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‘Mercenaries for Jesus’: Christmas is a busy time for Jews who sing in churches
(New York Jewish Week) — “Jesus is a paycheck,” said Rob Orbach, one of the many classically trained Jewish vocalists who perform Christian sacred songs in churches across New York City.
“There’s a lot of money to be made in churches, especially in New York,” Orbach, 30, who lives in West Harlem, told the New York Jewish Week. “It’s a competitive gig. It’s challenging. We have to be perfect.”
It’s the Christmas season, which means churches throughout the city will be presenting holiday music during worship services and in concerts. And because churches don’t discriminate when hiring professionals for their choirs — and New York City has a surplus of Jewish musicians — many of the singers and instrumentalists bringing comfort and joy, comfort and joy, will be Jewish.
“There are lots of Jews all over the church scene,” Maya Ben-Meir, an Israeli singer who has nine years of experience singing in churches, told the New York Jewish Week. “These churches have stellar ensembles. They hire only professionals and perform magnificently beautiful music. Why wouldn’t I go for this type of job?”
While Christmas may be the busy season, singing in a church is one of the rare jobs for professional singers that is “a steady source of income for most of the year,” she added.
Jewish singer Rob Orbach, 30, performs as part of a church choir in 2021. (Courtesy)
David Gordon, 49, a singer who lives in Manhattan and has more than 20 years of experience singing professionally in churches, estimates that there are hundreds of Jewish singers in church choirs all across New York during this holiday season.
“My choir right now, there are a dozen paid members, and nearly half of them are Jewish, and so is the woman who plays the piano,” said Gordon, who, like other singers interviewed for this article, was hesitant to name the churches where he works.
Gordon, who said that “he’s not very religious” but celebrates the Jewish holidays with his family, told the New York Jewish Week that just this week, he sang a jazz nativity scene and received a call “to ring for the ‘Messiah’” — that is, Handel’s “Messiah” oratorio, a staple of the Christmas season.
“Everybody I know talks about how many ‘Messiahs’ they’re going to have to pay their bills in December,” Gordon said. “It’s a huge part of the career at a certain level.”
He added that he sees himself as “a mercenary for Jesus” — and the outsider angle of a Jew coming into a church to sing Christian worship music is not lost on him.
“There were times where I did not feel welcomed,” Gordon said. “There’s this overlap of ‘We don’t really want you here because you’re a mercenary, you’re getting paid to be here.’”
He said he once heard a pastor say during a sermon that “it’s the fault of the Jews that Jesus was killed the way that he was killed,” Gordon said — a historic charge that the Catholic Church and other denominations have tried to quash.
“It’s something that occasionally comes up,” Gordon said. “Just the sort of standard institutional and relatively harmless antisemitism that’s just part of the Christian tradition.”
Stephanie Horowitz, 41, a Reform Jew who has sung in churches for years on Long Island, told the New York Jewish Week about how she has heard “upsetting things” while working in church choirs.
She described an experience of when the story of Jesus’ crucifixion was told during a service. “This particular church used a translation that was very incendiary towards the Jewish people,” Horowitz said. “It was very clear that they’re trying to send the message that the Jews of the time were responsible for his death, without clarifying that this doesn’t mean we need to hold Jewish people today responsible.”
She added that in another experience, a pastor was giving a sermon about how “the Messiah will be a successful man.”
The pastor “said that, to a Jewish person, a successful man means a rich man,” Horowitz said. “I literally almost stood up and left. The musical director, afterwards, asked if I was OK.”
Meanwhile, Ben-Meir, who grew up secular, said that she was “fortunate enough to work in churches where I didn’t feel antisemitism directed toward me.”
“Everyone knew that I was Jewish,” Ben-Meir said, who is taking a break from singing in churches this season to travel with her partner. “It was never a secret.”
Horowitz explained that when one studies classical music, all roads lead to the church, as Western composers such as Bach, Haydn and Handel led church ensembles and wrote through a Christian lens.
“One of the few places that value musical tonality is the church,” Horowitz said. “I’m obviously not busy on Christmas anyway, so it works out.”
