Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in the Americas

Amalia Ran, Ph. D. (2007), Tel Aviv University, is a researcher of Latin American studies. Her publications include: Made of Shores: Judeo Argentinean Fiction Revisited (Lehigh UP, 2011) and the edited volume, Returning to Babel: Jewish Latin American Experiences and Representations (Brill, 2011).Moshe Morad, Ph. D. (2013), is lecturer at Tel Aviv University and Ono Academic College, broadcaster and director of two music radio stations. His publications include articles, book chapters, and the monograph, Fiesta de diez pesos: Music and Gay Identity in Special Period Cuba (Ashgate, 2014).

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsList of ContributorsIntroduction, Amalia Ran & Moshe Morad1. Is "White Christmas" a Piece of Jewish Music?, Ellen Koskoff2. The Musical Worlds of Jewish Buenos Aires, 1910-1940, Pablo Palomino3. Tristes Alegrías: The Jewish Presence in Argentina’s Popular Music Arena, Amalia Ran4. Jacob de Bandolim: A Jewish(-)Brazilian Composer, Thomas George Caracas García5. Walls of Sound: Lieber and Stoller, Phil Spector, the Black-Jewish Alliance, and the “Enlarging” of America, Ari Katorza6. Singing from Difference: Jewish Singers-Songwriters in the 1960s and 1970s, Jon Stratton7. ¡Toca maravilloso! Larry Harlow and the Jewish Connection to Latin Music, Benjamin Lapidus8. Roberto Juan Rodriguez’ “Timba Talmud”: Diasporic Cuban-Jewish Musical Convergences in New York, Nili Belkind9. Yiddish Song in Twenty-First Century America: Paths to Creativity, Abigail Wood10. Fight for Your Right to Partycipate: Jewish American Rappers, Uri Dorchin11. Gypsy, Cumbia, Cuarteto, Surf, Blah Blah Blah: DJ Simja Dujov and Jewish Musical Eclecticism in Argentina, Lilian M. Wohl12. Queer Jewish Divas: Jewishness and Queerness in the Life and Performance of Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, and Olga Guillot, Moshe Morad13. Third Diaspora Soundscapes: Music of the Jews of Islam in the Americas, Edwin SeroussiClosing Notes: The Soundstage of Jewish Life, North and South, Judah M. CohenIndex

“By placing chapters on Jews and popular music in the USA alongside chapters on their South American analogues, the context of these studies becomes subtly altered. This isn’t just because the Argentinian and Brazilian artists discussed are often much less well known globally than American ones, but also because a ‘hemispheric’ focus enables – potentially at least – a destabilisation of the sometimes inward-looking perspective that dominates discussions of Jews, popular music and the USA. As Cohen argues: ‘By adding Jewishness to [the] multidimensional North–South topography, existing histories of political upheaval, activism, population movement, and zealous diplomacy gain new veins of inquiry’ (p. 241). Or, to put it another way, by considering North and South American Jewish popular music together, we might be able to re-position Jewish music in the Diaspora communities of the Americas into a more fluid notion of Diaspora.” Keith Kahn-Harris, Popular Music, Volume 36 - Issue 1 - January 2017