The Genesis Prize-Overview of Jewish Music of Our Heart and Soul

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Throughout history, Jews, a people making up 0.02% of the world population,  have been trailblazers in countless professional fields: medicine, music, cinema, sports, and much more. The Genesis Prize celebrates Jewish talent and achievement by honoring individuals for their professional accomplishments, commitment to Jewish values and contribution to improving the world. From time to time – in honor of our Laureates - The Genesis Prize Foundation produces films highlighting the significant impact Jews have had on a variety of professions. The Genesis Prize Foundation’s “Jews in…” short video series has already been viewed by hundreds of thousands. 

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Guxqt8hLY0vlms0z2VkdXF3pEF7GdU9X/view   Listen to the overview with video 

The prize was founded in 2012 with a $100 million endowment from five Russian philanthropists: Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven, German Khan, Stan Polovets, and Alexander Knaster. The prize is under the administration of the Genesis Prize Foundation, in partnership with the Jewish Agency for Israel.

In 2020, the Foundation opened the selection process to online voting and invited the public to nominate and vote for the 2021 Genesis Prize Laureate. Close to two hundred thousand Jews on six continents participated in the voting. The final selection of the Laureate remains with the two committees.

Jews in Music

The Genesis Prize Foundation created "Jews in Music" to honor outstanding achievements by Jewish individuals in music throughout history, including Leonard Cohen, Itzhak Perlman, Carole King, Vladimir Vysotsky, Idan Raichel, Martha Argerich, Paul Simon, Evgeny Kissin, Billy Joel, Adam Levine, Drake, and more.

Yentl is a 1983 American romantic musical drama film directed, co-written, co-produced by, and starring American entertainer Barbra Streisand. It is based on Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy".https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPO6KyIYst4

The film incorporates humor and music to tell the story of an Ashkenazi Jewish girl in Poland who decides to dress and live like a boy so that she can receive an education in Talmudic Law after her father dies. The film's musical score and songs, composed by Michel Legrand, with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, include the songs "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" and "The Way He Makes Me Feel", both sung by Streisand. The film received the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and the Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy and Best Director for Streisand, making her the first woman to have won Best Director at the Golden Globes.   

Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand is an American singer and actress. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.  She is 80, born April 24, 1942 in Brooklyn, NY.  To me she's ageless.  She is my favorite every year.  Barbra Streisand was one of the most successful performers of the twentieth century. When her Jewish looks made it hard to break into show business, she got her start in the underground gay bar scene. She won critical acclaim for her Broadway performance in I Can Get It for You Wholesale in 1963, released her chart-topping first album in 1964, and played fellow Jewish comedian Fanny Brice in Funny Girl in 1968. Streisand has recorded a number of successful albums, earning Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, a special Tony, and a Peabody among her many accolades. Her directorial debut was Yentl, and she continued to direct and produce movies while maintaining her career as a performer. Through the Streisand Foundation, she funds charities ranging from gender equality and gay rights to environmental protection.

                                   King in 1977

 Carole King Klein (born Carol Joan Klein; February 9, 1942) in Manhattan, New York City, to Jewish parents Eugenia (née Cammer), a teacher, and Sidney N. Klein, a firefighter. King's parents met in an elevator in 1936 at Brooklyn College, where her father was a chemistry major and her mother was an English and drama major. She is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who has been active since 1958, initially as one of the staff songwriters at the Brill Building and later as a solo artist. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential musicians of all time, King is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the US, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100. King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1962 and 2005. https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=JOpNjHsXwzk&list=OLAK5uy_moVH2ipKvkBa7g6jf1WQUfaLgnR4O1zXY           

Argerich during a rehearsal with the orchestra for the final of the VII International Chopin Piano Competition, 1965

