![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Remember-When-300x255.jpeg\")
Courtesy of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent<\/p>\nCourtesy of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent<\/p>\n
The growing popularity of Jewish singers and the emergence of \u201cJewgrass\u201d bands highlight Judaism\u2019s enduring connection to music.<\/p>\n
It was no different on July 6, 1979, when the Jewish Exponent published a story about a local Jewish rock group.<\/p>\n
The article, titled \u201cJewish Rock Group Shir Chadash Is Rollin\u2019 Along,\u201d opens with a quote from the band\u2019s lead vocalist: \u201cpeople tell us we\u2019re great. We\u2019ve heard it so many times by now that we\u2019re actually beginning to believe it!\u201d<\/p>\n
The author of the article, Rachel Musleah, a staff intern at the time, writes, \u201cthe local group, which plays Israeli Hasidic and American popular music for a variety of occasions, consists of Miriam Davidson, Paul Frimark, Fred Poritsky and David Seltzer. Each devotes 15 to 20 hours a week to rehearsals and performances outside of their career commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n
The article describes the band as unique.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can play James Taylor in Hebrew, sing \u2018My Darling Clementine\u2019 in Yiddish and get people to slow-dance to Leha Dodi,\u201d Musleah wrote.<\/p>\n
The Philadelphia band traced its roots to two of the members who performed in a synagogue choir at Temple Sinai. They formed a spin-off group called N\u2019Shamah. Two years later, Shir Chadash was born. Poritsky said the band chose the name, meaning \u201ca new song,\u201d because \u201cit was a new beginning for all four of us together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The article noted that all members of the band keep kosher homes and performed at the annual Simchat Torah and Israel Independence Day rallies.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut most importantly,\u201d Musleah wrote, \u201cPoritsky notes, \u2018we are committed to the idea of keeping Jewish music alive in Philadelphia.\u201d<\/p>\n
mresnicow@midatlanticmedia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Courtesy of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent The growing popularity of Jewish singers and the emergence of \u201cJewgrass\u201d bands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,19788],"class_list":["post-238473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-remember-when"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}