New Orleans jazz often accompanies life cycle events like weddings and funerals. Folk music is closely associated with social change. Klezmer music does both. Klezmer originated in Eastern Europe by Ashkenazi Jews. It’s a genre that can...

  This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward's free email newsletters delivered to your inbox. Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other — and the World by Jim Windolf Simon...

  David Broza wrote “Yihye Tov” (“Everything Will Be Better”) after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Israel. Broza’s anthem about peace in the Middle East is often heard on Israeli radio stations and during community...

A gathering of more than 200 celebrated Passover in style on Wednesday evening, April 8, at City Winery. “The Passover Project: A Musical Seder” drew a sold-out audience for the third year of the event. Led by the Brothers Lazaroff and an all-star...

There are still a few tickets left for the 2026 installment of “The Passover Project: A Musical Seder,” at the City Winery at the St. Louis Foundryt on Wednesday April 8, at 7 p.m. (doors at 6 p.m.) Rooted in a few examples from other creative...

When “Bat Out of Hell: The Musical” hits the Fabulous Fox Theatre on April 16, St. Louis audiences will see motorcycles, teenage drama and some of the most theatrical rock songs ever written. What they may not see is the story behind the Jewish...

After years of Passover parody videos, you might assume it gets harder for Jewish a cappella group Six13 to top itself. But with Michael Jackson back in the pop culture conversation ahead of a biopic hitting theaters April 24, that’s one way to...

  The idea, by her own admission, didn’t arrive with a lightning bolt. It came more like a phone call out of the blue. Jim Dolan, from the cabaret club Blue Strawberry in midtown, reached out one day with a simple question. He’d heard that...

St. Louis has music in its DNA—the blues, ragtime, early rock and roll—so it’s fitting that we incorporate music into celebrating Jewish holidays. The musical extravaganza Hanukkah Hullabaloo has been a staple here since 2011. A newer annual tradition,...

  On a Friday night, Temple Israel will gather as it always does — for prayer, for song, for Shabbat. But this Shabbat will carry a voice that was nearly erased. Following services on April 17, marking Yom HaShoah, Yom Hazikaron and...

Just as Purim costumes are coming out of storage and someone is arguing about whether it is pronounced Haman or Ha-man, Six13 has released its annual holiday parody. The Jewish a cappella group’s newest video, “Who Is This Haman?,” is a Purim-flavored...

A few years ago, we started keeping an eye on a rabbi in Los Angeles who seemed determined to turn Purim into a pop culture event. Rabbi Jaclyn Cohen of Temple Isaiah first landed on our radar in 2023 when she transformed Lizzo’s “Juice” into...