Argerich performing at the Kirchner Cultural Centre, July 2015

María Martha Argerich,  (born 5 June 1941) is an Argentinian classical concert pianist. She is widely considered to be one of the greatest pianists of all time. Her maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire, who settled in Colonia Villa Clara in Argentina's Entre Ríos Province, one of the colonies established by Baron de Hirsch and the Jewish Colonization Association. The provenance of the name Argerich is Catalonia. In 1990, Argerich was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. After treatment, the cancer went into remission, but there was a recurrence in 1995, eventually metastasizing to her lungs and lymph nodes. Following an experimental treatment at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica pioneered by oncologist Donald Morton, Argerich's cancer went into remission again. In gratitude, Argerich performed a Carnegie Hall recital benefiting the institute. As of 2021, Argerich remains cancer-free.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUTFVNAa2_E

Blowing the shofar, a ram's horn,  musical notes get our attention where music is a type of morse code, used for over 20 centuries. we hear it on Rosh Hashanah. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJi0DVCfWQI                                     

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fju4UajL7g
Sammy Davis Jr. converted to Judaism, known to us with his singing and dancing.  Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, comedian, film producer and television director.,  One day on a golf course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. "Handicap?" he asked. "Talk about handicap. I'm a one-eyed Negro who's Jewish." This was to become a signature comment, recounted in his autobiography and in many articles.  He survived a terrible car accident and spoke about it with a Jewish chaplain in the hospital.  But after learning about Judaism, he felt Jews and Black people shared a similar history of oppression. Over the years, he studied more about the religion and eventually converted. Sammy is unforgettable, always on my list every year.  

Music has been an integral part of our life.  Our prayers are sung; first by our Cantors and then by us.  Our alarm system of gathering the people has been music blown on a ram's horn.  You will be surprised at the volume of music our people have produced.  The Jewish tempo of the minor key has even caressed a few Christian holidays as well, for our writers can't help but feel musical tunes and produce them  during these periods.  We have lots more musicians that we haven't heard of.  

              Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah (Live In London)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q

             Leonard Norman Cohen CC GOQ was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships. His parents were Marsha Klonitsky, Nathan Cohen;  He died at 82 in 2016. Wikipedia

 Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-American violinist, music teacher and conductor. He is renowned for his profound musical knowledge and skills and is treasured by audiences around the globe. For him, creating music is a way of expressing himself. Perlman has performed worldwide, including at events like the presidential inauguration of President Obama and a State Dinner at the White House honouring His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Now 76, he was born in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel August 31, 1945 before it became a state . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rT8KC10ErA       

Adam Noah Levine is an American singer and musician, who is the lead vocalist of the pop rock band Maroon 5. Levine began his musical career in 1994 with the band Kara's Flowers, of which he was the lead vocalist and guitarist.From 2011 to 2019, Levine served as a coach on NBC's reality talent show The Voice. Levine's father and maternal grandfather were Jewish, while his maternal grandmother was a Protestant. Levine considers himself Jewish; however, according to The Jewish Chronicle, he is spiritual but not religious. He also attributes his mother's idols – Simon & Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac, and The Beatles – to shaping his musical style, calling them "a huge part of my upbringing.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL4uhaQ58Rk

Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky, was a Soviet singer-songwriter, poet, and actor who had an immense and enduring effect on Soviet culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street-jargon, getting on a Russian stamp, so popular.  He was born January 25, 1938 and died July 25, 1980 in Moscow, Russia at 42.  His musical style still influences Russians today.  His father, Semyon Volfovich (Vladimirovich) (1915–1997), was Jewish, a colonel in the Soviet army, originally from  Kiev. His father was actually a Jew from Kiev, Ukraine.

Vladimir's mother, Nina Maksimovna, (née Seryogina, 1912–2003) was Russian, and worked as a German language translator.     Vysotsky's family lived in a Moscow communal flat in harsh conditions, and had serious financial difficulties.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6P-sl5BkAc

           

                                

I'm going to throw in one of my own, Victor Sharpe, from England, born in 1942 in London,  who lives right here in Portland, Oregon and is my 4th to remote cousin found by DNA testing. Now we are real phone cousins during COVID.  Victor had his own radio show in our city, and has his own band, Special Reserve.  He plays at the coast quite often, playing on either his clarinet, flute or 3 saxophones.     

