Music in Moment

Moment covers the vast universe of music influenced by Jewish culture or played by renowned Jewish musicians—from classical to rock to jazz to world to new and evolving sounds. Here is a selection of award-winning articles recently published in our pages. You can read the full stories at momentmag.com.—the Editors

Idan Raichel Project
Borrowing from musical traditions in Israel’s immigrant communities—Ethiopian, Yemenite, even Caribbean—the 70-member Idan Raichel Project is a multi-platinum international success. “We promote integration by bringing all these different cultures together,” says Raichel. “We integrate by doing not talking.”

Joshua Bell
Violin virtuoso Joshua Bell’s enthusiastic performances on his Gibson Strad draw sold-out audiences. The Grammy Award-winner has also dabbled in bluegrass, movie soundtracks and children’s television. “Some artists refuse to sell themselves out,” he says. “I, on the other hand, am happy to do the occasional silly Sesame Street.”

Daniel Barenboim
Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim has made waves by mixing music and politics. Together with the late Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said, he created a youth orchestra comprised of Arab and Israeli musicians. Holocaust survivors were enraged by his performance of a selection by Nazi favorite Richard Wagner at the Israel Festival.

Brian Epstein
Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, pushed the fledgling band to the top of the UK charts, then paved their way for success in the United States. Raised in an Orthodox family in Liverpool, England, the gay Epstein was the glue that held the group together. The Beatles broke apart not long after his untimely death in 1967.

Theodore Bikel
Academy Award and Tony Award nominee, singer and multi-lingual peace activist Theo Bikel feels grateful to have escaped the Holocaust and wants to pay it forward. “When I see victims of acts of savagery, barbarism and discrimination—no matter who they are,” he says, “there’s a little switch that gets thrown in my head and they become Jews.”

Bob Dylan
Jews were shocked when Bob Dylan AKA Robert Allan Zimmerman converted to Christianity in the ’70s, claiming “Jesus put his hands on me.” Eventually, the man who wrote Blowing in the Wind and Forever Young returned to Judaism. “I’m a Jew,” Dylan has said. “It touches my poetry, my life in ways I can’t describe.”

Robyn and Charles Krauthammer
In 1908, the Jewish students of the St. Petersburg Conservatory composed an outpouring of music influenced by the melodies of East European Judaism that was suppressed by the Soviet Union and never performed. The Krauthammers founded Pro Musica Hebraica to help bring this recently rediscovered music back to life.