Tablet Magazine » Ari Y. Kelman

Israeli Music ‘Goes Out’ in America

Marc Tracy — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:00:21 +0000

Ari Y. Kelman—previously seen helping compile Tablet Magazine’s list of the 100 greatest Jewish songs ever—today tells the story of “Tzena, Tzena” (#47), a 1941 song authored by two Jews in Mandatory Palestine that urged young girls to “Go Out, Go Out” and meet the British soldiers here. “With its romantic depiction of young women lusting after righteous male soldiers,” Kelman argues, “the song fulfilled the expectations of Israel held by many American Jews in 1951.” They heard it after a recording by The Weavers—a folk outfit fronted by a fellow named Pete Seeger—went to #2 on the charts. Check it out:

Hear Israel

The New Leaders

the Editors — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:45:37 +0000

Today in Tablet Magazine, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry talks to Ari Y. Kelman, an author of a new study about the changing composition of American Jewish institutional leadership.

Regeneration

Vox Tablet — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:00:50 +0000

The stalwart institutions of American Jewish life, like the UJA, Hadassah, and even local synagogues, are facing increased competition for members as younger Jews turn to less traditional avenues of cultural and religious identification, from Stand With Us, a group that focuses on Israel advocacy on campus, to small, independent minyanim, or prayer groups. Concern that the movement toward non-establishment Jewish enterprises could sap the strength of American Jewish life drives the research in “Generation of Change: How Leaders in Their Twenties and Thirties are Reshaping American Jewish Life,” a new report commissioned by the Avi Chai Foundation, a non-profit devoted to Jewish continuity and inter-denominational understanding. (Avi Chai’s funders also support Tablet Magazine.)

Ari Y. Kelman, a professor of American studies at the University of California, Davis, is one of the study’s authors. He joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss his findings, including the fact that the Internet is weakening denominational differences among Jews, that “non-establishment” young Jewish leaders come from surprisingly “establishment” backgrounds, and that the economics of Jewish life deserve a closer look. [Running time: 16:40]

Oral Tradition

Vox Tablet — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:00:23 +0000

In the 1930s and ’40s, airwaves in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other major cities were filled with Yiddish-language shows which offered a mix of news, advice, cantorial music, and radio plays. They gave foreign-born listeners, many of them refugees, a chance both to learn about life in their new country and to be entertained. Ari Y. Kelman, a professor of American studies at the University of California, Davis, and the author of Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States, talks with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about how Yiddish programming both mimicked and deviated from its English-language counterpart—and about its family-centered melodramas, rabbi-adjudicated court shows, and performing lady cantors.