These are but a few of our musical talents.  Be sure to listen to the compilation of many of our outstanding musicians. 

Resource:

Thanks to Gerard Robbins who sent me this gensisprize address.  

https://www.genesisprize.org/jewish-accomplishment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yentl_(film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carole_King

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Davis_Jr.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Levine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Vysotsky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Argerich

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/itzhak-perlman-1682.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_Prize

https://hazon.org/commit-to-change/holidays/rosh-hashanah/shofar/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwwJuVBhCAARIsAOPwGAQ7hbIQsv9XbdJsYb2-BfTnMA3UySXaIl6XbTN3Wx2NeSI-KKggvS4aApv9EALw_wcB

How and Why the Kurdish People Are Close Cousins To Jews

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

     Kurdish family in Kurdistan- a mountainous region now divided among Turkey, Iran and Iraq.  The 1st Jewish settlers went to Kurdistan as early as the time of Ezra of the 5th century BCE.  He's the man who left Persia, with permission, to go back to Jerusalem and help his people who had returned there  in 538 BCE from the Babylonian Exile.  The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million. Most Kurdish people live in Kurdistan, which today is split between Iranian Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkish Kurdistan, and Syrian Kurdistan.

There are also many Kurds among the Kurdish diaspora and in Red Kurdistan.  Kurds also live in Israel today.  

                                               

We find through DNA testing that the Kurds are the closest people to the Jews.  Besides DNA, they are also a people who lost their native land, Kurdistan, just like the Jews had lost their Judah to the Romans in 70 CE.                           

Kurds from Iraq (Dohuk and Erbil Area, North Iraq) have been analyzed for HLA genes. Their HLA genetic profile has been compared with that of other Kurd groups from Iran and Tbilisi (Georgia, Caucasus) and also Worldwide populations. A total of 7,746 HLA chromosomes have been used. Genetic distances, NJ dendrograms and correspondence analyses have been carried out. Haplotype HLA-B*52—DRB1*15 is present in all three analyzed Kurd populations. HLA-A*02-B*51-DRB1*11 is present in Iraq and Georgia Kurds. Haplotypes common to Iran and Iraq Kurds are HLA DRB1*11—DQB1*03, HLA DRB1*03—DQB1*02 and others in a lower frequency. Our HLA study conclusions are that Kurds most probably belong to an ancient Mediterranean / Middle East / Caucasian genetic substratum and that present results and those previously obtained by us in Kurds may be useful for Medicine in future Kurd transplantation programs, HLA Epidemiology (HLA linked diseases) and Pharmacogenomics (HLA-associated drug side effects) and also for Anthropology. It is discussed that one of the most ancient Kurd ancestor groups is in Hurrians (Horites)  (2,000 years BC).  Horites originated S of the Caucasian mountains, who invaded Syria and Eretz Yisrael/Canaan in the 17th century BCE.  They lived near Mt. Seir in Abraham's time (1948 BCE) but their territory was conquered by the Edomites.  Scholars have identified the Haru (Eretz Yisrael from Egyptian documents of 16th century;  before known as "Rutenu."with the Horites and believe that they were pushed back by the Amorites and Canaanites to Mt Seir, whence they were later driven by the Edomites. As usual, opposites attract, and there existed interbreeding among the people.  HLA is the most polymorphic genetic system described in man. It contains several linked loci which encode for cell surface proteins that have an important function in activating immune response after antigenic presentation.  I have never heard of the haplotype of HLA .  Evidently they are close to Kuwait people.                                                             

      A US backed force could cement a Kurdish enclave in Syria.--New York Times

"Presently, Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, and its status was re-confirmed as the autonomous Kurdistan Region within the federal Iraqi republic in 2005. There is also a Kurdistan Province in Iran, but it is not self-ruled. Kurds fighting in the Syrian Civil War were able to take control of large sections of northern Syria and establish self-governing regions in an Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, where they call for autonomy in a federal Syria after the war.                                             

                   Showing flags of Kurdistan, USA, Israel=friends

 The Times of Israel reported on September 30, 2013: "Today, there are almost 200,000 Kurdish Jews in Israel, about half of whom live in Jerusalem. There are also over 30 agricultural villages throughout the country that were founded by Kurdish Jews." Today, the large majority of the Jews of "Kurdistan" and their descendants live in Israel.

