Rolling Stone magazine kicked off the new year with a list of “The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time,” updated for the first time since 2008, when it was limited to a mere 100 vocalists. The introduction to the list specifies that it is a list of great singers, not great voices, a nuance that allows for recognizing vocalists who may not have conventionally beautiful voices. Rather, it finds value in vocal originality and influence, rewarding those who “can remake the world just by opening their mouths.”

The list is not limited to singers from the rock era or to Western pop music; the magazine cast a wide net that includes vocalists from the jazz era and from India, Africa and the Middle East, which allowed a nod toward Israeli singer Ofra Haza, one of a minyan of Jewish vocalists on the list, depending on how one counts and how one defines who is a Jew. As for how one counts, one treads carefully in those waters given the biblical injunction against directly counting Jews found in, appropriately enough, the Book of Numbers. As for who gets counted as a Jew, that is a debate far beyond the scope of this article.

Lists like these are meant to provoke readers in countless ways. “Is Mariah Carey really a better singer than Ray Charles?” “How could you have left out George Harrison and Phoebe Snow?” “How could you have ranked John Lennon above Paul McCartney?” For our part, we shrug if not downright bristle at the omission of such MOTs as Art Garfunkel, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka and Marc Bolan. And where are Carly Simon, Laura Nyro, Susanna Hoffs, and Carole King, for heaven’s sake! While The Clash’s Joe Strummer gets a nod, how about his equally important bandmate and co-vocalist Mick Jones, the son of a Russian-Jewish mother, Renee Zegansky?

So who are the Jewish vocalists who do appear on the Rolling Stone list?

Amy Winehouse at the BRIT Awards, 2007. Photo by Getty Images

First of all, there are the most obvious ones: Barbra Streisand and Amy Winehouse, each of whom in her own way boasts (or boasted) singular sounds emanating from her vocal cords, sounds that pleased the masses while defying notions of conventional beauty. One could even argue that they sang with the slightest hint of a Yiddish accent — not in the pronunciation of their lyrics, mind you, but in the yearning, almost cantorial quality of their singing voices.

Then there are the trinity of great male Jewish rock singers: Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen. All three are united in their lack of conventionally pretty voices, but all three are or were brilliant vocalists. This is evidenced by their inclusion in the list and in how they employed their unusual vocal instruments, especially in their phrasing, as well as in their use of their unusual and highly personal tones to convey meaning and emotion.

Bob Dylan performs at the “Conspiracy of Hope” concert on behalf of Amnesty International in 1986. Photo by Getty Images

We’ve heard it a thousand times: “But Bob Dylan can’t sing!” Listen again. For one, he never sings off-key or out of tune, frequently held lazy opinions to the contrary. Secondly, Dylan ushered in an entirely new style of singing in popular music, a wholly organic blend of blues holler, country drawl, rockabilly shouter and folk melodicist. His was and is the voice of the people as much as his songs spoke for the forgotten hordes and society’s outcasts.

Reed and Cohen were both beneficiaries of Dylan’s innovations as a popular vocalist, each likewise using the limitations of their raw voices — and I use the term “limitations” here only in the sense held by those still clinging to antiquated notions of what makes a good or great singer — to express their equally raw lyrics and poetry. Cohen sounded like an old Jewish grandpa or perhaps a biblical prophet. Reed, in his talk-sing fusion, sounded like a street-smart hustler doing spoken-word poetry decades before the term was invented.

And the others? As his name suggests, Jamaican reggae and dancehall singer Barrington Levy boasts Jewish heritage, even as he identifies as Rastafarian. Courtney Love, who led the 1990s alt-rock group Hole and was married to grunge-rock avatar Kurt Cobain, also has Jewish ancestry and has suggested that if her husband had some, likewise, it may have saved him from his tragic fate, dead of a drug overdose at age 27.

The list also includes two of the most famous rock ’n’ roll and soul vocalists who became Jews by choice in their adult lives: Jackie Wilson and Little Richard. Although an ordained minister, Little Richard maintained he was Jewish throughout his life, and formalized the connection when he converted in the 1980s, as delineated in a 2020 Forward article. Some say his conversion was guided by Bob Dylan, who, despite his own flirtation with evangelical Christianity in the late 1970s and early ’80s, firmly returned to the fold of his ancestors in the mid-1980s. This was reflected in songs including “Neighborhood Bully” and “Everything Is Broken” and in his frequent appearances in the annual Los Angeles Chabad Telethon.