(The custom, it should be noted, goes the other way as well: Some synagogues hire non-Jewish singers and instrumentalists for their choirs. One rabbi even weighed in on whether the practice was permissible.)
And yet, it may seem that for a Jewish person, who is somewhat religious, who celebrates holidays, who grew up around all the Jewish customs, may have trouble singing Christian worship music.
Orbach, who identifies as culturally Jewish, said it is “very easy to separate” his Jewish religion from Christianity when he sings in churches. However, he recalled a time when a church leader asked him to read prayers outside of the rehearsed song.
“As much as I’m not religiously Jewish, that was the line for me,” Orbach said. “I said to them in my interview that I am Jewish.”
Ben-Meir said she never “considered myself to be Christian” while singing in churches.
“It’s a job,” Ben-Meir said. “I always felt that what I was doing when I was singing was bringing joy to the congregants themselves. That, to me, is a form of service, and I don’t necessarily ascribe religiousness to the service.”
Gordon, who is also an actor and teaches acting classes, said that when he performs Christian worship songs as a Jew, it’s similar to when he “checks his ethics at the door when playing a misogynist in an opera.”
“I check my personal feelings aside,” Gordon said. “That’s what I’m paid to do. I just take on the character and the intention of the text, and I’m always glad when an audience is with me, and I’m able to affect them. I don’t really care how.”
He added that there are times when he’d prefer to sing other songs and play other characters that don’t “support the structure of the church.”
“We all have to make compromises as artists,” Gordon said.
Horowitz said that there are plenty of positive experiences involved with singing in the church, and looks forward to taking part in her professional Christmas carol trio, The Jewel Tones, that gets consistent work throughout the holidays.
“Most of the time, it’s really nice,” Horowitz said. “I feel like I’m helping them practice their religion, and there is something beautiful in that. I’m helping them get closer to God.”
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The post ‘Mercenaries for Jesus’: Christmas is a busy time for Jews who sing in churches appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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As Supreme Court dilutes Voting Rights Act, Tennessee’s first Jewish congressman could lose his seat
The first Jew elected to represent Tennessee in Congress could lose his seat to redistricting following a Wednesday Supreme Court decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act by limiting states’ ability to take race into account when drawing voting maps.
Rep. Steve Cohen, a progressive Democrat elected in 2006, represents a majority-Black district that includes parts of Memphis. He is the only Democrat among Tennessee’s nine members of the House.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican running for Tennessee governor, called on the legislature to redistrict “immediately” following the Supreme Court decision, posting to X an all-red map of Tennessee that would split up Cohen’s district, effectively eliminating his seat.
Cohen, 76, had been set to face Justin Pearson, 31 — a challenger positioned to Cohen’s left on Israel — in the August Democratic primary. Cohen has historically been backed by J Street, the left-leaning political advocacy group that supports a two-state solution and describes itself as “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace.”
But if district lines are redrawn before the midterms, as Blackburn has proposed, neither candidate would likely be competitive.
In a statement, Cohen said he had been “expecting this decision” but was “disappointed that the Court has diluted the Voting Rights Act which guaranteed minority voters the right to elect the representative of their choosing.”
Cohen’s Jewish identity
This would not be Cohen’s first brush with redistricting. In 2012, Tennessee’s voting borders were redrawn in such a way that Cohen was cut off from representing many of his Jewish constituents — including the area where his own synagogue is located in Memphis.
“When I get asked how many Jews are in your district, I used to say 10,000,” Cohen told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2018. “Now I say, ‘well, there’s Laurie, Jeff, Malcolm …”
Despite the redrawn lines, Cohen has consistently been re-elected since 2006, even as his campaigns have been marked by attacks on his Jewish identity; a flyer distributed in 2008 read “Cohen and the Jews hate Jesus.”
That same year, an attack ad seemed to insinuate that Cohen was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. “This guy would have never invited me to his Seder,” Cohen told the Forward at the time, responding to what he called the “ludicrous” suggestion that he had an affinity for Klansmen.
