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Matisyahu NYC Friday Night Conversation And Jam

Friday Night Jam with Rabbi Dan Ain, Relix's Mike Greenhaus, and special guest Matisyahu. Evening includes: * Conversation between Matisyahu, Rabbi Dan and Mike Greenhaus * Audience Q & A * Friday Night blessings (A drink and a snack are included in price of ticket, as well.)

Matisyahu Slated To Perform On Shabbat

Ex-hasid Matisyahu is slated to perform Friday December 25 at 8:00 pm – on Shabbat. This may be the first time Matisyahu has publicly broken Shabbat in his professional role in NYC since he left Orthodoxy.

Video: Matisyahu Talks About Leaving Haredi Judaism

He left Chabad in 2007 and the haredi and Orthodox world several years later. Now Matisyahu calls the decision to leave “one of the hardest things I had to go through.”

Video: Ladies, Don't Shave Your Heads

Jewish music superstar Lipa Schmeltzer has a word for women who shave their heads and for the men who rule they must do so.

Matisyahu Will Perform At Festival That Banned Him

Matisyahu's appearance at the Rototom SunSplash festival was cancelled early this week after the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) threatened to disrupt the festival if Matisyahu – who is not Israeli – was allowed to perform without first issuing a declaration in support of a Palestinian state.

Music Festival Removes Apparently Anti-Semitic Matisyahu Ban, Re-Invites Jewish Reggae Singer

A publicly funded Spanish music festival that banned Matisyahu after he refused to comply with a demand from the festival to issue a public statement in support of a Palestinian state has recanted and re-invited the Jewish reggae singer to perform.

Matisyahu Makes Public Statement On Music Festival BDS-Forced Ban

"The festival organizers contacted me because they were getting pressure from the BDS movement. They wanted me to write a letter, or make a video, stating my positions on Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to pacify the BDS people..…it was appalling and offensive, that as the one publicly Jewish-American artist scheduled for the festival they were trying to coerce me into political statements. Were any of the other artists scheduled to perform asked to make political statements in order to perform?…"

Matisyahu Appearance Cancelled After Jewish Singer Refuses To Endorse Palestinian State

The ex-hasidic reggae singer was supposed to perform at the Rototom Sunsplash Reggae Festival on August 22. But his show was cancelled after he refused to release a public statement backing a Palestinian state. Under extreme pressure from the BDS movement, artists scheduled to perform at the event threatened to cancel if Matisyahu did not issue the statement and was still allowed to perform because he is “seen to represent Israel.”

Video: 16-Year-Old Killed By Haredi Terrorist At Gay Pride Parade Was Talented Classical Pianist

Shira Banki was a student at a prestigious music school in Jerusalem. Here's a video of her performing at a recital in 2009 when she was only 10-years-old.

Lipa Schmeltzer Finds Reason In Brain Science For Rabbis' Ban On His Music

"[Brain science has] helped me understand that opposition to my music is not necessarily a religious opinion but a brain condition."

Matisyahu Talks About His Religious Practice – And Lack Thereof

Matisyahu was once a Chabad-Lubavitch ba'al teshuva known worldwide as a hasidic reggae singer. Today, Matisyahu is no longer completely frum, as he explains in this new interview.

Lipa Schmeltzer Explains Why He Decided To Get Married – And Why He Later Decided To Go To College Without Permission From His Rabbis

“When it was time to get married, it was an arranged marriage, took twenty minutes to meet my wife,” he explained. “I had no idea what marriage was all about. All I wanted was a car, and you couldn’t drive if you weren’t married. And I wanted to have a shtreimel,” the round fur hat Hasidic men wear on Sabbath and holidays, also the purview of married men.

A Musical Interlude

Today is Mardis Gras and it's also Black History Month. Jews played a large role in Jazz – the quintessential Black American music form invented in New Orleans just before 1900, from the Jewish family who gave the young teenaged Louis Armstrong a job and looked after him, to some very well-known Jazz musicians like Benny Goodman. And if you listen carefully, you can hear Klezmer licks in some second generation Jazz hits. But many Americans are no longer familiar with the music that swept the world and morphed into Blues and Rock and Roll. So here a few Jazz and New Orleans Funk hits – including Cab Calloway's "Where's Yehoodi?" – Klezmer fans, Jazz fans and Blues fans – even fans of cantorial music – will like.

Joe Cocker Dead At 70

Joe Cocker, the blackest white British soul and rock singer in history, has died of cancer at age 70. Here are videos of some of his most iconic songs, including some from the early years with Leon Russell from the iconic Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour.

