More in ‘Matisyahu’

Wanna brush up on some basic boxing strategy? Yuri Foreman—the middleweight champion of the world who in his spare time is studying to be an Orthodox rabbi; and who in the meantime is preparing for a June 5 bout against Puerto Rican superstar Miguel Cotto—teaches you that the secret, particularly if you’re fighting a bigger ...

• The Union for Reform Judaism has passed its first resolution calling for equal treatment of Israeli Arabs in the Jewish state. [JTA]
• Entertainment Weekly asked Matisyahu, whose song “One Day” is being used to advertise the 2010 Winter Olympics: “So, how did a Jewish reggae guy end up as the official soundtrack to lugeing, ...

Rosh Hashanah resolutions from Matisyahu, Daphne Merkin, Michael Showalter, Naomi Alderman, Douglas Century, Ayelet Waldman, and Mimi Sheraton.

Matisyahu released his third album, Light, yesterday, and this time he has added new elements—“electonica, funky pop, straight-up guitar rock and even a touch of folk,” according to the AP—to his trademark Hasidic-inspired reggae. He’s taking some knocks for it at home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn: “Just yesterday I was walking down the street and ...

• Congressman Anthony Weiner was jokingly chastised for using the Yiddish word “bupkis” in a committee meeting; a commenter on Orthodox site Vos Iz Neias thinks Weiner’s “trying to prove he’s Jewish,” and has a suggestion: “How about marrying a Jewish woman? Then you won’t have to bore Congress with Yiddish words.” [VIN]
• Matisyahu released ...

Hasidic reggae phenom Matisyahu (or, as the Ticketmaster electronic voice calls him, Matis-aya-who), plays New York’s Central Park Summer Stage tomorrow to promote his new album, Light. Matisyahu, who follows in the great tradition of Jews in reggae, told Boston Music Spotlight over the weekend that Light includes “electronic stuff, there’s more organic, singer-songwriter kind ...

Dimona is a small village in the Negev, half an hour south of Beersheva. It’s an incredibly small town, less than three square miles, and since it’s in the middle of the Israeli desert, it doesn’t get much in the way of tourists. Mostly, Dimona is known for two things: its nuclear power plant, and ...

Given the numerous scholarly elegies marking the closing of legendary Lower East Side music venues Tonic and CBGB, you’d think punk had been elevated to the status of fine art. Alas, no such luck”both clubs closed because the people who wanted to go there couldn’t afford the cover, and the people who could afford to, ...

Ori Kaplan and Tamir Muskat are the brains behind Balkan Beat Box, an ensemble which samples and fuses everything from brass wedding tunes to Moroccan rai to create utterly infectious dance music.
Kaplan and Muskat got their early musical training in Israel, but it’s in New York that they began to put forth their own distincitve ...

Walking through Brooklyn last summer, some tattered advertising on a scaffolding stopped me dead in my tracks. Peering out from the upper left corner of a red, yellow, and green poster for the annual Reggae Carifest, the giant showcase for the top stars in Jamaican music, was a photo of a bespectacled young man in ...