As one would expect, Elvis Presley placed high on the Rolling Stone list, at number 17. (Bob Dylan bested him at number 15). Although Presley grew up attending church, he could trace direct Jewish matrilineal descent back at least as far as his great-great-grandmother, as explored in a 2021 Forward article.

And that about makes a minyan of great Jewish singers as proposed by Rolling Stone.

The post Are Barbra Streisand and Bob Dylan the best singers of all time — or the best Jewish singers? appeared first on The Forward.

Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to criminal charges that he cheated investors in his now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange and caused billions of dollars in losses in what prosecutors have called an epic fraud.

The 30-year-old defendant entered his plea to eight criminal counts, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering and violate campaign finance laws, before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan federal court.

Bankman-Fried is accused of looting FTX customer deposits to support his Alameda Research hedge fund, buy real estate and make millions of dollars in political contributions.

“Customer funds were also used and laundered through political donations, charitable donations and a variety of venture investments,” Danielle Sassoon, a federal prosecutor, said at the hearing. She accused Bankman-Fried of “lulling FTX customers with false information” that their assets were safe after the exchange collapsed.

Sassoon suggested that the government has a deep well of evidence against Bankman-Fried, saying prosecutors plan to turn over hundreds of thousands of documents in coming weeks so the defense can prepare for trial. The government has already won guilty pleas from two former top associates of Bankman-Fried’s, who are cooperating with prosecutors and may testify at trial.

Kaplan set an Oct. 2 trial date. Sassoon estimated that a trial could take four weeks, though Bankman-Fried’s lawyer said he expected it to last two to three weeks.

It is common for criminal defendants to initially plead not guilty. They may change their pleas later.

Bankman-Fried, now clean-shaven, wore a blue suit, white shirt and dotted blue tie and carried a backpack into the courthouse – a far cry from the shorts and t-shirts that were his preferred attire while he ran FTX from the Bahamas.

He did not speak to the judge during the hearing, but conferred privately with his lawyers. He shook hands with one of the prosecutors before the hearing, and once the arraignment concluded, he approached the handful of courtroom sketch artists and commented on their work.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate could face up to 115 years in prison if convicted.

Bankman-Fried rode a boom in the value of bitcoin and other digital assets to build a net worth of an estimated $26 billion and become an influential political donor in the United States.

FTX collapsed in early November after a wave of withdrawals and declared bankruptcy on Nov. 11, wiping out Bankman-Fried’s fortune. He later said he had $100,000 in his bank account.

Bankman-Fried was extradited last month from the Bahamas, where he lived and where the exchange was based.

Since his release on a $250 million bond on Dec. 22, Bankman-Fried has been subject to electronic monitoring and required to live with his parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both professors at Stanford Law School in California.

Fried attended her son’s court hearing on Tuesday.

On Monday, Kaplan granted Bankman-Fried’s request not to publicize the names of two additional co-signers for the bond.

Lawyers for Bankman-Fried have said his parents, who co-signed the bond, have received physical threats since FTX’s collapse, and that other co-signers might face similar harassment unless their names were kept secret.

The judge also imposed a new bail condition, saying Bankman-Fried cannot access FTX or Alameda assets. That came after Sassoon said her office was investigating reports late last month that additional funds were transferred out of Alameda cryptocurrency wallets.

“Mr. Bankman-Fried did not make those transfers,” his lawyer said in court.

Bankman-Fried on Dec. 30 posted a link on Twitter to an article on a crypto industry news website about the purported transfers and said, “None of these are me.”

Prosecutors’ case was strengthened by last month’s guilty pleas of two of Bankman-Fried’s closest associates.

Caroline Ellison, who was Alameda’s chief executive, and Gary Wang, FTX’s former chief technology officer, pleaded guilty to seven and four criminal charges, respectively, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

FTX’s new chief executive, John Ray, known for his work on energy company Enron Corp’s bankruptcy, has said FTX was run by “grossly inexperienced” and unsophisticated people.

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For the first time in more than 85 years, Jewish athletes are competing in Maccabi winter games — and they’re doing it in Germany.

The Makkabi Deutschland Winter Games kicked off Tuesday in Ruhpolding, in the Bavarian Alps. 

The last Jewish Winter Games ever held were in 1936 in Czechoslovakia, and before that, in Poland in 1933 — just a few short years before the Nazis invaded both countries and began annihilating Europe’s Jewish population.

The first #Makkabi Winter Games for more than 85 years got underway in Bavaria yesterday.

Until 9 January, around 400 Jewish athletes from 20 countries will compete at the Games.