Flash!!! Free Matisyahu Tickets

Flash! 've got a pair of Matisyahu – Festival of Lights concert tickets to give away for Sunday's show! But you have to respond by 3:30 Eastern Time today for a chance to win. Here's how:

City Of Jerusalem Blots Out Lady Gaga Concert Posters

Billboards promoting tonight’s Lady Gaga concert in Tel Aviv were plastered over last week with large white stickers in Jerusalem after a city councilman from the Sefardi haredi Shas Party, Nati Lasri, complained the billboards were " abominations" and “immodest.”

Ancient Egyptian Swamp Creature Had Lips Like Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger has a new animal named after him. Scientists have named an extinct swamp-dwelling creature that lived 19 million years ago in Africa after the Rolling Stones frontman, in honor of a trait they both share -- their supersized lips.

Husband Of Member Of All-Girl Hasidic Rock Band Longs To See Wife Perform, But Can't

Chanan Maister has gone two years without ever seeing his wife Elisheva, the cellist for the band Bulletproof Stockings, perform live. "It would be really cool to see her perform in front of packed crowds and whatnot…[but] I guess it was never really an option. I was raised not to listen to women singing, and that's just the way it is…”

Video: Guns N' Roses Lead Guitarist Plays HaTikva

Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, the lead guitarist for Guns N' Roses, plays HaTikva, the song that became Israel's national anthem, backstage in Las Vegas earlier this month.

Free Matisyahu Tickets – Flash Ticket Giveaway!

I have a pair of Matisyahu tickets to give away. Here's how you can win:

2 Israeli Singers Investigated For Allegedly Having Sex With Minors

Police in Tel Aviv are reportedly investigating an unnamed well-known Israeli singer who has allegedly had sexual relations with a 15-year-old girl several times recently at parties organized by a PR representative. Another singer also allegedly had sex with the girl, as well, and several other children may also be victims.

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach Musical Closes On Broadway After Brief Run

Soul Doctor came to Broadway following engagements in New Orleans and Florida. It began Broadway previews July 17 and officially opened Aug. 15. On closing, Soul Doctor will have played 32 previews and 66 regular performances.

Rare Video: Seminal Jazz Singer Nina Simone Sings “Eretz Zavat Halav”

Kol Isha alert. The seminal non-Jewish Jazz singer Nina Simone (1933-2003) sings the seminal Israeli folk song Eretz Zavat Halav in the early 1960s – a song she probably learned from Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who had performed on the same bill with her in the late 1950s.

Shlomo Carlebach Musical To Open On Broadway

Soul Doctor, the musical about the real-life unconventional Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, will arrive on Broadway July 17 at Circle in the Square, producers announced today.

Video: Hasidic All-Woman Rock Band Bulletproof Stockings Gets National Exposure

The Chabad hasidic all-woman rock band bulletproof stockings was featured on AOL earlier this week. Unfortunately, to meet the modesty requirements they follow, you don't really get to hear any music.

Free Tickets To Matisyahu Concert

I've got a pair of tickets to give away for the Huntington, NY show that is part of Matisyahu's Spark Seeker Acoustic Tour. Here's how you can win.

Lipa Schmeltzer Goes To College – And He Wants You To Go, Too

“I never got an education other than biblical stuff,” reported Schmeltzer. “I called up someone in New Square and he got me a paper saying I had graduated high school.” Not surprisingly, the registrar at Rockland Community College, a two-year school which is part of the State University of New York system, informed Schmeltzer that the paper he was holding was of little value. As English is actually Schmeltzer’s second language, he spent eighteen months working towards his high school equivalency diploma, taking classes at the Rockland County Board of Cooperative Educational Services as well as studying with private tutor Chaim Glovinsky in order to pass the series of five tests which would award him a General Equivalency Diploma and allow him to enroll in college.

Matisyahu Talks About Crown Heights, Cutting His Beard, And How Being Hasidic Helped sell His Music

"I had moved out of Crown Heights (neighborhood of Brooklyn). I didn't want to confront the people over there. I think that most Hasidic people that I know, that I am actually friends with or that are acquaintances, all say that they think I seem like a happier person now than I was then, and they respect my decision. There were times, late at night or whatever, where I would go online and I was interested or I would check it out, but it always came back to bite me in the ass because you read those comments that are just mean and it hurts."

Video: Y-Love Releases Pro-LGBT Video – In Yiddish

"Since coming out this May, one of the major things that I have felt is an overwhelming sense of wanting to give back to the LGBT community in general and the Jewish LGBT community in particular. Spending most of my career in the closet, I never used my platform to speak against heterosexism and homophobia — the same homophobia I was suffering from — and never gave my efforts to the struggle for equality. 2012 changes all that, and I’m trying to put as much of my effort and influence into the LGBT struggle for equality as I can."

More Free Matisyahu Tickets

I have two more free tickets to Matisyahu's December 15th New York City show. Here's how you can win…

Free Matisyahu Tickets

I have two free tickets to Matisyahu's Port Chester, NY show to give away. Here's how you can win…

Bulletproof Stockings

Wolfe wears shear stockings and stiletto heels when she performs, and the duo met with opposition after a suggestive photo of the women posing in front of the Lubavitch World Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn was posted to a blog.