In 2016, Cohen took a very-Jewish jab at Donald Trump’s pick to be Israel ambassador, David Friedman, with a Fiddler on the Roof reference: “You’re no Tevye the milkman.” His wry sense of humor was most recently on display during a cameo on the show The Rehearsal, with Jewish comedian Nathan Fielder.
Cohen has worked across partisan divides with Tennessee’s only other Jewish representative, Republican David Kustoff, elected in 2017, a decade after Cohen became Tennessee’s first Jewish representative. The two share a rabbi, Micah Greenstein of the Reform Temple Israel in Memphis.
If Tennessee’s legislature moves forward with a special session to redraw the maps, Cohen has vowed to fight back.
“This ruling effectively undoes the work of Martin Luther King and John Lewis. Changes to the Voting Rights Act should be made by Congress,” Cohen said in a statement. “If the General Assembly is called back into a special session and seeks to do Trump’s bidding, I will exercise every option, legal and political, to prevent the harm this decision today makes possible.”
The post As Supreme Court dilutes Voting Rights Act, Tennessee’s first Jewish congressman could lose his seat appeared first on The Forward.
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This Year in Israel, Yom HaZikaron Was Different
Mourners visit the graves of fallen IDF soldiers at Israel’s Yom HaZikaron ceremony. Photo: Israel Defense Forces
For most of my years, Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) has had special significance. In 1948, my father’s younger brother (one of three survivors of a large Warsaw family) was killed in the Battle of Mishmar Hayarden. From 1950 until my father’s passing in 1990, he visited his brother’s grave, the only grave he was able to visit (his parents, sister, older brother, and baby brother were slaughtered in Auschwitz/Treblinka). I often joined him on this sad, but important, visit.
The atmosphere at the military part of the ancient cemetery in Safed was always mournful but serene and peaceful. Even after wars such as 1967, 1973 or the Lebanon campaign in 1982, it was mostly one or two family members standing by the graves of their family members. They would cry a little, listen to the memorial prayer El Moleh Rachamim, but celebrate the individuals buried in the kvarim and then go home.
This year was different. With tens of thousands of victims of the October 7 war and the wars initiated by Israel’s other enemies, every military cemetery in Israel was packed and turned into family gatherings. Noticeably, there was an upsurge of the number of children crying at graves of their parents or siblings. All I could think of was this is not the way it should be.
This war was a war for Israel’s survival. It involved the entire country from north to south, east to west. Thousands came back home to Israel to fight for the country’s existence. And the losses reflected this massive effort. Looking around the cemetery you saw every breed of Jew — religious, secular, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Russian, Black. But as always, the saddest part was the children.
My friend Jackie Schimmel writes about the thousands of small stickers lining lampposts and bus stops, petrol stations, and kitchen fridges all across the country. Words that soldiers had as their mottos or themes of life:
“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
“He fought out of love of those behind him rather than hatred of those in front of him.”
“It’s very good to live for our country.”
They are fragments of philosophy that stayed behind.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin quoted her son Hersh — who was quoting Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl citing German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche — “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
Schimmel compares these sayings to Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers), our sayings from famous rishonim, each beginning with “Hu haya omer” — “he used to say.”
So, with the large increase of children and teens that now have to visit graves and mourn their losses, perhaps we can look at these stickers and these sayings as a way for the young to mourn. These notes, the fragments of themselves that people have left behind, can be a way to pay tribute to the bravest of the brave — our soldiers and victims of terror. And even more so, a way for adults to reconnect to all of the young fighting or who fought.
“I go in search of my brothers.”
J. Philip Rosen is currently Chairman of the American Section of the World Jewish Congress and Board Member of Yeshiva University, as well as several other Jewish causes. He was Vice-Chair of Birthright Israel for many years.
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UK Raises Threat Level to ‘Severe’ After London Antisemitic Terror Attack
Protesters hold up placards against British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his visit to Golders Green, northwest London, following a terror attack on April 29, 2026, in which two men were stabbed, in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/Pool via REUTERS
Britain on Thursday raised its national terrorism threat level to “severe,” signaling that a terrorist attack was considered “highly likely,” following an antisemitic stabbing in north London.