Chancellor Scholz said it was moving that Germany was hosting the tournament. pic.twitter.com/KNKg5ycsKt

— German Embassy London (@GermanEmbassy) January 3, 2023

More than 350 athletes from around the world are set to compete in alpine and cross country skiing, snowboarding, biathlon, figure skating, Bavarian curling and snow volleyball. 

The U.S. delegation announced plans to compete in all sports except snow volleyball. 

Other events include an opening ceremony, a combination havdalah and pool party, a Kabbalat Shabbat and ending ceremony on Jan. 9. 

The events are being livestreamed on YouTube. 

The first two Maccabiah Games predate the modern Israeli state, having been held in what was then a British protectorate in 1932 and 1935. Until now, the only two dedicated winter games were the ones in Poland and Czechoslovakia. The regular games picked back up in 1950. Since 1953, the games have been held every four years, though COVID-19 led to a one-year delay, pushing them to 2022.

While primarily composed of sports traditionally found in the Summer Olympics, ice hockey has become a regular component of those games. In 2015, a gathering at the European Maccabi Games being held in Berlin broke the Guiness World Record for the largest Shabbat meal.

The post First Jewish Winter Games held in more than 85 years kick off in Germany appeared first on The Forward.

Republican Kevin McCarthy lost a dramatic first vote for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and appeared poised to fall short in a second ballot on Tuesday as hardline conservatives from his own party rebelled against him, leaving the new Republican majority in turmoil.In an embarrassing beginning to what could prove to be a brutal showdown between hardliners and most House Republicans, McCarthy fell short in the first ballot of the 218-vote majority needed to succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi as speaker. It was the first time in a century that the House failed to elect a speaker on the first vote.

Lawmakers quickly moved on to a second ballot, with McCarthy again appearing unlikely to prevail. McCarthy had served as the House minority leader and sought to become speaker, a position second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency, only to draw strong opposition from his party’s right flank.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries outran McCarthy by 212 to 203 votes in the first vote, as 19 Republicans opted for a different candidate. McCarthy’s conservative Republican rival, Representative Andy Biggs, garnered 10 votes. A majority of those voting, not a plurality, is needed to determine a speaker.

The path for McCarthy remained complicated, as popular conservative Representative Jim Jordan sought to rally support for the California Republican only to find himself put forward as a rival by a McCarthy opponent.

“We need to rally around him,” Jordan said in an impassioned speech on the House floor. “I think Kevin McCarthy’s the right guy to lead us.”

Hardline conservative Representative Matt Gaetz then nominated Jordan, who quickly attracted enough Republican votes to deny McCarthy victory on the second ballot.

Jordan, 58, is a staunch ally of Republican former President Donald Trump and a co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. A former amateur wrestler who represents a congressional district in Ohio, Jordan had been floated as a possible alternative candidate for speaker but instead supported McCarthy while preparing to oversee the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the Justice Department and FBI under Democratic President Joe Biden.

It was a disconcerting start to the new majority for McCarthy and highlights the challenges Republicans could face over the next two years, heading into the 2024 presidential election. Their slim majority gives greater clout to a small group of hard-liners, who want to focus on dealing defeat to Democrats and pushing various investigations.

Republicans won a narrow 222-212 majority in November’s midterm election, meaning that McCarthy – or any candidate for speaker – will need to unify a fractious caucus to win the gavel. Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate.

McCarthy’s hardline opponents are concerned that he is less deeply vested in the culture wars and partisan rivalries that have dominated the House – and even more so since Trump’s White House years.

Before the vote, McCarthy tried to persuade the holdouts during a closed-door party meeting, vowing to stay in the race until he gets the necessary votes, but many participants emerged from the gathering undaunted.

A protracted speaker election could undermine House Republican hopes of moving forward quickly on priorities including investigations of Biden’s administration and family, as well as legislative priorities involving the economy, U.S. energy independence and border security.

In the first vote, a few Republicans opted to vote for party figures not on the ballot, including for Jordan and Lee Zeldin, a former House Republican who ran for governor of New York last year.

A standoff would leave the House largely paralyzed and could force lawmakers to consider another candidate. In addition to Jordan, incoming Majority Leader Steve Scalise was seen as a possible candidate.

It was not clear whether McCarthy, who has the support of a wide majority of his caucus, would have the support to overcome the hard-line opposition and win the speakership.

McCarthy has spent his adult life in politics – as a congressional staffer, then state legislator before being elected to the House in 2006. As speaker, McCarthy would be well placed to frustrate Biden’s legislative ambitions.

