David Lehman, the author of seven volumes of poetry, examines what is Jewish about American popular song, and how Jewish songwriters “were reinventing themselves as American and changing America itself at the same time,” in A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs (Nextbook/Schocken).
Inspired by both African-American blues and jazz and Jewish liturgical music, Irving Berlin, [...]

Rabbi Mordechai Yitzchok Friedman vents in Brooklyn
Although this “Jewish Tea Party” meeting took place on Purim, apparently it’s not a joke. In a report for the Forward, Gal Beckerman finds a small group, no more than 15 people, gathered in a Brooklyn synagogue basement for an interactive session with Rabbi Mordechai Yitzchok Friedman.
The rabbi sticks [...]