Linked Article: NOVEMBER 13, 2016 BY SARA LEVINE

This is a really remarkable revelation, songwriting legend Leonard Cohen was a practicing Jew. That's what you want to hear about the man who wrote the following lyric:

"I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah"

or this:

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."

Leonard Cohen’s Orthodox Jewish Upbringing and Shabbos Observance

NOVEMBER 13, 2016 BY SARA LEVINE

"Beloved singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen died last week at the age of 82. Most famous for penning the hauntingly poignant ballad “Hallelujah” among other songs in the past 40 years, as well as poetry and novels, not many people were aware that Cohen was born and raised Orthodox, spent some time involved in Buddhism then returned to his own form of Jewish observance in the 1980s. He was a practicing Jew until his death."

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Floorplan of IRG in Frankfurt

Judaism is also universal

“Judaism is a national religion in that it is the religion which God has given to Israel. According to the Torah, He has chosen us as His peculiar people, 'to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' But Judaism is also universal, for that very choice implies that, as a priest to his congregation, the whole nation should be an example unto the gentile world of a life lived with God – upright, just, and kind. Our rabbis tell us that Judaism is the way of salvation for the Jew, but the righteous men of other religions will also partake of eternal salvation.”  Rabbi Leo Jung, Between Man and Man, p. 150.

Population Survey on Orthodox Day Schools - Linked Post

by Dr. Marvin Schick

(Excerpted from “A Census of Jewish Day Schools in the United States, 2013-2015”) in Torah Musings

"Schools under Orthodox auspices have always been dominant in the Jewish day school world. For many years, these were the only day schools. Even with the enthusiastic establishment of Solomon Schechters in the post-Holocaust period and then expanded non-Orthodox interest in day schools in the aftermath of the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey, Orthodox schools have remained by a great margin the largest component of the day school world. If only because of the contraction in non-Orthodox sectors already touched on, the proportion of students in Orthodox schools has grown. This growth is fueled even more strongly by high Orthodox fertility, especially in the Chassidic sector but also in the Yeshiva World sector. As noted, the latest census shows 70,000 more day schoolers than there were 15 years ago and almost all of this increase is attributable to enrollment in Orthodox schools."

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Brahms Plays His Hungarian Dance No.1 (Excerpt), 1889

Brahms Plays His Hungarian Dance No.1 (Excerpt), 1889

Sound is atrocious but to experience the man in his lifetime, incredible. Here's some of his more famous material:

The best of Brahms