub accused Trump of joining together with “neo-Nazi choir” Israel to “impose their will on the world.”

Rajoub’s statements are part of the PA’s policy of demonizing the US and its leaders, which has been going on for decades. The PA’s disdain for the US has been expressed during both Democratic and Republican administrations. This is in spite of the US being the country giving the greatest amount of funding to the PA since its establishment.

Itamar Marcus is Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)’s Founder and Director. Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.

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Will the Release of the Hostages Be the Next Phase of Our Renewal?

Israeli protestors take part in a rally demanding the immediate release of the hostages kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, and the end of war in Gaza, in Jerusalem September 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

With all the talk of “deals” and “final phases,” it feels a world away from those days — only recently — when Israel felt more vulnerable than at any moment since 1948.

On the morning of October 7, 2023, as the full horror of the Hamas pogrom unfolded, Israel’s invincibility — that almost mythic confidence built over decades of survival against the odds — shattered in a matter of hours. Images of slaughtered families, homes in flames, the kidnapped and the violated, flooded our screens — not scenes from history books, but unfolding in real time, and on Israeli soil. 

The world’s only Jewish state — the nation that had vowed “Never Again” — suddenly felt helpless. Battle-hardened soldiers wept as frightened parents clutched their children in bomb shelters. The idea of safety and deterrence — the IDF and Iron Dome as an impenetrable shield — was shaken to its core.

And even as the shock turned into rage, another kind of pain began to set in — the pain of inexplicable isolation. The world, which very briefly stood with Israel in the days immediately after the massacre, quickly turned. 

Within weeks, university quads and city squares were filled with angry crowds chanting slogans that blurred the line between anti-Zionism and old-fashioned antisemitism. Hostage posters were torn down by ordinary passersby who denied the reality of Jewish suffering and Hamas terror. 

Western governments — even close allies — urged “restraint,” as if Israel’s response to the atrocities required an apology. And the headlines found their favorite refrain: “disproportionate response.”

For Israel and Jews around the world, the vulnerability deepened — not only military but moral. For in the wake of October 7th a jarring truth emerged: the world’s sympathy is as fleeting as a news cycle, and Jewish blood is still cheap in the court of global opinion. 

Then came the grinding months of war — tunnels and booby traps, rockets raining down from near and far, hostage vigils, funerals of young soldiers, sleepless nights without end. Israel’s mission to destroy Hamas — so just and so necessary — was widely portrayed as cruelty and overreach. 

And although the country carried on, bruised and defiant, every Israeli, and every friend of Israel, knew their world would never be the same again.

But out of that national trauma, something remarkable emerged. Instead of despair, there was determination. Israel didn’t collapse; it recalibrated. The chaos of October 7th and its aftermath hardened into resolve — arguments and missteps notwithstanding. The IDF went into Gaza and, slowly and methodically, dismantled an infrastructure of terror once thought untouchable. 

And now — two years since that black day — Israel stands at the brink of what few dared to imagine then: a deal poised to bring home the remaining hostages and which signals the absolute capitulation of Hamas. If only this moment had come sooner.

The dark night that began on Simchat Torah two years ago is, at last, giving way to dawn. And it’s here — at this exact point of transition — that we arrive at Parshat Vezot Habracha, the Torah’s final portion. 

Moshe stands within sight of the Promised Land. He knows he won’t cross the Jordan, and he knows the nation will. His mission — with all its triumphs and heartbreaks — is complete. And before he departs, Moshe does something extraordinary: he blesses the people.

He doesn’t bless them because everything and everyone was perfect. Far from it. The wilderness years were marked by rebellion, doubt, and tragedy — this was a nation that often fell short of God’s lofty expectations. And a journey that should have taken months took forty years. 

But Moshe looks at the broken and scarred nation before him and sees beyond the pain. He sees the promise. He understands that blessings don’t land when life is smooth – they come into focus when we can see the rough edges of our journey and still believe in our purpose. That’s why he blesses them: to mark the passage from survival to meaning, and from suffering to renewal.

Vezot Habracha — together with Simchat Torah, the festival on which it is always read — has never felt more resonant. For two years, Israel wandered a wilderness of fear and grief. Every headline, every hostage — living or lost — and every fallen soldier, reminded us that the price of Jewish existence is still unbearably high. 

And yet, perhaps this moment — this stunning deal put together by President Trump and his determined team — is our Vezot Habracha. Like Moshe’s farewell, it arrives at the close of trials and tribulations. The enemies have been fought, the losses mourned, and the next chapter — rebuilding, redefining, renewing — stands ready to begin.

Moshe’s blessing ends with a vision for Israel’s future in its land (Deut. 33:28): “Israel shall dwell in safety, alone.” Those words have always felt poetic but unrealistic — aspirational dreaming rather than a reality we can experience.  Today they sound prophetic, as intended. 

For the first time in years — perhaps since its inception — Israel stands secure, unthreatened by the terror that has shadowed it from the start. The very movement that sought its destruction and the killing of all Jews wherever they are — Hamas — has been broken, and its former patrons have been knocked out or forced to abandon it. 

There’s a divine symmetry here: what began when we read Vezot Habracha now finds its conclusion as we read Vezot Habracha again.

It’s truly fitting that Vezot Habracha is always read on Simchat Torah — the day we dance, sing, and celebrate the Torah’s completion. You’d think we’d pause to reflect, maybe catch our breath after the long journey from Bereishit to Devarim. 

But no — the moment we finish the final words, we roll the scroll right back to the beginning and start again. That’s the Jewish way. There’s no such thing as “The End,” because every ending is the start of something new.

After all, Moshe’s death isn’t an ending — it’s the prelude to Yehoshua’s story and the Jewish nation’s metamorphosis into one of history’s most influential forces. The Jewish people don’t stop, nor are they paralyzed by the past. They move forward. 

And in our own time, as Israel stands at the end of one of the darkest chapters in its history, the same truth applies. As we close the chapter of pain that has been the past two years, we immediately stand on the threshold of renewal, raring to go.

On Simchat Torah, as the scroll rolls from the end back to the beginning, we will all remember the horrors of October 7th. Even so — through our tears — as we lift the Torah and dance with it again, we’ll be declaring something profoundly Jewish: that light follows darkness, that faith outlasts fear, and that life never stops. 

So when the hostages come home, when the guns fall silent, and when Israel can finally breathe again, let’s not linger in the horrors of the past. Let’s celebrate. We are turning the scroll from tragedy to triumph, from mourning to blessing — from October 7th to Vezot Habracha — and beginning anew. 

Like our ancestors before us, we will start again — stronger, wiser, and with our faith renewed — ready to write the next chapter of the Jewish story.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California. 

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