But any Republican speaker will have the tough task of managing a House Republican caucus moving ever rightward, with uncompromising tendencies and – at least among some lawmakers – close allegiances to Trump.

Tuesday’s vote marked the first time in 100 years that a nominee has not succeeded to the House speakership on the first ballot. The record number of voting rounds to elect a House speaker is 133 over a two-month period in the 1850s.

The Democrats picked Jeffries to serve as minority leader after Pelosi, the first woman to serve as speaker, announced that she would step down from her leadership role. She will remain in office as a representative.

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Two Washington State men have been arrested in connection with Christmas Day attacks on four power substations in the Tacoma area, federal authorities said Tuesday.

Matthew Greenwood and Jeremy Crahan were scheduled to appear in court Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Tacoma on charges of conspiracy to damage energy facilities and possession of unregistered firearms, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

The two men were known to authorities, and had been under FBI surveillance for more than a month in late 2021 and early 2022, FBI special agent Mark Tucher said in an affidavit filed in federal court on Tuesday. The agent did not give reasons for that surveillance, but Tucher described himself in the affidavit as an expert in domestic terrorism assigned to the FBI Seattle division’s joint terrorism task force.

According to Tucher’s affidavit, investigators believe that the men cut fencing leading to four power stations in Pierce County, Washington operated by Puget Sound Energy and Tacoma Power.

They then tampered with the equipment, knocking out power to thousands of homes and businesses, the affidavit alleged. Greenwood and Crahan were arrested on Saturday, the affidavit said.

The Washington state power grid attacks came on the heels of similar incidents in other states.

In December, a utility in North Carolina reported outages from what local authorities said were orchestrated shootings now being investigated by federal law enforcement.

The FBI has also been investigating shots fired near a power facility in South Carolina days later.

The man who set off smoke bombs on a crowded New York subway train before shooting 10 people last April in one of the most violent attacks ever seen on the city’s transit system pleaded guilty on Tuesday to terrorism and weapons charges.

Frank James, 63, appeared in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn to change his plea after his lawyers requested the hearing last month. He had initially pleaded not guilty in May to 10 counts of committing a terrorist attack and other violence against a mass transportation system — one count for each of the people shot — and using a firearm during a crime of violence.

A total of 23 people were injured in the assault during the morning rush hour April 12 on a Manhattan-bound N train at a station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. No one was killed.

It was some of the worst violence involving the United States’ largest subway system, which is more than a century old.

In a letter to the court last week, U.S. prosecutors said that if James demonstrates that he accepts responsibility for the crime, a prison sentence of 32 to 37 years would be appropriate. If not, he could face 40 years to life.

Police apprehended James in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood 30 hours after the attack and following a massive manhunt. Bystanders spotted the man and posted pictures of him to social media.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) said they initially linked James to the assault after finding keys to a rented U-Haul van left at the crime scene.

James, a native of the city’s Bronx borough with recent addresses in Philadelphia and Milwaukee, had nine prior arrests in New York and three in New Jersey, according to the NYPD. read more

He is being held at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Less than two months after James’ attack, a man was arrested in the fatal, unprovoked shooting of a man on a subway car crossing the Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn into Manhattan. In June, another man was arrested on suspicion of pushing a woman onto the tracks of a subway station in the Bronx. read more

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Wall Street’s main indexes dropped on the first trading day of 2023 with big drags from Tesla and Apple, while investors worried about the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hiking path as they awaited minutes from its December meeting.

Shares in electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) were down 13%, making it Nasdaq’s biggest percentage decliner after missing Wall Street estimates for quarterly deliveries. iPhone maker Apple Inc (AAPL.O) was down 4% after hitting its lowest level since June 2021 following an analyst rating downgrade due to production cuts in China.

Consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD) and technology stocks (.SPLRCT) slipped more than 1% each.

The energy sector (.SPNY), which logged stellar gains in 2022, slid more than 4%, tracking lower oil prices on bleak business activity data from China and concerns about the outlook for the global economy. .

The main U.S. stock indexes had ended 2022 with their steepest annual losses since 2008 following the Fed’s fastest pace of rate hikes since the 1980s to stamp out decades-high inflation.

“Even though the calendar has changed, a lot of the main issues for the market have not, specifically with the Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy as it’s still concerned about inflation,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“We’re in a bear market. Negative is the default reaction to everything,” he said. “Until the Fed really changes their tone, it’s an uphill battle for the market.”

