Contemporary Jewish religious music
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  Jewish and Israeli Music (main article) |
| Religious Jewish music (main article) |
|---|
| Sacred • Synagogal • Contemporary Piyyut • Nigun • Pizmonim Zemirot • Baqashot |
| Secular Jewish Music and Dance (main article) |
| Jewish or Israeli in Form: Israeli • Israeli folk Klezmer • Sephardic • Mizrahi |
| Not Jewish in Form: Classical • Mainstream and Jazz |
| Dance: Main article • Ballet • Israeli folk dancing Horah • Hava Nagila • Yemenite dance |
| Music for Holidays |
| Chanukah • Passover • Shabbat |
| Israel |
| Hatikvah • Yerushalayim Shel Zahav |
| Piyyutim |
| Adon Olam • Geshem • Lekhah Dodi Ma'oz Tzur • Yedid Nefesh • Yigdal |
| Music of the Haggadah |
| Ma Nishtanah • Dayenu Adir Hu • Chad Gadya |
- This article is about contemporary Jewish religious music. For the main article on religious Jewish music, see Religious Jewish music.
Religious Jewish Music in the 20th century has spanned the gamut from Shlomo Carlebach's nigunim to Debbie Friedman's Jewish feminist folk. Velvel Pasternak has spent much of the late twentieth century acting as a preservationist and committing what had been a strongly oral tradition to paper. John Zorn's record label, Tzadik, features a "Radical Jewish Culture" series that focuses on exploring what contemporary Jewish music is and what it offers to contemporary Jewish culture.
Periodically Jewish music jumps into mainstream consciousness, with the reggae artist Matisyahu being the most recent example.
The 2007 Grammy awards were a landmark in Jewish Music, as the Klezmatics (a klezmer/folk group]] became the first Jewish band to win a Grammy. Their music combines lyrics by the late Woody Guthrie, the famous American lyricist, with klezmer tunes that serenade the soul.
[edit] Example
One type of music, based on Shlomo Carlebach's, is very popular among Orthodox artists and their listeners. This type of music usually consists of the same formulaic mix. This mix is usually brass, horns and strings. These songs are composed from within one pool of composers and one pool of arrangers. Many of the entertainers are former yeshiva students, and perform dressed in a dress suit. Many have day jobs and sideline singing at Jewish weddings. Others moonlight in kollel study or at Jewish organizations. Some have no formal musical education, and sing mainly pre-arranged songs.
Lyrics are most commonly short passages in Hebrew from the Torah or the siddur, with the occasional obscure passage from the Talmud. Sometimes there are songs with lyrics compiled in English in more standard form, with central themes such as Jerusalem, the Holocaust, Jewish identity, and the Jewish diaspora.
Some well-known composers include Yossi Green and Abie Rotenberg; a big-name arranger of this type of music is Yisroel Lamm. Popular artists include Avraham Fried, Dedi, Shlomo Simcha, Lipa Schmeltzer, Mordechai Ben David, Dedi, Shloime Dachs, and Yaakov Shwekey.
Jewish boys choirs became popular in 1970s. Among the most notable of these groups are Pirchei London, the Toronto Boys Choir and the Yeshiva Boys Choir. Currently the Miami Boys Choir led by Yerachmiel Begun is perhaps the most popular, with a number of albums and amongst the top record sales in the Jewish Music world.
[edit] Contemporary Music for Children
Many Orthodox Jews believe that "secular music" contains messages that are incompatible with Judaism. Parents often limit their children's exposure to music produced by those other than Orthodox Jews, so that they will not be influenced by many of the, in the parents' eyes, harmful outside ideas and fashions.
A large body of music produced by Orthodox Jews for children is geared toward teaching religious and ethical traditions and laws. The lyrics of these songs are generally written in English with some Hebrew or Yiddish phrases. Country Yossi, Abie Rotenberg, Uncle Moishy, and the producers of the 613 Torah Avenue series are examples of Orthodox Jewish musicians/entertainers whose music teach children Jewish traditions.