 Kurdish Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Kurdish Jewish communities, who now, in 2021, reside within the state of Israel. They number between 200,000 to 300,000.

At one time in history, Kurds and Jews got together, as our DNA proves.  When did this happen?               

We Jews were in Kurdistan long ago.  According to the memoirs of Benjamin of Tudela and Pethahiah of Regensburg, there were about 100 Jewish settlements and substantial Jewish population in Kurdistan in the 12th century. Benjamin of Tudela also gives the account of David Alroi, the messianic leader from central Kurdistan, who rebelled against the Persian Seljuk Sultan Muktafi and had plans to lead the Jews back to Jerusalem. 

These travellers also report of well-established and wealthy Jewish communities in Mosul, which was the commercial and spiritual center of Kurdistan. Mosul is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. Approximately 400 km north of Baghdad, Mosul lies on the Tigris river.  (So interesting because Abraham had come from UR on the Euphrates River.)  Many Jews fearful of approaching crusaders, had fled from Syria and Palestine to Babylonia and Kurdistan. The Jews of Mosul enjoyed some degree of autonomy in managing their own community.  We even know of family histories from Mosul. 

Jewish Kurd, 19th century, Ottoman era

Tanna'it Asenath Barzani, who lived in Mosul from 1590 to 1670, was the daughter of Rabbi Samuel Barzani of Kurdistan. She later married Jacob Mizrahi Rabbi of Amadiyah (in Iraqi Kurdistan) who lectured at a yeshiva.  So there were Jewish Kurds.  

 Immigration of Kurdish Jews to the Land of Israel initiated during the late 16th century, with a community of rabbinic scholars arriving to Safed, Galilee, and a Kurdish Jewish quarter had been established there as a result. The thriving period of Safed however ended in 1660, with Druze power struggles in the region and an economic decline.

Many Kurdish Jews, especially the ones who hail from Iraq, went through a Sephardic Jewish blending during the 18th century.

Since the early 20th century, some Kurdish Jews had been active in the Zionist movement. One of the most famous members of Lehi (Freedom Fighters of Israel) was Moshe Barazani, whose family immigrated from Iraq and settled in Jerusalem in the late 1920s. In 1939, there were 4,369 in Jerusalem, growing to 30,000 in 1972.

The vast majority of Kurdish Jews were forced out by Iraqi authorities, being evacuated to Israel in the early 1950s, together with other Iraqi Jewish community. The vast majority of the Kurdish Jews of Iranian Kurdistan relocated mostly to Israel as well, in the 1950s.

                                                 

One of the main problems in the history and historiography of the Jews of Kurdistan was the lack of written history and the lack of documents and historical records.   Brauer on left and Patai on right.        

During the 1930s, a German-Jewish ethnographer, Erich Brauer, began interviewing members of the community. His assistant, Raphael Patai, published the results of his research in Hebrew. The book, Yehude Kurditan: mehqar ethnographi (Jerusalem, 1940), was translated into English in the 1990s. 