By 2:22 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) had fallen 186.41 points, or 0.56%, to 32,960.84; the S&P 500 (.SPX) had lost 31.1 points, or 0.81%, to 3,808.4; and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) had dropped 114.14 points, or 1.09%, to 10,352.35.

The S&P 500 shed 19.4% in 2022, marking a roughly $8 trillion decline in market capitalization, while the Nasdaq fell 33.1%, dragged down by growth stocks.

Investors on Wednesday will closely monitor the minutes of the Fed’s December policy meeting, when the central bank raised interest rates by 50 basis points after four straight 75 basis points hikes, and signaled rates could stay higher for longer.

Other economic data due this week includes the ISM manufacturing report, also on Wednesday, and December’s jobs report on Friday.

Weakness in the labor market could give the Fed a reason to ease its monetary policy tightening, but the data so far has shown the market remains tight despite rate hikes.

Money market participants see a 68% chance the Fed will raise the benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 4.50% to 4.75% in February, with the rates peaking at 4.98% by June.

In other equity market action, U.S.-listed Chinese firms such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd , JD.com Inc and Pinduoduo Inc (PDD.O) rose between 1% and 5% on post-COVID-19 recovery hopes.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.10-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.01-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and five new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 83 new highs and 44 new lows.

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Vice President Kamala Harris is ordering all senators and their guests to receive negative COVID tests if they want to take pictures with her after she administers the oath of office, Breitbart reported Sunday.

“Anyone over two years of age who will interact with the vice president” must receive a negative test “24 hours prior to interaction,” a directive from Harris’s office announced to anyone attending the swearing-in ceremony, which takes place on Tuesday. “This policy applies regardless of vaccination status.”

Harris’s decision to mandate testing comes as Americans have become less concerned about COVID-19. Harris herself hosted a Christmas party at her Washington, D.C., residence that included celebrities and New Jersey governor Phil Murphy (D.).

Harris, who as vice president officially presides over the Senate, may have trouble persuading senators to pose with her for the camera. The veep is so unpopular that the Democratic National Committee last year slashed the price of a photo with her by two-thirds, the Washington Free Beacon reported at the time. A poll last month found that just 38 percent of Americans approve of Harris’s job performance.

The photo ceremony occurs after Harris has officially sworn in senators on the Senate floor.

Some senators are “so upset they might not participate in the photo ceremony,” sources told Breitbart. One individual said that “senators’ children and grandchildren” should “not be subjected to this insanity so Kamala can pretend to care about fighting coronavirus.”

President Joe Biden in September declared that “the pandemic is over.”

The post Report: Kamala Demands COVID Tests for Senate Swearing-In appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The Biden administration will renominate a board member at an anti-Israel group to help lead the Small Business Administration, one year after the nominee was blocked by Republicans, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Dilawar Syed served on the board of Emgage Action—a group that describes Israel as an “apartheid state” and defends the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement—until at least 2021, when President Joe Biden nominated him as deputy administrator at the SBA, according to federal disclosure records.

Syed is one of 85 failed nominees whom the Biden administration is resubmitting for confirmation by the new Senate, the Journal reported on Tuesday.

Syed’s affiliation with Emgage raised concerns among Republican legislators and pro-Israel leaders, who blocked his nomination in September 2021. Since last February, Syed has served as a special representative for trade at the State Department, a position that doesn’t require Senate approval.

Emgage has accused the Jewish state of instituting a “racist, undemocratic Israeli apartheid rule that steals [Palestinian] land and destroys their homes to make way for illegal Jewish settlements” and said it “support[s] the right to boycott, divest, and sanction, as well as the Right of Return of Palestinians.”

The group also lobbied against legislation that would penalize boycotts of the Jewish state and called the BDS movement a “constitutionally protected nonviolent response that seeks to end the occupation.”

Syed told legislators during his unsuccessful confirmation process that he doesn’t support the BDS movement. But Republicans questioned his affiliation with Emgage and his refusal to commit to recovering $100 million in federal COVID relief funding that they say was illegally distributed to abortion provider Planned Parenthood.

Tom Jones, the founder of the American Accountability Foundation watchdog group, told the Washington Free Beacon in September 2021 that Syed’s involvement with Emgage, “paired with his lack of a commitment to recover PPP funds illegally allocated to Planned Parenthood, should immediately disqualify him as deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration.”

Other failed Biden administration picks who will be renominated include former Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti as ambassador to India and Danny Werfel as IRS commissioner, according to the Journal.

The post Biden Renominates Board Member at Anti-Israel Group to Small Business Administration appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.