In Jerusalem, it’s not unusual to wake up in the morning and find that all the outdoor ads near your house that depict women have been defaced. Some ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that any depiction of the female form is immodest and some will even go out at night and deface such depictions. This animated short […]
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From Hasidic punk rockers, Yiddish street performers, African-American Jewish activists, this film, released in 2012, covers politics, art, fashion, and religion like you have never seen before. Punk Jews explores a rising trend among committed Jews who are sincerely asking and expressing what it really means to be Jewish in the 21st century while smashing […]
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In this episode of MTV’s Rebel Music, musicians from both sides of the Israeli and Palestinian border discuss political and cultural possibilities. Palestinian rockers Khalas and Israeli metal icon Orphaned Land organize a joint concert, while folk legend David Broza collaborates with musicians young and old to call for peace, love and understanding. Is this […]
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“The tongue is more deadly than the pen and the sword” So far in the series we’ve heard from a Palestinian activist and an orthodox Jew, but there’s more to this thin strip of land than Jews and Arabs. In episode 3 of Hip Hop in the Holy Land, Mike travels to the desert town […]
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Some people hate the shit out of white Jew rapper Lil Dicky. Heems, aka Himanshu Suri, a member of now-defunct hip hop trio Das Racist, called Lil Dicky “white trash” in a heated twitter exchange. Drew Millard, a writer for Vice Magazine’s Noisey, called him an “asshole” declaring that his interview with Lil Dicky was […]
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The latest video to drop from Israeli / Canadian rapper Shi 360 features Oakland MC Zion I and begins with a clip from a speech by Robert F. Kennedy where he asks, in reference to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. “What kind of nation are we? Where do we want to be?” Given […]
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…and one date in Budapest. You can get the tour details here. Now, think about how weird that is. Avidan is hard core Israeli but his music is quintessentially American heartland indie. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, keep in mind that at Avidan’s 7th live show in 2011, he opened for Bob […]
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The growing number of young Israeli creatives moving to Berlin is a trend that’s been discussed ad nauseum. In Israel, we are always saddened when someone leaves us, and it’s especially biting when their destination was once the epicenter of the final solution. Where once you would be sent to a concentration camp to be […]
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Riff Cohen is an Israeli singer from Jerusalem. Her family is North African and Riff often takes her Mother’s poetry and sets it to music. What emerges is a synergistic mix of all these disparate elements – contemporary musical sensibilities, French crooners and Middle Eastern influences all combine into a very compelling finished product. This […]
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Public Enemy’s 13th Bar Mitzvah album gets its name from a well known, albeit very cynical Yiddish proverb – דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט – however, there do not seem to be any expressly Jewish themes in the title track or the rest of the album. But whatever, […]
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