Interior minister Shabana Mahmood said the level had been increased from “substantial” after the attack in the Golders Green area on Wednesday, adding that the decision reflected a broader and rising threat environment rather than a single event.
“I know this will be a source of concern to many, particularly amongst our Jewish community, who have suffered so much,” the minister said in a statement. “As the threat level rises, I urge everyone to be vigilant as they go about their daily lives and report any concerns they have to the police. And I can assure everyone that our world-class security services and the police are working day and night to keep our country safe.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to take action to protect the Jewish community in Britain, acknowledging that Jews were scared a day after the stabbing left two Jewish men, one in his 70s and one in his 30s, hospitalized in stable condition.
The attacked followed a spate of antisemitic attacks in the British capital.
Starmer, who has faced severe criticism from some in the Jewish community for the government’s response, promised more police in Jewish areas, a crackdown on those spreading antisemitism, and new legislation to deal with state-sponsored threats from the likes of Iran.
He had earlier been jeered and heckled by a small crowd waving banners reading “Keir Starmer Jew Harmer” when he visited Golders Green where the two Jewish men were stabbed on Wednesday.
‘PEOPLE ARE SCARED’
“People are scared, scared to show who they are in their community, scared to go to synagogue and practice their religion, scared to go to university as a Jew, to send their children to school as a Jew, to tell their colleagues that they are Jewish,” Starmer said in a televised statement.
The suspect in the Golders Green attack, a 45-year-old British national who was born in Somalia, had a history of serious violence and mental health issues, police said.
They also confirmed he had previously been referred to the counter radicalization scheme Prevent in 2020, while local media reported he had served time in prison for an incident in 2008 when he stabbed an officer and a police dog.
Amid widespread calls for more to be done to protect the about 290,000 Jews living in Britain, Starmer said the government would do “everything in our power to stamp this hatred out,” with stronger powers to shut down charities promoting extremism and a clampdown on “hate preachers.”
The government has also said it would fast-track legislation allowing the prosecution of people acting as proxies of a state-sponsored group, so they can be dealt with in the same way as spies for foreign intelligence services.
“We need stronger powers to tackle the malign threat posed by states like Iran, because we know for a fact that they want to harm British Jews,” Starmer said.
A pro-Iranian government group has claimed responsibility for several recent attacks while last month, two men were charged under Britain’s existing National Security Act with being tasked by Iran to carry out hostile surveillance.
Tehran has rejected such accusations.
PROTEST PROBLEM
One of the major issues which has caused anger amongst the Jewish community in Britain has been anti-Israel marches, which have become commonplace since the October 2023 Hamas assault on the Jewish state that triggered the war in Gaza. Critics say the protests have generated hostility and become a hotbed of antisemitism.
“If you stand alongside people who say, ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ you are calling for terrorism against Jews, and people who use that phrase should be prosecuted,” Starmer said. “It is racism, extreme racism, and it has left a minority community in this country, scared, intimidated, wondering if they belong.”
The recent incidents in London are part of a rising number of antisemitic attacks.
Last October, two people were killed after an attack at a synagogue in the northern English city of Manchester. A week later, two men went on trial over a plot to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired gun rampage against the Jewish community.
They were found guilty in December, just over a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Australia’s Bondi Beach.
Britain’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall, told the BBC the British attacks had become “the biggest national security emergency” since 2017, when there was a string of high-profile attacks.
Mahmood said additional funding would pay for more protective security for the country’s synagogues, schools, places of worship, and community centers, boosting police numbers in areas with a large Jewish community.
According to the British government, an additional £25 million ($34 million) will be invested to increase security for Jewish communities.
“We are seeing a huge increase in antisemitism, and that’s why the government’s work on education and stamping out antisemitism across other parts of the public sector is also an incredibly important part of this picture,” Mahmood said.
She did not say the legislation would be used against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) but told Sky News: “I expect to be making decisions in the very near future about the groups that we will be designating as state-linked.”
Several countries have designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization.