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Burt Bacharach, sophisticated Jewish hitmaker of the ‘60s and ‘70s, dies at 94
(JTA) — Songwriter Burt Bacharach, who with his longtime lyricist Hal David turned out a string of hits in the 1960s and ’70s — including “Alfie” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” — died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94.
Bacharach and David, both Jewish New Yorkers, also wrote a host of songs that made Dionne Warwick a megastar, such as “Walk on By,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and “I Say a Little Prayer.”
The duo came to fame while working in the Brill Building — a Midtown Manhattan mecca for music publishing that housed a slew of Jewish songwriters, including the teams of Carole King and Gerry Goffin and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. But unlike their peers, who wrote for the burgeoning teen market, their songs were marked by a certain elegance and romance that drew more on the Great American Songbook and Broadway than rock ‘n’ roll.
Fittingly, the pair collaborated with Broadway producer David Merrick on the 1968 musical “Promises, Promises,” which yielded two hits, including the title tune and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.” That show too had a strong Jewish pedigree: The book by the legendary playwright Neil Simon was based on the 1960 film “The Apartment,” written by Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond.
Bacharach grew up in Forest Hills, Queens; his father was a journalist and his mother an amateur musician. He recalled in his 2013 autobiography, “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” written with Robert Greenfield, that “no one in my family ever went to synagogue or paid much attention to being Jewish.”
And yet Jonathan Freedman, author of “Klezmer America: Jewishness, Ethnicity, Modernity,” told the New York Jewish Week in 2013 that what made Bacharach’s music Jewish was his “wild play with time signatures; he is to time signatures what [George] Gershwin is to chord changes.” He called Bacharach “really audacious and experimental,” an example of what he sees Jewish artists doing as they “enter popular forms and make them their own.”
Bacharach was also the first composer to be featured in the experimental jazz musician John Zorn’s late-1990s “Great Jewish Music” series; in the CD’s jacket notes, Zorn thanks him for not changing his name and points out that Bacharach is “one of the great geniuses of American popular music — and he’s a Jew.”
In the 1970s Bacharach split with David and Warwick and entered into a new collaboration – and third of four marriages – with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, another Jewish New Yorker. Their best-known song was the AIDS fund-raising anthem “That’s What Friends Are For.”
Bacharach remained busy nearly to the end of his life, with his later activity including collaborations with the rock star Elvis Costello. He won seven Grammy awards in all, the latest in 2006 for his pop instrumental album “At This Time.” In 1983, at the height of the British “New Wave” in rock, a synth-pop version of the then 20-year-old Bacharach-David song “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me” by Naked Eyes climbed into the Billboard Top Ten.
Bacharach would eventually reunite with Warwick and with David. In 2012, 40 years after they were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and shortly before David died at age 91, Bacharach and David received the Library of Congress’ Gershwin Prize for Popular Song — named for the Jewish composer to whom Bacharach had long been compared.
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Exclusive: Israeli Officials Harshly Critical of Steve Witkoff’s Influence on US Policy on Gaza, Iran, i24NEWS Told
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – Amid growing disagreements with the Trump administration over the composition of the Board of Peace for Gaza and the question of a strike on Iran, officials in Israel point to a key figure behind decisions seen as running counter to Israeli interests: Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
The officials mention sustained dissatisfaction with Witkoff. Sources close to the PM Netanyahu told i24NEWS on Saturday evening: “For several months now, the feeling has been that envoy Steve Witkoff has strong ties, for his own reasons, across the Middle East, and that at times the Israeli interest does not truly prevail in his decision-making.”
This criticism relates both to the proposed inclusion of Turkey and Qatar in Gaza’s governing bodies and to the Iranian threat. A senior Israeli official put it bluntly: “If it turns out that he is among those blocking a strike on Iran, that is far more than a coincidence.”
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EU Warns of Downward Spiral After Trump Threatens Tariffs Over Greenland
European Union flags flutter outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on June 17, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Yves Herman
European Union leaders on Saturday warned of a “dangerous downward spiral” over US President Donald Trump‘s vow to implement increasing tariffs on European allies until the US is allowed to buy Greenland.
“Tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral. Europe will remain united, coordinated, and committed to upholding its sovereignty,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President Antonio Costa said in posts on X.
The bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said tariffs would hurt prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic, while distracting the EU from its “core task” of ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“China and Russia must be having a field day. They are the ones who benefit from divisions among allies,” Kallas said on X.
“Tariffs risk making Europe and the United States poorer and undermine our shared prosperity. If Greenland’s security is at risk, we can address this inside NATO.”
Ambassadors from the European Union’s 27 countries will convene on Sunday for an emergency meeting to discuss their response to the tariff threat.
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Israel Says US Gaza Executive Board Composition Against Its Policy
FILE PHOTO: Displaced Palestinians shelter at a tent camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Haseeb Alwazeer/File Photo
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday that this week’s Trump administration announcement on the composition of a Gaza executive board was not coordinated with Israel and ran counter to government policy.
It said Foreign Minister Gideon Saar would raise the issue with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The statement did not specify what part of the board’s composition contradicted Israeli policy. An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
The board, unveiled by the White House on Friday, includes Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Israel has repeatedly opposed any Turkish role in Gaza.
Other members of the executive board include Sigrid Kaag, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process; an Israeli‑Cypriot billionaire; and a minister from the United Arab Emirates, which established relations with Israel in 2020.
Washington this week also announced the start of the second phase of President Donald Trump’s plan, announced in September, to end the war in Gaza. This includes creating a transitional technocratic Palestinian administration in the enclave.
The first members of the so-called Board of Peace – to be chaired by Trump and tasked with supervising Gaza’s temporary governance – were also named. Members include Rubio, billionaire developer Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.