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James Loeffler

James Loeffler is the author of The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire and co-editor of The Idelsohn Project.

  • Arts & Letters section icon
    The ‘Lust Machine’

    The cantor opposed the gramophone as a desecration of religion. The capitalist saw its potential as secular commodity. An early-20th-century tale of piety versus profit—and Zionism.

    byJames Loeffler
  • A teacher gives Hebrew lessons, Jerusalem, 1973
    A teacher gives Hebrew lessons, Jerusalem, 1973
    Arts & Letters section icon
    Should American Jews Speak Hebrew?

    Israeli Jews and diaspora Jews: one people divided by a common tongue

    byJames Loeffler
  • Photo collage by Tablet
    Photo collage by Tablet
    Arts & Letters section icon
    How an American Jewish Opera Star Accidentally Launched the Soviet Jewish Movement

    The 60th anniversary of Jan Peerce’s landmark Cold War Moscow show, where a final encore pointed the way to deliverance

    byJames Loeffler
  • A scene from the documentary Defiant Requiem: Voices of Resistance re-enacting Raphel Schacter playing piano in front of the Terezin Choir. (Partisan Pictures)
    A scene from the documentary Defiant Requiem: Voices of Resistance re-enacting Raphel Schacter playing piano in front of the Terezin Choir. (Partisan Pictures)
    Arts & Letters section icon
    Why the New ‘Holocaust Music’ Is an Insult to Music—and to Victims of the Shoah

    A recent wave of performances turns Jewish composers into shadow images defined only by their status as Hitler’s victims

    byJames Loeffler
  • Arts & Letters section icon
    Showtime at the Apollo

    Idan Raichel mixes traditional Ethiopian music, prayers, and funky beats to create dance tracks that speak to young Israelis

    byJames Loeffler
  • Arts & Letters section icon
    Beyond the Melting Pot

    A hipster scholar makes room on his provocative playlist for the jubilant, in-your-face shtick of Mickey Katz

    byJames Loeffler
  • Arts & Letters section icon
    Ethnic Sampling

    Madonna, Gwen Stefani, and the pliability of Jewish music

    byJames Loeffler
  • Arts & Letters section icon
    Hidden Sympathies

    A dubious portrait of Shostakovich as dissident has been debunked, but motifs in his work underscore his discord with Soviet power.

    byJames Loeffler
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