Video: Haredi Remedial Music Education

Did you grow up in Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Borough Park or Monsey thinking the music your parents let you buy in Eichler's was the be all and end all of great music? If so, have I got a video for you…

Matisyahu To Perform During Tisha B'Av Fast

Matisyahu has a scheduled performance in New York City Sunday, during the Tisha B'Av fast commemorating the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Jerusalem Temples.

Video: Springsteen And McCartney London Jam Session Abruptly Shut Down By Time Police – A Jerusalem Story Retold

Bruce Springsteen finished his concert in London's Hyde Park Saturday night with a surprise jam session with former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney. But before the jam session could finish, London authorities shut off the sound, allegedly because the concert had run over its allotted time as specified in a city permit. 25 years ago, a similar event took place in a Jerusalem park, and Jerusalem city officials did exactly the same thing to…

Haredi Rabbis Lash Out At Madonna

Madonna’s concerts in Israel are “disgraceful,” and she "desecrates" Israel's holy sites, the Israeli haredi publication HaEdah claimed this week.

Leaving The Rebbe For Music

The music duo Wolf ‏+ Lamb duo talk about leaving Orthodoxy and finding their groove.

Ex-Hasid Death Metal Band Flourishes – In Crown Heights

It was Saturday afternoon, and all through Crown Heights, sleepy heads were nodding. But deep in the basement of a foreclosed row house on Empire Boulevard, a stone’s throw from the seat of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect of Hasidic Judaism from which they hail, a group of unorthodox rockers were giving Black Sabbath a new meaning.…

Matisyahu Goes Blonde

Matisyahu, the hasidic rapper with bushy beard and sidelocks who shocked fans by shaving it all off last year, has surfaced in Jerusalem with a new bottle-blonde hairdo.

Video: Matisyahu Talks About Beard Removal On WNYC

Matisyahu explains why he shvaed his beard, and talks about his current feelings about Judaism and about hasidism.

The John Lennon Murder In The Eyes Of A Haredi Gadol

Today is the 31st yartzeit (anniversary of the murder) of John Lennon, the former Beatle who, with songwriting partner Paul McCartney, changed the face of rock and pop music. Lennon was murdered in NYC 31 years ago today, and a haredi rabbi held up as a gadol had something to say about it…

New Rubashkin Music Video

The music video, Yedid Nefesh, features an original composition by Danny Finkelman performed by Bentzi Marcus of 8th Day and Dovid Dachs and shows exclusive footage from the upcoming documentary/promotional film “Rubashkin’s Game Plan” on the Rubashkin case and the 27 year sentence Ruubashkin received after being convicted on 86 federal fraud counts.

Haredi Hip Hop Group Rocks Tel Aviv

The mostly secular crowd at Mike’s Place in Tel Aviv had a religious experience Wednesday night when the 5 piece Haredi Hip Hop band Shtar took to the stage, traditional wardrobe intact. It wasn’t long before the crowed began to sway to the rhythm of rapper Ori M’Ori’s tassels, as he hammered out lyrics even Jay-Z could appreciate.

Amy Winehouse Did Not O.D.

The Winehouse family says toxicology tests given to them by authorities show no illegal drugs in Winehouse's system. Her cause of death is still a mystery.

Song Helps Me Cope With Leiby's Death, Nachman Kletzky Says

Leiby Kletzky's dad says that a new memorial song about his slain son is helping him cope with the boy's horrifying death. "Every time I hear this song, every time I see this, it brings me back memories," Nachman Kletzky said.

Audio: Leiby Kletzky's Father And Lipa Schmeltzer

The father of the murdered and dismembered 8-year-old hasidic boy, Leiby Kletzky, and Lipa Schmeltzer, the opportunist Jewish music superstar, make a joint radio appearance.

Chabad Rabbis Ban Avraham Fried Concert

Slamming Avraham Fried's concerts which lack gender segregated seating, Chabad rabbis from northern Israel ban an upcoming Fried concert as immodest. Fried is himself a Chabad hasid, and is the brother of Chabad's English language modesty expert, Rabbi Manis Friedman.

Baba Elazar Murdered Because Of "Improper" Singers, Songs, Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak Says

The Yemenite kiruv rabbi behind attempts to ban popular haredi music and haredi singers, blames the murder of Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira on "improper" haredi singers and songs.

Amy Winehouse Dead

Troubled singer Amy Winehouse, who was struggling with her drug addiction, was Saturday found dead in her North London home.

Child Killer Levi Aron Sings

Levi Aron perfoming "No Air" with Hinarae Matsuyoshi, known as isledancer on singsnap.com, a karaoke website. She lives in Hawaii.