9A+Jewish+Music+Remixed

Find additional examples of Jewish music and remixed music on YouTube. Post your favorites on this page and explain why you like them and how you use them in Jewish Education.
Students please embed your choices using the Youtube Widget.

Amy

One of my favorites is Matisyahu, who most of my students have a least heard of, although he is not nearly as popular as he was a few years ago. Although it is not usually the kid’s favorite song of his, one of mine is //Miracle//, a Hanukkah song he did a few years back. Best use of a Zamboni in a Hannukah video ever! [] media type="youtube" key="Gv-7WdpB72o" width="560" height="315" align="right"

I also like to introduce them to some of the artists that were in the JDub piece, especially Socalled who did an awesome Pesach album – //The Socalled Seder//, like 15 years ago. But I also like to play //Rtzeh// by Wally Brill. In many of his pieces he samples classical cantors and combines them with some great kind of trip-hop sounding stuff. And older kids like it because he often has some crushing guitar parts. This is not a music video. []

Here’s Socalled’s //Who Knows One// featuring the Kelzmer and jazz clarinetist David Krakauer and Peter Sokolow, a mid-century Klezmer artist. Personally, I feel like this goes on too long and has too many insider jokes about the music industry, but a bit of it is enough to introduce them to him and make my point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aho2v_aEI3A&list=PLJ919JM7gVXtzdX6lyZ5aooHlXtFvdEQq&index=10

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BTW: Socalled and Krakauer joined up together and formed a sort of funk group called Abraham, Inc. Most of it not suitable for children and I don’t think I would play any of it for teens in school. This is something you need to be very careful of when exploring the sort of radical Jewish culture music, some of it is **very** edgy. Unfortunately JDub folded in 2012, and I don’t think new Jewish music has been the same since.

For older students I will also play some Israeli rap, with Subliminal and The Shadow probably being the most popular. I would never play any of the videos, though. They’re incredibly stupid. Here is a live video that show’s how popular they are in Israel. And I like it: []

Finally, I also use the Klezmatics/Chava Alberstein’s //The Well// when I am lucky enough to teach Yiddishkeit. This album is all Yiddish poetry that has been set to music.

I like these examples for different reasons. Some of it is music I like and want to share because I think it’s good. But all of them are examples of ways that Jewish music has evolved, and continues to evolve, and to challenge their ideas of what constitutes Jewish culture. I use it as a way to help them access Jewish culture through something they actually like or at least can relate to and is outside of what they may be familiar with from their family or synagogue milieu. Kids that go to camp are often familiar with some of these artists, even if we aren’t, so that can give them something to share peer-to-peer as well.

Aura 1. Maccabeats Holiday songs - I love to share the talent of acapella as an art form, in addition to the basic story line of each holiday performed in an entertaining manner. Students enjoy because they use contemporary pop music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wi1H3UnKhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgJInVvJSZg 2. Holocaust video set to music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy0_nYxZQ_4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKGyI88ZkS8 (how Jewish children were rescued from convents post-Holocaust)

Babette

I have done/developed a couple of lessons using music videos as a jumping off point.

1. The Maccabeats-Book of Good Life []

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This lesson was written for 6th graders for the topic of T'shuvah; after watching the video (having already learned the definition of T'shuvah) the students are asked how the men in the video demonstrate T'shuvah through their actions. The follow up is "is it ever too late to change your behavior? Why/why not?" The discussion then goes into the definition of Btzelem Elohim, followed by considering how doing T'shuvah can bring us closer to Btzelem Elohim. This lesson includes role play scenarios regarding turning behavior around through T'shuvah.

2. Before Chanukah this year I showed my 5th grade class the two latest parody videos from [|The Maccabeats] and [|Six13], but included a discussion of the information that was in each of them, including the real meaning of the Neis & the joy represented in the Six13 parody. The kids then had a blast developing their own Chanukah song parodies; they were creative and all included information about the holiday in the lyrics. Each pair performed them for the class at the end.

3. There is always great material from The Fountainheads, [] that can be used to teach about holidays and other Jewish ideas (i.e., the HOPE video for Yom HaAtzmaut). What I think is great about them is that they show our students another side of Israeli culture.

4. When teaching T'filah I have shown 6th grade students what a b'nai service is like in another synagogue. Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, VA, for example, streams their services live & then has an archive available to see later [] The students I work with found it fascinating to compare the expectations of another synagogue to what is expected of them at B'nai Israel.