                          

Israeli scholar Mordechai Zaken wrote a Ph.D. dissertation and a book, using written, archival and oral sources that traces and reconstructs the relationships between the Jews and their Kurdish masters or chieftains also known as Aghas). He interviewed 56 Kurdish Jews altogether conducting hundreds of interviews, thus saving their memoires from being lost forever. He interviewed Kurdish Jews mainly from six towns:  (Zahko, Aqrah, Amadiya, Dohuk, Sulaimaniya and Shinno/Ushno/Ushnoviyya), as well as from dozens of villages, mostly in the region of Bahdinan. His study unveils new sources, reports and vivid tales that form a new set of historical records on the Jews and the tribal Kurdish society. His PhD thesis was commented by members of the PhD judicial committee and along with the book upon which it has been translated into several Middle Eastern languages, including Arabic, Sorani Kurmanji, as well as French.

                                                

The Kurdish people are believed to be of heterogeneous origins combining a number of earlier tribal or ethnic groups including Lullubi, Guti, Cyrtians, Carduchi.

Some of them have also absorbed some elements from Semitic, Turkic and Armenian people.

                                       

Kurds are an Iranian people, and the first known Indo-Iranians in the region were the Mitanni, who established a kingdom in northern Syria five centuries after the fall of Gutium. The Mitanni are believed to have spoken an Indo-Aryan language, or perhaps a pre-split Indo-Iranian language. The current view is that the separation of Iranian peoples from Indo-Aryans occurred between 1800 and 1600 BCE, which makes it nearly impossible for the Gutians to have been linguistically or culturally Kurdish, although it is possible that they still contributed to the Kurdish ethnogenesis to an extent, if at the very least genetically.

                                                   

The Kurds are a people of Indo-European origin. They speak an Iranian language known as Kurdish, and comprise the majority of the population of the region – however, included therein are Arab, Armenian, Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Jewish, Ossetian, Persian, and Turkish communities. Most inhabitants are Muslim, but adherents to other religions are present as well – including Yarsanism, Yazidis, Alevis, Christians, and in the past, Jews, most of whom emigrated to Israel.

                                                 

     Turkey attacked Kurds in Syria and the USA did not help their Kurdish allies.  Here, Turkey-backed Syrian rebel fighters assist their injured fellow fighter near the border town of Tal Abyad, Syria, October 24th 2019. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi.  Turkey, the former Ottoman Empire, is not a friend of Israel or the Kurds.   Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become more problematic to them for many years, now.  

                                                                   

Two years ago, on October 8, 2019,  President Donald Trump cast his decision to abandon Kurdish fighters in Syria as fulfilling a campaign promise to withdraw from “endless war” in the Middle East, even as Republican critics and others said he was sacrificing a U.S. ally and undermining American credibility.  Biden recently did the same thing to Afghanistan, leaving in a lurch allowing the terrorists to take the country.  

Trump declared U.S. troops would step aside for an expected Turkish attack on the 

Kurds, who have fought alongside Americans for years, but he then 

threatened to destroy the Turks’ economy if they went too far. (Turkey’s unfolding economic crisis has deepened further after Donald Trump announced he was 

doubling US import tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminium, stoking the country’s currency freefall and rattling financial markets.)

The Turkish lira plunged by more than 20% against the dollar after the president announced the move, amid a widening dispute between Washington and Ankara over the imprisonment of the US pastor Andrew Brunson.

Even Trump’s staunchest Republican congressional allies expressed outrage at the prospect of abandoning Syrian Kurds who had fought the Islamic State group with American arms and advice. It was the latest example of Trump’s approach to foreign

 policy that critics condemn as impulsive, that he sometimes reverses and that

 frequently is untethered to the advice of his national security aides.

A staunch defender of the Kurds that need their own Kurdistan back is Victor Sharpe,

Jewish author:  February 19, 2012          

Who Truly Deserves a State? The Kurds or the Palestinians?

By Victor Sharpe  https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/02/who_truly_deserves_a_state_the_kurds_or_the_palestinians.html   Top Articles By American Thinker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Kurdistan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Kurds

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-syria-ap-top-news-international-news-politics-ac3115b4eb564288a03a5b8be868d2e5

https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/turkey-attacks-kurds-in-northeast-syria-idUSRTX76VOB

https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/499593

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_population