Chaim

I always play this song and video for my Siddur class every year. The students are moved by the words and the symbolism. I like how it integrates Prayers and hip hop. This is a song by a popular hip hop band, Wu Tang Clan. []

This song is called Eliyahu Ha’Navi and is by the Moshav Band. The song is a personal favorite and my wife and I are friends with the couple from the band and we have a son named Eliyahu Nadiv. Putting that aside, this is a song that correlates to our ability to affect change in the world and is appropriate when the students learn about Tikkun Olam and their one action can make a change. []

I really like the Maccabeats Chanukkah song. It was shared with me by the students and I really thought it was great. The sad thing is that I didn’t know it was based on a popular song and video. I think their message is good and the students can relate to it. []

Dina

1. There’s still nothing like the first Maccabeats clip I saw: Candlelight! I was so excited when it came out that I emailed the link to all the students in my school. It officially went viral two days later. As one father said to me, “For this generation it is what Adam Sandler’s Chanukkah song was for us.” []

2. Whenever I need to lift up my eyes (Psalm 121) to the Land of Israel I watch this. I really love this particular setting for Psalm 121, especially when paired with photos of Israel. There’s also a version of this that pays tribute to the IDF, but I am especially fond of this is because it’s so peaceful. For students, it shows how a modern setting of an ancient text can be enhanced with beautiful visual imagery. []

3. I have a special passion for Ladino. Whenever I teach about Sephardic Jewry, I teach some of the Ladino songs, such as Flory Jagoda’s “Ocho Kandalikas” or “Echad Mi Yodea” in Ladino. I couldn’t find a good clip of that, so in honor of Pesach, here is Chad Gadya in Ladino []

4. This clip is from Yehoram Gaon’s 1992 video “From Toledo to Jerusalem”. As he describes in the introduction, after 1492, the Inquisition in Spain set out to discover anyone who was secretly practicing Judaism. One thing they looked for was anyone counting stars on Saturday evening. As a result, Sepharadim do not point to the sky when the count 3 stars at the end of Shabbat, even 500 years later in places where we are free from the terror of the Inquisition. I chant this setting at Havdalah, and use it in teacher training to teach Direct Method of introducing second language vocabulary. []

Michael

Yonatan Razel – Vehi She’amda - []

Yonatan Razel - Ivdu et hashem b’simcha []

Nava Tehilla, “Lechu Neranena R&B (Psalm 95)” [|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUKxG9V6NE0#t=11]

Danielle Rodnizki, “Elohai Neshama” []

Debbie Friedman, “Oseh Shalom” []

Shlomo Carlebach, “Mizmor L’David (Tehillim Kaf-Tet),” performed by Moshav [] (clip is long, if unfamiliar with melody, can start at 3:00.)

Listen Up! (a Jewish Vocal Band) – Adon Olam/Cups []

Yonatan Razel (yonatanrazel.com) is a contemporary Israeli Orthodox composer & conductor. Nava Tehilla is an Israeli egalitarian musical community based in Jerusalem. Both have written and taught new melodies for traditional tefillot, lots of which is posted online. Danielle Rodnizki won the NFTY (National Federation of Temple Youth, the Reform movement’s national youth organization) songwriting contest in 2009 for a new melody (and some English lyrics) for “Elohai Neshama.” Debbie Friedman and Shlomo Carlebach are Debbie Friedman and Shlomo Carlebach ( J ). Moshav/Moshav Band is a popular Israeli/American rock band who write and perform a mix of liturgical and nonliturgical music. I’d never heard of Listen Up! when someone posted the Adon Olam to Facebook. We have taught all the above melodies to our middle school students and use them extensively in tefillah.

Dip Your Apple (Rosh Hashanah) - [] Light up the Night (Hanukkah) - [] Raise Your Mask (Purim) - [] Breakin’ Free (Pesach) - []
 * Fountainheads**

From [|www.foheads.com]: The Fountainheads The Fountainheads are a group of young Israeli singers, dancers, and musicians, all graduates and students of the Ein Prat Academy for Leadership, who have joined forces to create new Jewish artistic content for today's Jewish world. Through their videos and live performances, the Fountainheads' work is enjoyed by millions of people all over the world. The Fountainheads perform at special events, trips, concerts, weddings, and simchas in Israel, and also tour overseas a few times a year.

I show these videos, and others like them, to my middle school students before chagim, usually when we have a few extra minutes at the end of a class. I think of these as fun add-ons, but never the main learning about a given topic.

Moshe 1. No Lyrics (DJ PHRESH REMIX) - Jewish Music I love instrumental music. It brings a lot of great bit. I us is the music room to start a class and the kids going. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otQr-3e4kZM

2. The one and only, Barbara Streisand. Great song for the High Holidays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YONAP39jVE&list=PLF61794E50C2302CE

3. Can't live without the Maccabeats. Their Remix Chanukah and Purim are useful for school wide shows. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgJInVvJSZg

Roni Since I'm teaching the Hebrew language I'll post some music videos that I've been using in class, and are very popular among my students. Just to mention - I'm teaching college students and they LOVE using songs and music in class :-)

The first link - helps students learn the preposition With עם or עם+שם גוף

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwqNCEyg6F4

The colors in Hebrew - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Ok1NewUPA

Adjectives in Hebrew - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-LVWwAsZhs

Hebrew Mix - modern catchy remix - Very popular between my students: for lesson purposes I first teach the whole songs and then play the remix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErGR7DNPLsA